Signal authentication and integrity schemes for next generation global navigation satellite systems

This paper describes a number of techniques for GNSS navigation message authentication. A detailed analysis of the security facilitated by navigation message authentication is given. The analysis takes into consideration the risk of critical applications that rely on GPS including transportation, finance and telecommunication networks. We propose a number of cryptographic authentication schemes for navigation data authentication. These authentication schemes provide authenticity and integrity of the navigation data to the receiver. Through software simulation, the performance of the schemes is quantified. The use of software simulation enables the collection of authentication performance data of different data channels, and the impact of various schemes on the infrastructure and receiver. Navigation message authentication schemes have been simulated at the proposed data rates of Galileo and GPS services, for which the resulting performance data is presented. This paper concludes by making recommendations for optimal implementation of navigation message authentication for Galileo and next generation GPS systems.

Secure tracking using trusted GNSS receivers and Galileo authentication services

This paper describes a secure framework for tracking applications that use the Galileo signal authentication services. First a number of limitations that affect the trust of critical tracking applications, even in presence of authenticated GNSS signals, are detailed. Requirements for secure tracking are then introduced; detailing how the integrity characteristics of the Galileo authentication could enhance the security of active tracking applications. This paper concludes with a discussion of our existing tracking technology using a Siemens TC45 GSM/GPRS module and future development utilizing our previously proposed trusted GNSS receiver.

A spoofing detection method for civilian L1 GPS and the E1-B Galileo Safety of Life service

This paper describes an effective method for signal-authentication and spoofing detection for civilian GNSS receivers using the GPS L1 C/A and the Galileo E1-B Safety of Life service. The paper discusses various spoofing attack profiles and how the proposed method is able to detect these attacks. This method is relatively low-cost and can be suitable for numerous mass-market applications. This paper is the subject of a pending patent.

A strong lightweight authentication protocol for low-cost RFID systems

RFID is an important technology that can be used to create the ubiquitous society. But an RFID system uses open radio frequency signal to transfer information and this leads to pose many serious threats to its privacy and security. In general, the computing and storage resources in an RFID tag are very limited and this makes it difficult to solve its secure and private problems, especially for low-cost RFID tags. In order to ensure the security and privacy of low-cost RFID systems we propose a lightweight authentication protocol based on Hash function. This protocol can ensure forward security and prevent information leakage, location tracing, eavesdropping, replay attack and spoofing. This protocol completes the strong authentication of the reader to the tag by twice authenticating and it only transfers part information of the encrypted tag’s identifier for each session so it is difficult for an adversary to intercept the whole identifier of a tag. This protocol is simple and it takes less computing and storage resources, it is very suitable to some low-cost RFID systems.

Authentication using finger Knuckle prints

Automated security is one of the major concerns of modern times. Secure and reliable authentication systems are in great demand. A biometric trait like the finger knuckle print (FKP) of a person is unique and secure. Finger knuckle print is a novel biometric trait and is not explored much for real-time implementation. In this paper, three different algorithms have been proposed based on this trait. The first approach uses Radon transform for feature extraction. Two levels of security are provided here and are based on eigenvalues and the peak points of the Radon graph. In the second approach, Gabor wavelet transform is used for extracting the features. Again, two levels of security are provided based on magnitude values of Gabor wavelet and the peak points of Gabor wavelet graph. The third approach is intended to authenticate a person even if there is a damage in finger knuckle position due to injury. The FKP image is divided into modules and module-wise feature matching is done for authentication. Performance of these algorithms was found to be much better than very few existing works. Moreover, the algorithms are designed so as to implement in real-time system with minimal changes.

Performance Analysis of Novel Randomly Shifted Certification Authority Authentication Protocol for MANETs

The provision of security in mobile ad hoc networks is of paramount importance due to their wireless nature. However, when conducting research into security protocols for ad hoc networks it is necessary to consider these in the context of the overall system. For example, communicational delay associated with the underlying MAC layer needs to be taken into account. Nodes in mobile ad hoc networks must strictly obey the rules of the underlying MAC when transmitting security-related messages while still maintaining a certain quality of service. In this paper a novel authentication protocol, RASCAAL, is described and its performance is analysed by investigating both the communicational-related effects of the underlying IEEE 802.11 MAC and the computational-related effects of the cryptographic algorithms employed. To the best of the authors' knowledge, RASCAAL is the first authentication protocol which proposes the concept of dynamically formed short-lived random clusters with no prior knowledge of the cluster head. The performance analysis demonstrates that the communication losses outweigh the computation losses with respect to energy and delay. MAC-related communicational effects account for 99% of the total delay and total energy consumption incurred by the RASCAAL protocol. The results also show that a saving in communicational energy of up to 12.5% can be achieved by changing the status of the wireless nodes during the course of operation. Copyright (C) 2009 G. A. Safdar and M. P. O'Neill (nee McLoone).

A practical approach for biometric authentication based on smartcards

Cryptographic systems are safe. However, the management of cryptographic keys of these systems is a tough task. They are usually protected by the use of password-based authentication mechanisms, which is a weak link on conventional cryptographic systems, as the passwords can be easily copied or stolen. The usage of a biometric approach for releasing the keys is an alternative to the password-based mechanisms. But just like passwords, we need mechanisms to keep the biometrical signal safe. One approach for such mechanism is to use biometrical key cryptography. The cryptographic systems based on the use of biometric characteristics as keys are called biometrical cryptographic systems. This article presents the implementation of Fuzzy Vault, a biometrical cryptographic system written in Java, along with its performance evaluation. Fuzzy Vault was tested on a real application using smartcards.