Electronics, Vol. 13, Pages 4951: An Optimal Secure Key Distribution Scheme for Internet of Things Devices in Multi-Session Network Communications

Electronics, Vol. 13, Pages 4951: An Optimal Secure Key Distribution Scheme for Internet of Things Devices in Multi-Session Network Communications

Electronics doi: 10.3390/electronics13244951

Authors: Farhan Alshammari Lawrence Ong Jin Yeong Tan

Communication network security has become increasingly vital in an era of rapidly developing technology, and protecting against unauthorized access is essential. This paper introduces a server-aided approach for secure key distribution to users participating in multiple sessions. This paper presents a system model in which each user is assigned a unique private key, enabling them to derive session keys from codewords broadcast by the server. These session keys are essential for facilitating the secure transmission of session messages within their respective sessions. The system model ensures that an eavesdropper cannot derive any session keys, despite having access to broadcast codewords, due to their lack of private keys. Our results show that our coding scheme is optimal by proving the necessary conditions for secure key distribution, indicating that secure key distribution is achievable if and only if the length of a user’s private key is at least equal to the total size of session messages across all the sessions in which they participate. This paper further illustrates the proposed secure key distribution and session message transmission mechanism through examples, emphasizing the necessity of user-specific private keys tailored to the sessions in which users are involved.