An Efficient and Secure Authentication Scheme using Markov Chain for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Due to varied applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), data is required by any user when and wherever they require. Usually, base station gathers all information from the sensor and sends it periodically to the user. But for real-time application, mutual authentication among the communicating nodes is required. During user authentication base station checks that the user is authorized to gather the collected information from the sensor node through an insecure channel. In this paper, we propose an efficient authentication scheme which provides anonymity of user in WSNs that uses Markov chain. The Markov chain is a stochastic process that can be used for a system in which it follows a chain of linked events but next event depends only on the current state of the system. Stationary limit distribution of matrix is created by the base station to help the user to keep their password and identity safe. The security analysis verifies that the proposed scheme is safe against various attacks like forgery, parallel session attacks, user impersonation, etc. © 2018 IEEE.