A Robust ECC-Based Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol for 6G-Based Smart Home Environments

With the rapid evolution of wireless communication technology, smart homes have significantly improved the quality of people's daily lives. This improvement is attributed to the utilization of 6G communication technology, known for its low latency and high transmission rates. Users can now remotely manage smart devices in their homes in real time. However, data interactions between users and smart devices are typically transmitted over public channels. This poses potential security risks. To safeguard users' confidential data from malicious interception and modification, diverse authentication protocols have been proposed. However, most protocols fail to provide features to resist impersonation attacks while providing the ability to change passwords and biometric features. To address these challenges, this article proposes a provably secure three-factor anonymous authentication and key agreement protocol based on elliptic curve cryptography, by adopting fuzzy extractor technology. We prove the security of our protocol under the random oracle model (ROR). We also perform an informal security analysis and simulate the protocol using AVISPA. The security analysis and simulation results show that the protocol can withstand various types of attacks, including smart device impersonation attack, stolen smart card attack, and so on. Through comparison with other relevant protocols, the results show that the protocol strikes a good balance between security and usability, making it highly suitable for smart home environments.