# Time-Assisted Authentication Protocol

## TL;DR

This paper introduces TAP, a secure, lightweight, time-assisted authentication protocol for mobile networks that reduces complexity and enhances security through time-based keys and re-authentication tickets.

## Contribution

The paper presents TAP, a novel authentication protocol utilizing time-based encryption keys and re-authentication tickets to improve security and efficiency in mobile environments.

## Key findings

- TAP reduces communication and computational complexity during authentication.
- Security analysis confirms TAP's robustness using CSP and rank function methods.
- TAP effectively supports seamless mobility with secure re-authentication.

## Abstract

Authentication is the first step toward establishing a service provider and customer (C-P) association. In a mobile network environment, a lightweight and secure authentication protocol is one of the most significant factors to enhance the degree of service persistence. This work presents a secure and lightweight keying and authentication protocol suite termed TAP (Time-Assisted Authentication Protocol). TAP improves the security of protocols with the assistance of time-based encryption keys and scales down the authentication complexity by issuing a re-authentication ticket. While moving across the network, a mobile customer node sends a re-authentication ticket to establish new sessions with service-providing nodes. Consequently, this reduces the communication and computational complexity of the authentication process. In the keying protocol suite, a key distributor controls the key generation arguments and time factors, while other participants independently generate a keychain based on key generation arguments. We undertake a rigorous security analysis and prove the security strength of TAP using CSP and rank function analysis.

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1702.04055