Abstract

Today, many applications are using LTE services. Since an LTE network is established based on the IP, this creates some significant security challenges in the network. Authentication procedure and key management system are the two most important issues in LTE networks, and many active and passive attacks occur during these processes. Most of the suggested security protocols are complicated methods. And these methods cannot protect the LTE system against many malicious attacks such as DoS/DDoS, and MiTM attacks properly. Thus, a robust AKA protocol without risking the network’s QoS is the main concern for LTE networks. Consequently, a Robust Evolved Packet System for AKA (REPS-AKA1) protocol is presented in our research to satisfy the security requirements. Additionally, the security of handover key management has been a critical issue in LTE systems. The significant vulnerabilities of current handover key management are de-synchronization attacks. Thus, a new handover mitigation named REPS-AKA2 is also suggested to provide backward/forward key separation and satisfy security requirements in X2-handover. A fast re-authentication approach is suggested in the suggested method to reduce both computation cost and communication overhead. The REPS-AKA1 and REPS-AKA2 protocols are evaluated by AVISPA tools, BAN Logic, and Scyther tools. The verification results prove that the proposed methods are safe based on defined security goals in the LTE system. The performance analysis of REPS-AKA1 and REPS-AKA2 protocols are evaluated based on computational cost, bandwidth consumption, and signaling overhead. The proposed protocols achieve outstanding performance compared to some other presented protocols in the literature.