3rd International ICST Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks

Research Article

Securing Personal Network clusters

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/SECCOM.2007.4550350,
        author={Assed Jehangir and Sonia M. Heemstra de Groot},
        title={Securing Personal Network clusters},
        proceedings={3rd International ICST Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={SECURECOMM},
        year={2008},
        month={6},
        keywords={Personal Networks  constrained devices  key management  security  self organization  symmetric cryptography},
        doi={10.1109/SECCOM.2007.4550350}
    }
    
  • Assed Jehangir
    Sonia M. Heemstra de Groot
    Year: 2008
    Securing Personal Network clusters
    SECURECOMM
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/SECCOM.2007.4550350
Assed Jehangir1,*, Sonia M. Heemstra de Groot2,*
  • 1: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science University of Twente The Netherlands
  • 2: Twente Institute for Mobile and Wireless Communications, and Delft University of Technology The Netherlands
*Contact email: jehangira@cs.utwente.nl, Sonia.Heemstra.de.Groot@ti-wmc.nl

Abstract

A Personal Network is a self-organizing, secure and private network of a user’s devices notwithstanding their geographic location. It aims to utilize pervasive computing to provide users with new and improved services. In this paper we propose a model for securing Personal Network clusters. Clusters are ad-hoc networks of co-located personal devices. The ad-hoc makeup of clusters, coupled with the resource constrained nature of many constituent devices, makes enforcing security a challenging task. We propose a novel way of imprinting personal devices and predeploying tickets for future authentication. Our key management framework is based on a combination of existing models, albeit modified to match the constraints and assets of Personal Networks. The mechanisms for self organization are original since they need to be tailored to our proposed security framework. All models are designed to be suitable for resource constrained devices yet robust enough for self organization and secure communication.