TK-AKA: using temporary key on Authentication and Key Agreement protocol on UMTS

Abstract

Mobile communication is definitely one of the major high-technology applications that offer present-day people a modern life of appropriate convenience In recent years, the third-generation cell phone system has approached maturity The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) IS currently the most widely Used System around the world The Third Generation Partnership Project is equipped with the Authentication and Key Agreement (AKA) protocol to maintain secrecy and security both during the authentication process and during the communication session through UMTS However, Hung and Li have pointed out that the UMTS-AKA protocol has three problems, involving bandwidth consumption, space overhead and synchronization of the sequence number which are yet to be resolved In addition, they have proposed an extension of the UMTS-AKA protocol, named the X-AKA protocol, to overcome these obstacles Nevertheless, the X-AKA protocol too appears to have problems of its own In this article, the weaknesses of X-AKA are enumerated In addition, a more practical AKA protocol for UNITS is presented The new protocol, based oil the same framework as its predecessor, proves to be more efficient and practical, satisfying the requirements of modern living Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd