Designing an Enhanced User Authenticated Key Management Scheme for 6G-Based Industrial Applications

In the Sixth Generation (6G) mobile system, the importance of security increases even more in the communication system. One of the potential technologies of 6G is the Network in a Box (NIB). The 6G-enabled NIB is a multi-generational, easily and quickly installable technology used for communication. It is based on both hardware and software. The main features of a 6G-enabled NIB include low latency and a high level of flexibility. In addition, it provides connectivity services to the applications used in unusual situations such as battlefields or natural disasters in the industry. However, most of the applications used in the 6G-enabled NIB are not appropriately secured. There are chances of several active and passive attacks due to the insecure channel. Therefore, a novel remote user authentication and key management scheme is presented in this paper. This scheme is the modified and improved version of UAKMS-NIB and is renamed as the improved User Authentication and Management Scheme to secure the 6G-enabled NIB (iUAKMS-NIB) that can be used in industrial applications. Hence, the proposed scheme provides the best security solution against the possible attacks on the 6G communication system. The analytical results show that the proposed scheme performs better compared to the existing schemes.