ES-HAS: ECC-Based Secure Handover Authentication Scheme for Roaming Mobile User in Global Mobility Networks

Abstract

The design and implementation of two-factor schemes designed for roaming mobile users for global mobility networks in smart cities requires attention to protect the scheme from various security attacks, such as the replay attack, impersonation attack, man-in-the-middle attack, password-guessing attack and stolen-smart-card attack. In addition to these attacks, the scheme should achieve user anonymity, unlinkability and perfect forward secrecy. In the roaming scenario, as mobile users are connected to the foreign network, mobile users must provide authentication details to the foreign network to which they are connected. The foreign network forwards the authentication messages received from the mobile users to their home network. The home network validates the authenticity of the mobile user. In the roaming scenario, all communication between the three entities is carried over an insecure channel. It is assumed that the adversary has the capabilities to intercept the messages transmitted over an insecure channel. Hence, the authentication scheme designed must be able to resist the above-mentioned security attacks and achieve the security goals. Our proposed scheme ES-HAS (elliptic curve-based secure handover authentication scheme) is a two-factor authentication scheme in which the mobile user possesses the password, and the smart card resists the above-mentioned security attacks. It also achieves the above-mentioned security goals. We also extended our two-factor authentication to a multi-factor authentication scheme using the fingerprint biometric technique. The formal security analysis using BAN logic and the formal security verification of the proposed scheme using the widely accepted AVISPA (automated validation of internet security protocols and applications) tool is presented in this article. In comparison with the related schemes, the proposed scheme is more efficient and robust. This makes the proposed scheme suitable for practical implementation.