KEEP: Secure and Efficient Communication for Distributed IoT Devices

Security over mobile Internet of Things (IoT) devices is critical due to the open nature of distributed wireless communication. To efficient establish a secure connection between two communication parties, a fast mobile key extraction protocol, KEEP, is proposed. KEEP fast generates similar bit sequences from two communication parties’ measurements of channel state information (CSI) of different subcarriers. Then, a distributed “verification-recombination” mechanism is introduced to generate the same encryption key from bit sequences without the public key authentication, digital signature or key distribution center of the other party. We implemented real world experiments using commercial off-the-shelf 802.11n devices to evaluate the performance of KEEP in various scenarios. Theoretical analysis and experimental verification show that KEEP is more secure, effective and reliable than the state-of-the-art methods.