A new secure authentication based distance bounding protocol

Abstract

Numerous systems are being employed in daily life where two entities authenticate each other over a range of distance. The distance involved is relatively small, but still attacks were documented. The distance bounding (DB) protocol was introduced to cater to security requirements. The schemes, however, are still prone to several threats; mainly the Relay Attack (Terrorist and Mafia Fraud). In Mafia Fraud, an attempts are made to get accepted as the prover either by replaying of messages or by the help a malicious key. In Terrorist fraud, an attempt is made to extract the secret from the verifying entity, either by extracting the key from the message captured or by physically tempering the verifying/proving entity. Therefore the mitigation of these attacks needs to be done; as to not put computational overhead on the scheme. The paper presents a comprehensive and comparative performance analysis of twelve DB protocols based on defined metrics. It also proposes a protocol which incorporates the design elements needed for added security, is computationally easy to implement and resistant to most of the threats mentioned. Analysis of the protocol is carried out against the security requirements.