Measuring Two-Factor Authentication Schemes for Real-Time Data Access in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Dozens of two-factor authentication schemes have been proposed to secure real-time data access in industrial wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, more often than not, the protocol designers advocate the merits of their scheme, but do not reveal (or unconsciously ignoring) the facets on which their scheme performs poorly. Such lack of an objective, comprehensive measurement leads to the unsatisfactory break-fix-break-fix cycle in this research area. In this paper, we make an attempt toward breaking this undesirable cycle by proposing a systematical evaluation framework for schemes to be assessed objectively, revisiting two foremost schemes proposed by Wu et al. (2017) and Srinivas et al. (2017) to reveal the challenges and difficulties in designing a sound scheme, and conducting a measurement of 44 representative schemes under our evaluation framework, thereby providing the missing evaluation for two-factor schemes in industrial WSNs. This work would help increase awareness of current measurement issues and improve the scientific process in our field.