Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is now widely used in medical Internet of Things (IoT) systems. As its use grows, protecting patient data has become a major concern. The rise of quantum computing makes this challenge even more serious. In this paper, we present an adaptive and lightweight mutual authentication protocol for medical RFID systems. The protocol is based on the Ring Learning With Errors (RLWE) problem, which provides strong post-quantum security. It introduces an adaptive mechanism that adjusts RLWE parameters for tags with different security needs. This design achieves a balance between protection and resource use. To improve robustness, the protocol also includes a pseudonym update process that prevents desynchronization. We analyze its security in detail. The analysis combines a formal proof in the Random Oracle model and symbolic verification with the Scyther tool. Results show that the protocol can resist replay, man-in-the-middle, and impersonation attacks. It also preserves tag anonymity and forward secrecy. Performance tests further confirm its efficiency. On the tag side, the average computation time is only 7.67931 ms. These results suggest that the protocol is well-suited for secure and efficient authentication in resource-limited medical RFID environments under post-quantum threats.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is now widely used in medical Internet of Things (IoT) systems. As its use grows, protecting patient data has become a major concern. The rise of quantum computing makes this challenge even more serious. In this paper, we present an adaptive and lightweight mutual authentication protocol for medical RFID systems. The protocol is based on the Ring Learning With Errors (RLWE) problem, which provides strong post-quantum security. It introduces an adaptive mechanism that adjusts RLWE parameters for tags with different security needs. This design achieves a balance between protection and resource use. To improve robustness, the protocol also includes a pseudonym update process that prevents desynchronization. We analyze its security in detail. The analysis combines a formal proof in the Random Oracle model and symbolic verification with the Scyther tool. Results show that the protocol can resist replay, man-in-the-middle, and impersonation attacks. It also preserves tag anonymity and forward secrecy. Performance tests further confirm its efficiency. On the tag side, the average computation time is only 7.67931 ms. These results suggest that the protocol is well-suited for secure and efficient authentication in resource-limited medical RFID environments under post-quantum threats.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) integrates control systems with IoT technology to enable automation and intelligent operations in industrial environments. As IIoT deployments expand, reliance on wireless communication channels increases the attack surface and exposes systems to various security and privacy threats. Moreover, the limited computational capabilities of IIoT devices and the need to preserve device anonymity introduce additional security requirements. Insufficient protection against these challenges can result in operational disruption and significant economic losses. Existing symmetric-key and hash-based schemes are lightweight but lack scalability for large IIoT deployments, whereas public-key methods provide stronger security. However, the emergence of quantum computing threatens the long-term security of such protocols, as quantum algorithms can efficiently break conventional number-theoretic cryptosystems. To address these challenges, we propose a quantum-resistant three-party authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocol for the IIoT. The ring learning with errors (RLWE)-based protocol provides quantum-safe and efficient mutual authentication and secure session key establishment between workers and devices. Comprehensive security and performance analyses demonstrate that the proposed protocol is robust against security attacks. Performance evaluations confirm lower computational and communication overhead than existing post-quantum schemes, proving its practicality for IIoT.
Abstract The conventional cryptographic algorithm faces a threat due to the evolution of quantum computing algorithms. In recent days, IoT devices demand authentication techniques to ensure a perfectly secure system. Thus, to address this issue, this paper presents a Modified Ring Learning with Errors–based Mutual Authentication (MRMA) scheme tailored for resource-constrained IoT environments. The computational hardness of the RLWE problem, the proposed scheme employs polynomial-level optimizations to reduce key size and computational overhead, also preserving post-quantum security in IoT devices. To further enhance the security–efficiency trade-off, a Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) driven parameter tuning layer is introduced, formulating cryptographic parameter selection as a concern for a multi-objective optimization problem over polynomial degree, modulus, and noise distribution. Also, to improve latency and throughput, the assistance of QAOA is needed. The traditional scheme requires larger keys (512–2048 bits) and high processing time. Our performance analysis proves that the proposed MRMA scheme implements a compact 256-bit key, includes a low authentication latency of 0.0065 seconds, a throughput of 900 operations per second, and an Authentication Acceptance Rate (AAR) of 99.2%. The results prove that the performance is better than typical RLWE- and MLWE-based IoT authentication schemes. Thus, the proposed MRMA scheme supports a secure, lightweight authentication framework, making it suitable for IoT and post-quantum applications.
