A Blockchain-assisted Group Handover Authentication Protocol for 5G Wireless Networks

The fifth-generation (5G) wireless cellular network with its high-density connectivity enables the support of massive Internet of Things (IoT) applications, where massive machine-type communication (MTC) is a core communication scenario in the IoT domain. However, when a group of MTC devices (MTCD) simultaneously access a new target base station, much more frequent mutual authentication processes take place leading to high signaling overheads in both access and core networks, thus reducing overall network efficiency. In this paper, we propose an efficient and secure handover authentication protocol supported by blockchain technology for a group of MTCD. The protocol leverages blockchain to decentralize the authentication function from centralized servers to all base stations. It can prevent single points of failure, increase the difficulty of DDoS attacks, and simultaneously achieve mutual authentication and key negotiation between group MTCD and base stations. The proposed protocol has been formally evaluated by using Scyther tools demonstrating its resilience against major typical malicious attacks. Furthermore, the performance evaluation results show that the proposed protocol is efficient in terms of computation and communication costs.