An efficient authentication protocol with user anonymity for mobile networks

Existing mobile authentication protocols are low in efficiency, because asymmetric encryption algorithms with large computational overheads are employed in these protocols to ensure user anonymity. In addition, the existing mobile authentication protocols have a long delay in fast reconnection, because these protocols may suffer from desynchronization attacks. In order to solve these problems, an efficient mutual authentication protocol with user anonymity for mobile networks is proposed. The proposed protocol ensures user anonymity by using one-way hash function. It reduces the delay time in fast reconnection, because once the session key between the mobile user and the foreign agent is found to be desynchronized in reconnection process, mobile users start the process of login and authentication from a new beginning immediately. The security of the proposed protocol is proved by using the provable security model. Compared with several existing authentication protocols for mobile networks, the proposed protocol is more secure and more effective.