An enhanced lightweight anonymous authentication scheme for a scalable localization roaming service in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

More security concerns and complicated requirements arise in wireless sensor networks than in wired networks, due to the vulnerability caused by their openness. To address this vulnerability, anonymous authentication is an essential security mechanism for preserving privacy and providing security. Over recent years, various anonymous authentication schemes have been proposed. Most of them reveal both strengths and weaknesses in terms of security and efficiency. Recently, Farash et al. proposed a lightweight anonymous authentication scheme in ubiquitous networks, which remedies the security faults of previous schemes. However, their scheme still suffers from certain weaknesses. In this paper, we prove that Farash et al.‘s scheme fails to provide anonymity, authentication, or password replacement. In addition, we propose an enhanced scheme that provides efficiency, as well as anonymity and security. Considering the limited capability of sensor nodes, we utilize only low-cost functions, such as one-way hash functions and bit-wise exclusive-OR operations. The security and lightness of the proposed scheme mean that it can be applied to roaming service in localized domains of wireless sensor networks, to provide anonymous authentication of sensor nodes.