Research on PUF-Based Security Enhancement of Narrow-Band Internet of Things

The Narrow-Band Internet of Things network (NB-IoT), which solves the communication problem for IoT, is growing mature rapidly and has become commercialized gradually. Network operators are investigating in the new technique. Compared with the traditional short range wireless communication technique, the entity model of the NB-IoT network is more complicated. Research on the security characteristics and the means of attack in the NB-IoT network is not sufficient by now. Problems such as effective binding between the components of the user equipment, loss or forgery of user equipment, illegal closure of the data security features, intercept of wireless communication, illegal acquisition of user privacy data still exist in the ubiquitous network. During the large scale application of such networks, numerous attacks on the user equipment and the network will occur and will cause serious security risk. Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) is the unique identity of a chip based on its physical characteristics. In this paper we first give a summery analysis of the security risks in the NB-IoT network. Then we propose the chip binding and anti-counterfeiting technique by having the PUF integrated in the chip of the NB-IoT user equipment. Considering the low power requirement of NB-IoT, we design a secure communication protocol based on PUF. Comparing with the PKI mechanism, the protocol simplifies the distribution of secret keys and certificates. Comparing with the TLS protocol, the proposed protocol simplifies the key agreement process and can still keep the high security level.