An Efficient Authentication and Access Control Protocol for Securing UAV Networks Against Anomaly-Based Intrusion

UAV networks have gained widespread recognition across multiple industries due to their remarkable adaptability, prompting a fundamental transformation in operational procedures. However, utilizing the open wireless communication channel has consistently brought about significant privacy concerns as a prominent aspect within these networks. Moreover, UAVs are typically equipped with limited computing capabilities that hinder their ability to execute complex cryptographic algorithms. In light of these considerations, this paper proposes a security protocol for UAV networks that uses an authentication and access control mechanism to eliminate the possibility of any security breaches. The proposed scheme is based on hyperelliptic curve cryptography (HECC), which employs a smaller key size of 80 bits instead of the 160 bits required by elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). Remarkably, HECC offers equivalent security to other methods such as RSA, ECC, bilinear pairing, etc., and is, therefore, suitable for UAV networks. The proposed protocol is evaluated for security using the well-known Real-Or-Random (ROR) Oracle model. The AVISPA tool is employed to illustrate the security of the proposed protocol against adversarial scenarios in the on-the-fly model-checker (OFMC) and constraint-logic-based attack searcher (Cl-AtSe) models. Furthermore, the informal security analysis guarantees that the proposed protocol withstands possible attacks based on the Canetti-Krawczyk (CK) and Dolev-yao (DY) adversarial models. The comparative analysis of the proposed protocol’s performance with other existing methods demonstrates the proposed protocol’s viability in terms of computation and communication costs.