Privacy-Preserving Lightweight LoRaWAN Authentication Protocol for IoT Applications

Security and privacy are two primary concerns in critical applications within Internet of Things (IoT) environments. The Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) protocol facilitates long-range communication for battery-powered end devices in IoT and has gained widespread adoption among both individuals and industries. To foster trust and facilitate its use, ensuring security and privacy for data collected by end devices is essential. User authentication and key establishment protocols play a pivotal role in this regard. While existing authentication schemes in the literature are unsuitable for LoRaWAN networks, this article proposes an energy-efficient LoRaWAN authentication protocol for privacy preservation in IoT applications. Through formal verification using the Random Oracle Model (ROM) and AVISPA tool, we demonstrate our protocol’s resilience against common attacks including replay, man-in-the-middle, and impersonation threats. Performance evaluations reveal significant advantages over existing schemes: 48% faster computation (0.1953 ms vs. 0.3647 ms baseline), 24% lower communication overhead (2398 bits vs. 3168 bits), and 44% energy savings (1.27 mJ vs. 2.27 mJ) over state-of-the-art protocols. These improvements, combined with enhanced security features, such as resistance to sensor capture and stolen device attacks, make our protocol particularly suitable for practical IoT deployments in smart agriculture and industrial monitoring systems where both security and energy efficiency are paramount. The balance of strong security guarantees and low operational overhead represents a significant advance in LoRaWAN authentication mechanisms.