A robust and efficient mutual authentication and key agreement scheme with untraceability for WBANs
Abstract A Wireless Body Area Network is a network of sensors placed on a body, used primarily in healthcare to monitor the user's physical condition. This technology has significant potential for wide application in the future of healthcare. Hardware constraints, energy efficiency, and reliability requirements make building a confidential and mutually authenticating service for a WBAN challenging. It is possible for an adversary to gather information about the user's medical conditions if they are able to distinguish the source of the data from other data sources. It is, therefore, important, in addition to confidentiality and mutual authentication, to also provide anonymity and untraceability of the sensor nodes sending the personal (i.e., medical) data. In this paper, we will analyze an existing mutual authentication scheme designed for two-hop WBANs with anonymous and untraceable key establishment. We will present some weaknesses, specifically in the untraceability provision. This paper proposes a new authentication and key agreement scheme, with anonymity and untraceability. By comparison, the new scheme is shown to be efficient, and its security has been tested using the informal analysis tool Scyther, AVISPA and proven formally using BAN logic.