Abstract In internet of things (IOT) healthcare systems, sensitive patient information is transmitted over the network to medical professionals. Numerous lightweight authentication protocols have been proposed; however, most of them remain vulnerable to various cyberattacks, allowing attackers to eavesdrop on or manipulate transmitted data. We examine several recently proposed lightweight authentication schemes for healthcare systems. Our security analysis demonstrates that these schemes remain vulnerable to malicious gateway attacks, desynchronization attacks, and key screw attacks. .To address these issues and ensure post- quantum security in healthcare IoT, we propose a post-quantum key establishment protocol based on lattice- based cryptography (LWE). the proposed scheme prevents the gateway from accessing both the secret keys and their parameters, thereby eliminating the possibility of malicious gateway attacks. The proposed protocol ensures user anonymity, forward secrecy, and resistance to impersonation, key screw, and desynchronization attacks.. The proposed protocol ensures secure and efficient establishment of three-round key establishment among entities . Our performance evaluation shows that the proposed scheme achieves lower computation and communication overhead compared to recent related works. The security of the protocol is thoroughly analyzed through informal reasoning, Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic, and ProVerif, confirming its robustness and suitability for resource-constrained IoT-based healthcare environments.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a prominent technology within the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, offering efficient and reliable object identification in various domains, including business, healthcare, and manufacturing. The security of RFID systems is of paramount importance, and recent authentication protocols have been developed to address these security concerns. In this survey paper, we explore and evaluate the latest authentication protocols designed to enhance security in RFID communications, primarily concentrating on the interaction between RFID readers and tags. We critically assess contemporary lightweight RFID authentication protocols, considering aspects such as security requirements, computational efficiency, and resilience against potential attacks. However, with the advent of quantum computing, these protocols are under scrutiny for their vulnerability. As a result, we emphasize the need for researchers to shift their focus toward post-quantum cryptography solutions to bolster the security of RFID systems. This paper serves as a comprehensive overview of recent developments in RFID authentication, shedding light on the pressing need for quantum-resistant security measures in this field.
We propose a novel quantum-resistant mutual authentication scheme for radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems. Our scheme uses lattice-based cryptography and, in particular, achieves quantum-resistance by leveraging the hardness of the inhomogeneous short integer solution (ISIS) problem. In contrast to prior work, which assumes that the reader-server communication channel is secure, our scheme is secure even when both the reader-server and tag-reader communication channels are insecure. Our proposed protocol provides robust security against man-in-the-middle (MITM), replay, impersonation, and reflection attacks, while also ensuring unforgeability and preserving anonymity. We present a detailed security analysis, including semi-formal analysis and formal verification using the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool. In addition, we analyze the storage, computation, and communication costs of the proposed protocol and compare its security properties with those of existing protocols, demonstrating that our scheme offers strong security guarantees. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first quantum-resistant authentication protocol for RFID systems that comprehensively addresses the insecurity of both the reader-server and tag-reader communication channels.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems represent a key technology for ubiquitous computing and for the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT). In RFID technology, authentication protocols are often necessary in order to confirm the identity of the parties involved (i.e. RFID readers, RFID tags and/or database servers). In this article, we analyze the security of a mutual authentication protocol proposed by Wang and Ma. Our security analysis clearly shows major security pitfalls in this protocol. Firstly, we show two approaches that an adversary may use to mislead an honest reader into thinking that it is communicating with a legitimate database. Secondly, we show how an adversary that has compromised some tags can impersonate an RFID reader to a legitimate database. Furthermore, we present a new adversary model, which pays heed on cases missed by previous proposals. In contrast to previous models where the communication between an RFID reader and a back-end server is through a secure channel, our model facilitates the security analysis of more general schemes where this communication channel (RFID reader-to-server) is insecure. This model determines whether the compromise of RFID tags has any impact on the security of the reader-to-server communication or vice versa. In a secure protocol, the possible compromise of RFID tags should not affect the RFID reader-server communication. In this paper, we show that compromising of RFID tags in Wang and Ma protocol has a direct impact on the reader-server security. Finally, we propose a new authentication protocol that offers an adequate security level and is resistant against the mentioned security risks. The security proofs of the proposed protocol are supported with Gong-Needham-Yahalom (GNY) logic and Scyther tool, which are formal methods to evaluate the security of a cryptographic protocol.