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Analysis and Improvement of a Mutual Authentication Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks

  • Systems-Level Quality Improvement
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Abstract

An increase in aging population and the consequent chronic diseases pose not only serious effects to the economy but also a heavy burden to the medical system. Wireless body area networks (WBANs) provide a simple and low-cost strategy for health monitoring and telemedicine of the elderly. Many authentication schemes based on WBAN have been presented to address the sensitivity and privacy of collected data and the open characteristic of wireless networks. Wu et al. recently presented an efficient anonymous authentication scheme for WBANs, in which a one-side bilinear pairing methodology was applied to reduce the burden on the WBAN client side. However, we demonstrate that their scheme suffers from client impersonation attacks and that the adversary can easily forge a legal client to access the network service. In this paper, we analyze the limitations of Wu et al.’s scheme and design a novel mutual authentication scheme for WBANs that adopt asymmetric bilinear pairing to enhance security. Results of security and performance analyses reveal that the new scheme offers more effective security, better performance, and higher efficiency than Wu et al.’s scheme. We also provide a formal security proof of the protocol by using BAN authentication logic.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grants U1435213 and 61172180, and Chengdu International Cooperation Project under grants 2016-GH02-00048-HZ and 2015-GH02-00041- HZ, and General Project of Education Department in Sichan under grants 18ZB0485.

Funding

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number U1435213 and 61172180), and Chengdu International Cooperation Project (grant number 2016-GH02-00048-HZ and 2015-GH02-00041-HZ), and General Project of Education Department in Sichuan (grant number 18ZB0485).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computer Science, Sichuan Normal University and College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

    Rui Chen

  2. College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

    Dezhong Peng

  3. Chengdu Ruibei Yingte Information Technology Limited Company, Chengdu, China

    Dezhong Peng

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  1. Rui Chen
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  2. Dezhong Peng
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Correspondence to Dezhong Peng.

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Conflict of interests

Author Dezhong Peng has received research grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chengdu International Cooperation Project. Author Rui Chen has received research grants from General Project of Education Department in Sichuan. Author Dezhong Peng declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author Rui Chen declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Systems-Level Quality Improvement

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Chen, R., Peng, D. Analysis and Improvement of a Mutual Authentication Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks. J Med Syst 43, 19 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-018-1129-9

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