Survey and Analysis of Lightweight Authentication Mechanisms

Interconnection of devices through Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) brings enormous applications that are increasing constantly day by day. Due to the rapid growth of such applications, security of RFID networks becomes crucial and is a major challenge. Classical or lightweight cryptography primitives and protocols are the solutions to enhance the security standards in such networks. Authentication protocols are one of the important security protocols required to be integrated before exchange of secured information. This work surveyed the recently developed authentication protocols. Further, classifications, security challenges, and attack analysis are explored. A comparative analysis of different types of authentication protocols explains their applications in resourceful and resource constraint Internet of Things (IoT). Authentication protocols are categorized into: symmetric, asymmetric, lightweight, ultra-lightweight and group protocols. Symmetric and asymmetric protocols are more suitable for resourceful devices whereas lightweight and ultra-lightweight protocols are designed for resource constraint devices. Security and cost analysis shows that asymmetric protocols provide higher security than any other protocol at a reasonable cost. However, lightweight authentication protocols are suitable for passive RFID devices but do not provide full security.