Integration of OWL Password-Authenticated Key Exchange Protocol to Enhance IoT Application Protocols

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Cybersecurity
• Network Engineering

Background:

• The Internet of Things (IoT) expansion creates security vulnerabilities in application-layer protocols (e.g., CoAP, MQTT) due to lacking native secure key exchange.
• Resource-constrained IoT environments are susceptible to attacks like dictionary attacks, session hijacking, and Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) threats.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and evaluate the integration of OWL (Password-Authenticated Key Exchange) protocol into IoT communication frameworks for secure key exchange.
• To enhance the security of IoT systems by enabling native secure session establishment within protocols like CoAP.

Main Methods:

• Integration of the OWL protocol, a lightweight PAKE, into existing IoT communication protocols such as CoAP.
• Utilizing a one-round exchange model for establishing high-entropy session keys from low-entropy credentials.
• Conducting experimental validation and formal security analysis.

Main Results:

• OWL integration provides a native, secure session establishment feature for IoT protocols.
• Demonstrated reduced authentication latency and lower computational overhead compared to traditional methods.
• Enhanced scalability, resilience, and overall protocol performance in constrained environments.

Conclusions:

• The proposed OWL integration offers a practical and efficient framework for securing IoT communications at the protocol level.
• Addresses critical security gaps in IoT by providing a lightweight, certificate-free secure key exchange mechanism.
• Enhances the security posture of IoT systems against various cyber threats.