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Energy efficient authentication strategies for network coding
Author(s) -
Apavatjrut Anya,
Znaidi Wassim,
Fraboulet Antoine,
Goursaud Claire,
JaffrèsRunser Katia,
Lauradoux Cédric,
Minier Marine
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
concurrency and computation: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.309
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1532-0634
pISSN - 1532-0626
DOI - 10.1002/cpe.1767
Subject(s) - computer science , linear network coding , computer network , exploit , hash function , message authentication code , denial of service attack , authentication (law) , efficient energy use , energy consumption , wireless network , wireless , computer security , cryptography , telecommunications , engineering , network packet , the internet , world wide web , electrical engineering
SUMMARY Recent advances in information theory and networking, e.g. aggregation, network coding or rateless codes, have significantly modified data dissemination in wireless networks. These new paradigms create new threats for security such as pollution attacks and denial of services (DoS). These attacks exploit the difficulty to authenticate data in such contexts. The particular case of xor network coding is considered herein. We investigate different strategies based on message authentication codes algorithms (MACs) to thwart these attacks. Yet, classical MAC designs are not compatible with the linear combination of network coding. Fortunately, MACs based on universal hash functions (UHFs) match nicely the needs of network coding: some of these functions are linear h ( x 1 ⊕x 2 ) = h ( x 1 )⊕ h ( x 2 ). To demonstrate their efficiency, we consider the case of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Although these functions can drastically reduce the energy consumption of authentication (up to 68% gain over the classical designs is observed), they increase the threat of DoS. Indeed, an adversary can disrupt all communications by polluting few messages. To overcome this problem, a group testing algorithm is introduced for authentication resulting in a complexity linear in the number of attacks. The energy consumption is analyzed for cross‐point and butterfly network topologies with respect to the possible attack scenarios. The results highlight the trade‐offs between energy efficiency, authentication and the effective throughput for the different MAC modes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.