FastHand: A fast handover authentication protocol for densely deployed small-cell networks

Dense deployment of small-cell base stations is crucial to improve the system capacity of the evolving mobile network. However, more frequent handovers may take place as the signal coverage of such cells are very limited. Hence, a fast handover authentication protocol is essential to accomplish seamless mobility and uninterrupted service. Traditional public key-based protocols are not suitable for small-cell networks due to their high computation and communication overheads. Besides, the security of the symmetric key-based protocols is strongly dependent on a preshared long-term secret key or group key, where each node in the network needs to maintain a copy of the key. Hence, the system security may not be guaranteed in case of a node compromised attack. In this article, we propose a fast handover authentication protocol for densely deployed small-cell networks, named FastHand. FastHand is based on symmetric key cryptography, thus achieving relatively low computation and communication overheads than traditional public key-based authentication protocols. FastHand employs a (t, n)-threshold scheme to compute the handover key. The handover key can only be computed if at least t out of n legitimate nodes cooperate in parallel. Thus, the system security will not be affected in case of a node compromised attack. The privacy and security properties of FastHand are verified through informal and formal proofs. Finally, FastHand is compared with other similar protocols to measure its security and efficiency.

Automated summary

In this article, a fast handover authentication protocol named FastHand is proposed for densely deployed small-cell networks, which utilizes a (t, n)-threshold scheme to compute the handover key for enhanced security against node compromised attacks. The privacy and security properties of FastHand are verified through informal and formal proofs.