Secure Session Key Generation Method for LoRaWAN Servers

In recent years, Internet of Things (IoT) as an essential infrastructure for industrial development, environmental protection and human life enhancement has attracted researchers' attention. Currently, there are four hot research topics in IoT fields, including sensor design, communication sche...

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Main Authors: Kun-Lin Tsai, Fang-Yie Leu, Li-Ling Hung, Chia-Yin Ko
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2020-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9022921/
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author Kun-Lin Tsai
Fang-Yie Leu
Li-Ling Hung
Chia-Yin Ko
author_facet Kun-Lin Tsai
Fang-Yie Leu
Li-Ling Hung
Chia-Yin Ko
author_sort Kun-Lin Tsai
collection DOAJ
description In recent years, Internet of Things (IoT) as an essential infrastructure for industrial development, environmental protection and human life enhancement has attracted researchers' attention. Currently, there are four hot research topics in IoT fields, including sensor design, communication scheme, secure transmission, and data mining. The LoRaWAN, an unlicensed band based long range wide area network specification, is very suitable for the activities or operations in an IoT environment due to its low power and long range communication. In the LoRaWAN, star-of-stars topology, asynchronous communication, and three communication modes are used to reduce its power consumption. In order to enhance the security of network communication, the LoRaWAN adopts the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128) and utilizes two session keys: network session key and application session key, for encrypting/decrypting data between end devices and network/application servers. However, according to the LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces 1.0 Specification announced by LoRa Alliance in 2017, the application layer communication securities between two arbitrary servers (including network servers, join server, and application servers) are out of the specification's scope. That is to say that the important data transmitted from one server to another may be attacked, falsified, or stolen easily. In this paper, a session key generation method is proposed to generate session keys with which two servers can securely communicate with each other, especially enhancing the application layer communication securities undefined in the LoRaWAN Specification. By integrating elliptic curve cryptography and AES-128, the session keys for different pairs of servers are created. The security discussion shows that the proposed method provides the features of mutual authentication, confidentiality and message integrity. Besides, it can also help to resist replay and eavesdropping attacks.
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spelling doaj.art-150d5ae634714c84832e25717acf82d62022-12-21T22:50:42ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362020-01-018546315464010.1109/ACCESS.2020.29781009022921Secure Session Key Generation Method for LoRaWAN ServersKun-Lin Tsai0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1317-6019Fang-Yie Leu1Li-Ling Hung2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4503-3127Chia-Yin Ko3Department of Electrical Engineering, Tunghai University, Taichung, TaiwanDepartment of Computer Science, Tunghai University, Taichung, TaiwanDepartment of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Aletheia University, New Taipei, TaiwanDepartment of Computer Science, Tunghai University, Taichung, TaiwanIn recent years, Internet of Things (IoT) as an essential infrastructure for industrial development, environmental protection and human life enhancement has attracted researchers' attention. Currently, there are four hot research topics in IoT fields, including sensor design, communication scheme, secure transmission, and data mining. The LoRaWAN, an unlicensed band based long range wide area network specification, is very suitable for the activities or operations in an IoT environment due to its low power and long range communication. In the LoRaWAN, star-of-stars topology, asynchronous communication, and three communication modes are used to reduce its power consumption. In order to enhance the security of network communication, the LoRaWAN adopts the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128) and utilizes two session keys: network session key and application session key, for encrypting/decrypting data between end devices and network/application servers. However, according to the LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces 1.0 Specification announced by LoRa Alliance in 2017, the application layer communication securities between two arbitrary servers (including network servers, join server, and application servers) are out of the specification's scope. That is to say that the important data transmitted from one server to another may be attacked, falsified, or stolen easily. In this paper, a session key generation method is proposed to generate session keys with which two servers can securely communicate with each other, especially enhancing the application layer communication securities undefined in the LoRaWAN Specification. By integrating elliptic curve cryptography and AES-128, the session keys for different pairs of servers are created. The security discussion shows that the proposed method provides the features of mutual authentication, confidentiality and message integrity. Besides, it can also help to resist replay and eavesdropping attacks.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9022921/LoRaWANsecuritynetwork serverjoin serversession key
spellingShingle Kun-Lin Tsai
Fang-Yie Leu
Li-Ling Hung
Chia-Yin Ko
Secure Session Key Generation Method for LoRaWAN Servers
IEEE Access
LoRaWAN
security
network server
join server
session key
title Secure Session Key Generation Method for LoRaWAN Servers
title_full Secure Session Key Generation Method for LoRaWAN Servers
title_fullStr Secure Session Key Generation Method for LoRaWAN Servers
title_full_unstemmed Secure Session Key Generation Method for LoRaWAN Servers
title_short Secure Session Key Generation Method for LoRaWAN Servers
title_sort secure session key generation method for lorawan servers
topic LoRaWAN
security
network server
join server
session key
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9022921/
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