Two-factor authenticated key agreement supporting unlinkability in 5G-integrated wireless sensor networks

The integration of 5G networks and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is critical in the new era of the Internet of Things (IoT), for a wide range of applications. However, despite the potential advantages of this integration, there are concerns about unforeseen security threats that may impact our daily lives. Authenticated key agreement is an essential security feature for secure communication between users and IoT devices, and for protecting IoT applications from security threats. An IoT notion-based authentication and key agreement scheme was recently proposed for heterogeneous WSNs, claiming to provide user anonymity and mutual authentication, as well as the ability to withstand several types of attacks. In this paper, we examine several security weaknesses of the aforementioned scheme. Next, we design a network architecture suitable for the integration of 5G networks and WSNs. Based on the network architecture, we propose a two-factor authentication and key agreement scheme in 5G-integrated WSNs for the IoT that can resist various attacks, including those identified earlier, and that can preserve security requirements, including unlinkability. Finally, we evaluate the security and performance of the proposed scheme and compare our scheme with other related schemes.