A trust-based authentication framework for security of WPAN using network slicing

New technologies and their seamless wireless interconnectivity bring along many chal- lenges including security and privacy issues that require immediate attention. Wireless personal area networks (WPANs) are characterized by limited energy resources and computing power which call for lightweight security mechanisms in these networks as a mandatory requirement. In this paper, a lightweight trust-based framework for node authentication in WPAN is proposed. Our main objective is to minimise the effort in distinguishing valid requests of trustworthy nodes from invalid requests of malicious nodes that can result in network compromises. We achieve this through network slicing which divides the network into primary and secondary virtual networks. The proposed framework has three-fold benefits. Firstly, it authenticates nodes’ requests based on a novel method of trust value calculation. Secondly, the framework maintains energy efficiency while authenticating nodes’ requests to access WPAN resources. Finally, the framework provides a solution for the biasing problem that can arise due to unexpected behaviour of malicious users in WPANs. The framework efficacy is illustrated by using a case study to show how it can accurately capture trust relations among nodes while preventing malicious behavior.