Global Mobility Networks: Design and Development of a Secure and Lightweight Authentication Protocol

Abstract The increasing use of mobile devices and wireless networks has led to the development of global mobility networks, which enable users to access services and data from anywhere in the world. However, ensuring the security of these networks is a major challenge, as they are vulnerable to various attacks such as eavesdropping, impersonation, and data tampering. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a secure and lightweight authentication protocol for global mobility networks, based on two established cryptographic techniques: the Extensible Authentication Protocol - Transport Layer Security (EAP-TLS) and the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). The proposed authentication protocol consists of several key steps, including user registration, certificate distribution, mutual authentication, and session key generation. The protocol uses EAP-TLS to establish a secure channel between the client and the server, and ECDSA to provide secure digital signatures and key generation. The use of ECDSA ensures that the protocol is resistant to various attacks, such as replay attacks and man-in-the-middle attacks. Additionally, the use of EAP-TLS provides mutual authentication between the client and the server, preventing impersonation attacks. The proposed authentication protocol is designed to be lightweight and efficient, making it practical for use in resource-constrained environments such as mobile devices and wireless networks. The protocol has been evaluated through simulations, and the results demonstrate that it provides strong security guarantees while also being efficient in terms of computational resources and communication overhead. Overall, the proposed authentication protocol provides a practical solution for ensuring the security of global mobility networks, while also being lightweight and efficient enough to be used in resource-constrained environments.