Internet of Drones (IoD) is the interconnection of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones deployed for collecting sensitive data to be used in critical applications. The drones transmit the collected data to the control room (CR) for analysis, while CR sends control commands to the drone to monitor their operations. This exchange of information between the drones and CR takes place through a wireless communication channel, which is susceptible to various security risks. Therefore, it is vital to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of such information in the IoD environment. To this end, authenticated key management (AKM) protocols can be leveraged to provide reliable and secure communication. However, due to the peculiarities associated with IoD environments, it is challenging to devise a robust and resource-efficient AKM protocol. To tackle this challenge, in this article, we propose a robust AKM protocol for IoD (RAMP-IoD). RAMP-IoD uses lightweight cryptography-based authenticated encryption primitive and elliptic-curve cryptography along with a hash function to perform the AKM process. Moreover, RAMP-IoD verifies the user’s authenticity and then sets up a session key (SK) between the user and a specific drone for indecipherable communications. We verify the security of SK using the random oracle model. Scyther-based validation demonstrates that RAMP-IoD is protected against replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. Moreover, the informal analysis illustrates that RAMP-IoD is secure against various covert security attacks. Through a comparative study, we also demonstrate that RAMP-IoD provides enhanced security with low storage, communication, and computational overheads as compared to related AKM protocols.

With the widespread utilization of Internet-enabled smart devices (SDs), the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has become prevalent in recent years. SDs exchange information through the open Internet, which creates security and privacy concerns for the exchanged information. To address these concerns, various solutions exist in the literature which, because of high computational and communication overheads, are not appropriate for the resource constricted IIoT environment. This paper proposes a resource-efficient authentication protocol for the IIoT, called REAP-IIoT, which employs a Lightweight Cryptography (LWC)-based Authenticated Encryption with Associative Data (AEAD) primitive AEGIS along with hash function. LWC-based AEAD primitives are suitable for resource constraint SDs because they require fewer computational resources. Moreover, REAP-IIoT renders the privacy-preserving user authentication functionality and establishes a Session Key (SK) between SDs deployed in the IIoT environment and users. Both user and SD utilize the established SK for encrypted communication. The security of SK, established during the Authentication and Key Exchange (AKE) process of REAP-IIoT, is validated through the broadly accepted random or real model. Besides, Scyther-based security verification is conducted to illustrate that REAP-IIoT is secure and can protect the man-in-the-middle and replay attacks. Additionally, the informal security analysis is carried out to show that REAP-IIoT is protected against various covert security risks. A thorough comparison reveals that REAP-IIoT renders enhanced security characteristics apart from its low communication, storage, and computational overheads than the relevant AKE protocols.

The revolutionary advancement in the capabilities of hardware tools, software packages, and communication techniques gave rise to the Internet of Things-supported drone networks (IoD), thereby enabling smooth communication among devices and applications, and impacting drastically the various aspects of human lives. However, with the increasing sophistication in the infrastructure of IoD, new security threats arise that require novel algorithms and schemes as solutions. To this end, several schemes have recently been proposed. However, some schemes cannot perfectly address the novel security aspects associated with IoD environments, while others cannot provide computational or communication efficiency. Motivated by these research gaps in the existing literature, we leverage elliptic curve cryptography along with symmetric encryption and hash function, and propose a novel and robust user authentication mechanism for the IoD, called RUAM-IoD.We validate the security of the established SK formally through the random oracle model. Similarly, we provide informal security analysis to demonstrate the security capabilities of RUAM-IoD against different pernicious security attacks. Likewise, we establish a comparison of the RUAM-IoD with several state-of-the-art authentication schemes to show that RUAM-IoD acquires less storage, communication, and computational cost.

