ECC-Based Authentication Protocol for Military Internet of Drone (IoD): A Holistic Security Framework

In modern military operations, network systems capable of maintaining real-time communication and high security while operating in resource-constrained environments are essential. Since military systems face significant risks when exposed to adversarial attacks, authentication of all participants is critical. However, stronger security through authentication often results in reduced usability and efficiency. This study acknowledges these challenges and proposes a protocol tailored to military environments, enabling participant authentication across all communication segments in the Internet of Drones environment. The proposed protocol introduces independently managed session keys among drones, soldiers, and command centers to prevent security breaches from spreading throughout the network. The employed Elliptic Curve Cryptography security technology provides robust encryption with minimal computational complexity, making it suitable for resource-constrained IoD environments. In soldier-to-drone communication, trust-based authentication is performed using a trust-anchor approach with the public key of the Certificate Authority. For drone-to-Certificate Authority communication, pre-shared group keys of all drones are used to establish each drone’s session key through the Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange. During this process, timestamps and hops are transmitted to enable position verification through Ultra-Wideband, ensuring secure communication even in environments where GPS signals are restricted. Drone-to-drone communication uses an Implicit Key-Based Authentication method with group keys and random nonces, providing lightweight authentication while preventing replay attacks. Furthermore, timestamp-based verification and group key management across all communication segments are implemented to prevent replay attacks and key reuse attacks. The proposed protocol demonstrates strong resistance to various military threats, including DoS attacks, replay attacks, and man-in-the-middle attacks. It satisfies the unique requirements of military networks and offers a secure and reliable military communication environment through enhanced authentication and session key management.