2nd International Workshop on 5G Security

Research Article

Error-Correcting Message Authentication for 5G

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.18-6-2016.2264115,
        author={Elena Dubrova and Mats N\aa{}slund and G\o{}ran Selander and Karl Norrman},
        title={Error-Correcting Message Authentication for 5G},
        proceedings={2nd International Workshop on 5G Security},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={IW5GS},
        year={2016},
        month={12},
        keywords={message authentication data integrity hash function error- correction 5g},
        doi={10.4108/eai.18-6-2016.2264115}
    }
    
  • Elena Dubrova
    Mats Näslund
    Göran Selander
    Karl Norrman
    Year: 2016
    Error-Correcting Message Authentication for 5G
    IW5GS
    ACM
    DOI: 10.4108/eai.18-6-2016.2264115
Elena Dubrova1, Mats Näslund2, Göran Selander2, Karl Norrman2,*
  • 1: Royal Institute of Technology
  • 2: Ericsson AB
*Contact email: karl.norrman@ericsson.com

Abstract

Message Authentication Codes (MACs) used in today's wireless communication standards are not capable of correcting errors which may occur during transmission. If MAC verification fails, the message is typically discarded and a re-transmission is requested. Re-transmissions waste energy and increase average packet latency. Excessive re-transmissions may lead to network congestion. In this paper, we introduce a new MAC, MAC-C, which efficiently combines integrity protection with single-bit error correction and provide a detailed quantitative analysis of its security.The efficiency of MAC-C makes it a good candidate for simpler 5G radio types and use cases with constrained resources such as Machine Type Communications (MTC).