PASE-AKA: Performance and Security Enhanced AKA Protocol for UMTS Network

Abstract

The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System Authentication and Key Agreement (UMTS-AKA) protocol of 3rd generation mobile communication network is susceptible to various attacks such as redirection, Denial of Service (DoS), Man in-the Middle (MitM) and replay attack. Also, the protocol has several security limitations including the transmission of user identity in the plaintext over the communication channel, synchronization between communication entities and high bandwidth consumption. Many AKA protocols were proposed by the researchers to defeat these problems of the UMTS network. However, these protocols fulfill the security requirements such as mutual authentication, integrity and confidentiality. But, none of them succeed to defeat the single key problem in the communication network. In this article, we propose the performance and security enhanced (PASE-AKA) protocol for UMTS network. The proposed protocol solves the problem of single key during the authentication process and avoids all the identified attacks on the communication network. The formal security analysis of the proposed protocol is carried out by Automated Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool. The analysis shows that the protocol achieves the security goals and secure against various known attacks. Finally, the quantitative analysis of the PASE-AKA shows that the protocol provides the improved security compared to existing UMTS-AKA protocols with acceptable communication and computation overhead. © 2017 IEEE.