A security protocol for D2D communications in 5G networks using elliptic curve cryptography

Advancements in the field of wireless and mobile communication motivate academia, industry, and standardisation organisations to explore new technologies to improve overall efficiency, spectrum utilisation, power consumption, and security. One of the most essential technologies proposed for short-range communications, which will play a key role in 5G wireless networks, is device-to-device (D2D) communications. D2D communication enables direct communication between two devices when they are in close proximity without requiring the help of a fixed infrastructure like base stations. Despite the significant benefits provided by D2D communications, this new networking communication paradigm introduces unique security threats to D2D services that should be solved in order to limit any malicious attacks. Towards this end, in this paper, we focus on secure D2D communications and propose a protocol for establishing secure D2D communication using elliptic curve cryptography. The protocol utilises: (i) specific Mobile Identifiers acquired from the hardware of the mobile phone (i.e. IMEI) and the SIM card (i.e. IMSI, MSISDN) provided by the mobile operator and (ii) the SIM storage for saving private keys or signature data. The proposed security protocol is verified and validated with the help of the Scyther tool, and the performance is evaluated in terms of resiliency analysis.