Symmetric key-based authentication and key agreement scheme resistant against semi-trusted third party for fog and dew computing

Fog and dew computing represent relatively new computing paradigms in the literature. The main idea is to offload the computation processes from the device to a more nearby fog or dew server, who further forwards it to the central server. In the case of dew computing, the dew server is considered to lose connection with the central server and should be able to function autonomously most of the time. In the literature, several public-key-based tripartite schemes, offering a full set of security features, have been proposed that can serve the purpose. However, due to the large difference in performance between symmetric and public key-based cryptographic algorithms, this paper proposes a symmetric key-based authentication and key agreement protocol, consisting of a long and a short authentication process, addressing both fog and dew computing scenarios. Moreover, we conduct the informal and formal (ROR logic, GNY logic, and Scyther tool) security analysis to ensure that the scheme satisfies the most important security features described in the literature, in addition to offering protection against a semi-trusted third party. Furthermore, we assess the performance of the long and the short authentication phases in terms of computational, communication, storage costs, and energy consumption, revealing that it is less expensive than its competitors. Additionally, we show that when compared to its competitors, the long and the short authentication phases have less overhead when unknown attacks occur. We also use the NS2 network simulator tool to execute a real-time implementation of the long and the short authentication phase to ensure that it is realistic in practical implementation.