HiveSign: dynamic message signatures for resource-constrained wireless networks

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Wireless body area network (WBAN) are two of the emerging wireless networks that are becoming increasingly popular, owing to their applicability in a variety of domains and longevity-based designs. However, the flexibility they offer and their reduced manufacturing cost come with a trade-off --- they have severe implicit hardware restrictions. These restrictions limit their ability to store a large amount of data and/or perform sophisticated computation, thereby leading them to be classified as resource-constrained wireless networks. Their constraints further limit the security that can be implemented on these devices, necessitating design of optimized solutions for security. In our paper, we present a new approach that generates dynamic message signatures using simple logical operations, hashing and pseudorandom number generation (PRNG) to accomplish integrity and entity authentication. Our approach provides a means to verify the integrity of both the message as well as the key. We validate our proposal using security evaluation and complexity analysis.