A dynamic multiple-keys game-based industrial wireless sensor-cloud authentication scheme

Industrial wireless sensor clouds (IWSCs) are indispensable in industrial applications and can operate in tough industrial environments by using industrial wireless sensor nodes to perceive and control devices. Because wireless sensor nodes are often deployed in unattended, remote-controlled environments, attackers may impersonate legal nodes to change device parameters. Such unexpected events could lead to disastrous consequences. It is difficult for an intrusion detection system to detect such attacks. Therefore, an authentication scheme becomes one of an effective approaches to ensuring security. However, authentication schemes for industrial wireless sensor clouds have not yet been adequately studied. The current approach is only applicable to an authentication scheme based on the shared secret key of the wireless sensor cloud and cannot be applied to a dynamic multiple-keys authentication scheme. Based on this scheme, this paper studies a game-based dynamic multiple-keys authentication scheme. Based on the probability of interception of the key and the leak probability of devices’s operating authorization, the paper sets up an authentication framework for a dynamic multiple-keys game. It also derives the optimal strategy which game players can use to maximize security utility and analyze the evolution process of the trust in the dynamic multiple-keys game. The experimental results show that this approach can successfully improve the security of IWSC.