Robust and efficient password authenticated key agreement with user anonymity for session initiation protocol-based communications

A suitable key agreement protocol plays an essential role in protecting the communications over open channels among users using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). This study presents a robust and flexible password authenticated key agreement protocol with user anonymity for session initiation protocol (SIP) used by VoIP communications. Security analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol enjoys many unique properties, such as user anonymity, no password table, session key agreement, mutual authentication, password updating freely, conveniently revoking lost smartcards and so on. Furthermore, the proposed protocol can resist the replay attack, the impersonation attack, the stolen-verifier attack, the man-in-middle attack, the Denning-Sacco attack and the offline dictionary attack with or without smartcards. Finally, the performance analysis shows that the protocol is more suitable for practical application in comparison with other related protocols. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013.