Lightweight Cryptography (LWC) based Authenticated Encryption with Associative Data (AEAD) cryptographic primitives require fewer computational and energy resources than conventional cryptographic primitives as a single operation of an AEAD scheme provides confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of data. This feature of AEAD schemes helps design an Access Control (AC) protocol to be leveraged for enhancing the security of resource-constrained IoT-enabled Smart Grid (SG) system with low computational overhead and fewer cryptographic operations. This paper presents a novel and robust AC protocol called RACP-SG, which aims to enhance the security of resource-constrained IoT-enabled SG systems. RACP-SG employs an LWC-based AEAD scheme, ASCON and the hash function, ASCON-hash, along with elliptic curve cryptography to accomplish the AC phase. Besides, RACP-SG enables a Smart Meter (SM) and a Service Provider (SEP) to mutually authenticate each other and establish a session key while communicating across the public communication channel. By using the session key, the SM can securely transfer the gathered data to the SEP. We verify the security of the session key using the widely accepted random oracle model. Moreover, we conduct Scyther-based and informal security analyses to demonstrate that RACP-SG is protected against various covert security risks, such as replay, impersonation, and de-synchronization attacks. Besides, we present a comparative study to illustrate that RACP-SG renders superior security features while reducing energy, storage, communication, and computational overheads compared to the state-of-the-art.

Enhancing spectrum utilization efficiency (SUE) to accommodate the multitude of 5G-based IoT devices within the available scarce spectrum has been a pivotal point of research in the current decade. Equipped with interweave and underlay modes, cognitive radio networks (CRNs) are envisioned to be the most promising technology for SUE enhancement. Since the 5G-based IoT is swiftly transforming into a heterogeneous network, hybrid underlay-interweave mode CRNs appear to be the optimal key for SUE enhancement. Besides enhancing SUE, ensuring fairness among secondary users (SUs) to equitably utilize the network’s resources in the wake of primary users’ (PUs) service emergence has been a critical problem in CRNs. Considering the importance of SUE enhancement, in this paper, we investigate two problems. Firstly, we precisely analyze, in a novel way, the performance of hybrid underlay-interweave mode of CRNs for SUE enhancement from the standpoint of SUs. For this purpose, we propose a hybrid underlay-interweave mode enabled CRN scheme and apply it on a legacy CRN. We model the proposed scheme with continuous time Markov chain and derive closed form expressions for various SUE-related quality of service parameters. The analysis is conducted under dynamic reservation of channels for interrupted users, considering the effects of multi-levels network traffic loads and varying channel failure rates. Secondly, we propose a multi-attribute based fairness driven algorithm for determination and interruption of SUs’ services to ensure fairness among services in the network’s resources utilization. We evaluate our proposed scheme under both perfect and imperfect spectrum sensing scenarios. The obtained results demonstrate that, as compared to the state-of-the-art, the proposed scheme significantly enhances SUE while the proposed algorithm achieves a noticeable fairness among SUs’ services.

Internet of Things-enabled smart grid (SG) technology provides ample advantages to traditional power grids. In an SG system, the smart meter (SM) is the critical component that collects the power usage information related to users and delivers the accumulated vital information to the central service provider (CSP) via the Internet. The information is exposed to numerous pernicious security threats. Consequently, it is crucial to preserve the integrity of the communication between SMs and CSP for the smooth running of the SG system. Authentication protocol effectively enables SM and CSP to communicate securely by establishing a secure channel. Therefore, this paper presents an anonymous and reliable authentication protocol for SG (ARAP-SG) to enable secure and reliable information exchange between SM and CSP. The proposed ARAP-SG uses the hash function, elliptic curve cryptography, and symmetric encryption to complete the authentication phase. Consequently, ARAP-SG guarantees reliable information exchange during the authentication phase while conserving the anonymity of both SP and SM. Additionally, ARAP-SG authorizes CSP and SM to construct a session key (SK) after accomplishing the authentication phase for undecipherable information exchange in the future. We utilize the random oracle model to corroborate the security of the constructed SK in ARAP-SG. Moreover, by effectuating informal security analysis, it is manifested that ARAP-SG is proficient in thwarting covert security attacks. Furthermore, Scyther-based analysis is conducted to manifest that ARAP-SG is secure. Finally, through a comparative analysis with relevant authentication protocols, it is explained and shown that ARAP-SG entails 25.5-56.76% and 7.69-49.47% low computational and communication overheads, respectively, with improved security properties.