Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks are becoming a part of our daily lives, as the number of IoT devices around us are surging. The authentication of millions of connected things and the distribution and management of secret keys between these devices pose challenging research problems. Current one-to-one authentication schemes do not take the resource limitations of IoT devices into consideration. Nor do they address the scalability problem of massive machine type communication (mMTC) networks. Group authentication schemes (GASs), on the other hand, have emerged as novel approaches for many-to-many authentication problems. They can be used to simultaneously authenticate numerous resource-constrained devices. However, existing GAS is not energy efficient and they do not provide enough security for widespread use. In this article, we propose a lightweight GAS that significantly reduces energy consumption on devices, providing almost 80% energy savings when compared to the state-of-the-art solutions. Our approach is also resistant to the replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. The proposed approach also includes a solution for key agreement and key distribution problems in mMTC environments. Moreover, this approach can be used in both centralized and decentralized group authentication scenarios. The proposed approach has the potential to address the fast authentication requirements of the envisioned agile 6G networks, supported through aerial networking nodes.

中文翻译：

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灵活轻便的组认证方案

物联网（IoT）网络已成为我们日常生活的一部分，因为我们周围的IoT设备数量激增。数百万连接的身份验证东西这些设备之间的密钥分配和管理带来了挑战性的研究问题。当前的一对一身份验证方案未考虑物联网设备的资源限制。它们也没有解决大规模机器类型通信（mMTC）网络的可伸缩性问题。另一方面，组认证方案（GAS）已作为解决多对多认证问题的新颖方法而出现。它们可用于同时认证众多资源受限的设备。但是，现有的GAS并不是节能的，并且不能为广泛使用提供足够的安全性。在本文中，我们提出了一种轻量级的GAS，可显着降低设备的能耗，与最新解决方案相比，可节省近80％的能耗。我们的方法还可以抵抗重放和中间人攻击。拟议的方法还包括在mMTC环境中解决关键协议和关键分发问题的解决方案。此外，此方法可用于集中式和分散式组身份验证方案。所提出的方法具有解决通过空中联网节点支持的设想的敏捷6G网络的快速认证要求的潜力。