Security threats in M2M networks: A survey with case study

Security requirements such as key establishment and authentication are crucial in machine-to-machine (M2M) networks. No matter how strong an encryption or an authentication algorithm is, if the distribution of keys is inefficiently managed and carelessly designed, that scheme is doomed to fail. This paper presents a study of potential security issues in M2M networks especially related to the authentication and key agreement phases. One of the important problems is authentication signalling congestion problem which creates overload in radio access part and core network part of the M2M network. Several group based authentication and key agreement schemes have been proposed to solve this congestion problem. Among key management protocols, most prominent is Internet Key Exchange (IKE) used with IPSec. This paper presents a comprehensive survey on IKE and its variants along with their case studies in smart grid and smart home. The goal of this paper is: i) to provide a survey on the main security issues in M2M wireless communication, ii) to discuss the main security approaches, and iii) to discuss various security issues in home area networks and recent security enhancements with a case study.