Energy Oriented Vulnerability Analysis on Authentication Protocols for CPS

Abstract

In this work we compute the energy generated by modular exponentiation, a widely used powerful tool in password authentication protocols for cyber physical systems. We observe modular exponentiation to be an expensive operation in terms of energy consumption in addition to be known to be computationally intensive. We then analyze the security and energy consumption an advanced smart card based password authentication protocol for cyber physical systems, that use modular exponentiation. We devise a generic cryptanalysis method on the protocol, in which the attacker exploits the energy and computational intensive nature of modular exponentiation to a perform denial of service (DoS) attack. We also show other similar protocols to be vulnerable to this attack. We then suggest methods to prevent this attack.