A group-based security protocol for machine-type communications in LTE-advanced
Machine-type communication (MTC) takes advantage of millions of devices being connected to each other in sensing our environment. A third-generation partnership project has been actively considering MTC as an enabler for ubiquitous computing and context-aware services. Until recently, we have not yet known how to productively manage the signaling traffic from these MTC devices because authentication requirements may impose such large signaling loads that they overwhelm the radio access of 4G cellular networks. This paper proposes the design of an efficient security protocol for MTC. This protocol is designed to be compatible with the incumbent system by being composed of only symmetric cryptography. Efficiency is attained by aggregating many authentication requests into a single one. The security and performance of the new design are evaluated via formal verification and theoretical analysis. Implementation of the proposed protocol in a real LTE-A network is provided through a feasibility analysis undertaken to prove the practicability of the protocol. Based on these evaluations, we contend that the proposed protocol is practical in terms of security and performance for MTC in LTE-Advanced.
machine-type communications (mtc) long-term evolution advanced (lte-a) authentication and key agreement (aka)