Cloud-centric multi-level authentication as a service for secure public safety device networks

With the advances in IoT, future public safety responders will be well armed with devices that pump data between on-site responders and command centers, carrying useful information about the event scene, the status of a mission, and helping critical decisions to be made in real time. In addition, wearable and on-body sensors will monitor the vital signals and well being of the responders. These connected devices or the so-called IoT surrounding public safety responders generate highly vulnerable data, where security breaches may have life threatening consequences. Authentication of responder devices is essential in order to control access to public safety networks. Most of the existing authentication schemes do not scale well with the large number of devices of IoT, and are not fast enough to work during time-critical public safety missions. On the other hand, for general IoT services, cloud-based solutions provide unlimited resources for storing and accessing IoT data. However, the cloud may have some implications for sensitive data that are collected for public safety. Therefore, authentication solutions are desired to integrate well into the cloud environment. In this article, we propose cloud-centric, multi-level authentication as a service approach that addresses scalability and time constraints, and demonstrate its effectiveness. We draw future research directions for secure public safety networks in the presence of IoT devices and the cloud.