Three Taps for Secure Machine-to-Machine Communication: Towards High Assurance yet Fully Local Machine Pairing

In this short paper we explore if and how we can securely pair up two machines for secure machine-to-machine communication by means of an NFC system subject to two conditions: firstly, the machine pairing method must be truly local in that we cannot rely on long-term secrets or a public-key infrastructure; secondly, the machine pairing method must be verifiable and certifiable to a high assurance level. We address this question motivated by a demand for this in the aerospace domain, where there is currently a drive to introduce machine-to-machine communication over wireless networks to improve ground processes such as refuelling and air conditioning. In this paper we present preliminary results towards a positive answer to this question.