iSecure: imperceptible and secure peer-to-peer communication of post-disaster situational data over opportunistic DTN

Abstract

Researchers have proposed to set up "infrastructure-less" peer-to-peer opportunistic network (also known as Delay Tolerant Network) using smart phones carried by different victims or volunteers in post-disaster scenario. Volunteers may use this DTN to relay sensitive situational data. However, in such fragile network environment, some malicious nodes may try to intercept, manipulate data with the intention of corruption and fraud. Furthermore, an adversary node may compel a trusted node to compromise its security credentials or may physically capture the node. As a result, attackers get the authority to sign any message on behalf of the compromised node and can launch various attacks to perturb the network. To combat these attacks, we envision a compromise-tolerant DTN, where time-varying pseudonyms are used to obscure the actual identity and safeguard the privacy of genuine nodes. Unique implicit session key agreement facilitates the establishment of credential-free secure communication session between two legitimate nodes and protects the data from being revealed to the adversaries. Periodic certificate revocation scheme restricts use of any compromised credentials beyond a certain time. We evaluate iSecure scheme using ONE simulator to understand feasibility, performance and overhead.