Cross-layer Authentication Protocols for Wireless Networks

The goal of this project is to explore practical security approaches for cross-layer authentication by employing mechanisms operating at the physical layer of wireless communication, in combination with conventional cryptography. This combination shall enable new authentication protocols for a variety of low-resource wireless devices. Cross-layer protocol design could solve important security challenges in ad-hoc wireless environments that cannot effectively be solved only with conventional cryptography, such as relay-resistant authentication. Cross-layer security protocol design has the potential to bring about benefits in wireless networks where computational and power resources are constrained, or where communication needs to be made robust for purposes of reliability and fault tolerance. This project will focus on the design and implementation of efficient authentication mechanisms, specifically distance-bounding protocols, that can be employed to verify the physical proximity of the party that is authenticated in wireless ad-hoc networks, such as wireless sensor networks and NFC-enabled mobile device communication. The partners of this project are: Chalmers University of Technology and City University of Hong Kong. The project is funded by STINT.

Partner organizations

• City University of Hong Kong (Academic, Hong Kong)