A Robust HECC-based Authentication and Key Agreement for UAV-enabled SAR Networks

Huang, Ruiyang and Gao, Ning and Ni, Qiang and Jin, Shi (2026) A Robust HECC-based Authentication and Key Agreement for UAV-enabled SAR Networks. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. pp. 1-11. ISSN 0018-9545

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Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become an indispensable tool in search-and-rescue (SAR) missions, playing a crucial role in locating victims and delivering essential supplies in disaster-stricken areas. However, due to communications in open channels, these unignorable security issues including unauthorized data access, data tampering and leakage, potentially disturb, or even damage the SAR missions. The authentication and key agreement (AKA) technologies are designed to try to allow only verified legal entities can access the data securely with a negotiated session key. Despite the advantages of AKA, existing UAV-specific AKA solutions are unable to resist specific attacks which threaten the security of authentication and session key, and are plagued from the unsatisfactory performance given limited resources of UAVs. To address these issues, based on hyperelliptic curve cryptography (HECC), we propose a robust AKA for UAV enabled SAR network and preserve the desiring performance as well. With detailed security analysis, we demonstrate the robustness of our scheme under the eCK Adversary Model. Furthermore, the performance analysis shows the efficiency and utility of our design in terms of computational overhead and communication cost, in which it indicates that our scheme can be applied to the UAV-enabled SAR network.