An efficient two-factor user authentication framework for wireless sensor networks

Nowadays, Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are appeared to be new and promising solutions for next generation real-time wireless monitoring applications. These WSNs could become a threat if suitable security is not considered before the deployment. However, if there is any loophole in security, that might opens the door to attackers and hence, endanger for the applications. So, user authentication is one of the core requirements to protect WSNs data access from the unauthorized users. In this regard, we propose an efficient two-factor user authentication framework for WSNs, which is based on password and smart card (two-factors). Our scheme provides mutual authentication, enables the user to choose and change their password frequently. Moreover, the new framework provides strong protection against different kind of attacks at reasonable computation cost. In addition, we present analysis of our proposed framework security properties with the existing schemes in terms of overhead cost.