A Secure and Efficient Protocol for LoRa Using Cryptographic Hardware Accelerators

Long-range wide-area network (LoRaWAN) is a low-power wide-area network (LP-WAN) protocol developed for low-bandwidth, battery-operated long-range sensors. However, the LoRaWAN specification has several security issues and utilizes software cryptography, which is not energy efficient. Our proposed solution combines a modified LoRaWAN protocol with a hardware-based cryptographic coprocessor that includes secure on-chip key storage for encryption, decryption, and digital signature creation. This design reduces the energy utilization of the wireless nodes while addressing several of the LoRaWAN threat surfaces. This article provides a security analysis of the reduced threat surfaces and demonstrates the improved energy efficiency of the LoRaWAN nodes with the integrated solution.