ECCIA: An Identity Authentication Scheme against IFAs in NDNs

Recently, Named Data Networking (NDN) has been attractive as an alternative to the TCP/IP-based Internet. It adopts a content-driven communication approach to provide name-based routing. The new network architecture enhances privacy but cannot escape the threats caused by Interest Flooding Attacks (IFAs). The goal of the IFAs is to inject a Pending Interest Table (PIT) with a large number of invalid Interest packets into the NDNs. In recent years, numerous IFA detection and mitigation schemes have been designed, most of which cannot prevent IFAs even may block legitimate Interest packets. To prevent IFAs, we propose an Elliptic Curve Cryptography-based Identity Authentication scheme (ECCIA) for NDNs. The key of the ECCIA is that consumers confirm their identity by attaching an Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) digital signature to the Interest packet, while routers reject any unsolicited Interest packet without identity authentication. Finally, the results of the security analysis show that ECCIA is flexible, secure, and effective