Secure device association for ad hoc and ubiquitous computing environments

Secure Device Association (also known as security initialization, first-connect or simply pairing in the literature) can be referred as the process of establishing a secure channel between a pair of devices in close proximity. There have been many recent proposals to provide secure pairing of devices in close proximity. All vary in their security against different attacks, the needed hardware capabilities and the necessary level of user attention. In a world of heterogeneous devices and requirements, we need mechanisms to allow automated selection of the best device association protocols without requiring the user to have an in-depth knowledge of the minutiae of the underlying technologies. Further, these mechanisms should facilitate unobtrusive device identification, matching of pairing techniques to requirements, chains of communication to bridge between devices of different capability and improved security by combining techniques where possible. In this paper, we present research trends and issues in the area of secure device association for ad hoc and ubiquitous computing environments followed by a short survey of the existing methods.