A secure authentication scheme for smart home environments: a biometric-driven approach

A smart home represents an emerging technological revolution. Devices such as smart TVs, smart refrigerators, and smart locks are connected to the Internet to enhance convenience in daily life. However, users contact these smart home devices via public channels, which makes the data being transferred vulnerable to attacks. Ensuring the privacy and data security of home users becomes a significant challenge. As smart home systems become increasingly integrated into our daily routines, securing them is crucial. This study presents a lightweight authentication scheme for smart homes. It combines biometric data (OTIC) with cryptographic techniques. The goal is to achieve robust security while maintaining minimal computational overhead. The scheme allows mutual authentication among users, gateways, and devices. A formal security analysis is conducted using the Real-or-Random (RoR) model. The results demonstrate the scheme’s resilience against polynomial-time adversaries. The scheme is efficient, robust, and resistant to common attacks, making it a practical solution for securing smart home networks. In the informal analysis, the proposed scheme was compared to other smart home authentication schemes. The comparison addressed various security features, including eavesdropping attacks, fault analysis attacks, and other security aspects. Finally, the performance analysis shows that the scheme performs well in terms of computation cost (memory = 332.2916 bits, CPU = 6.8299%, and Time = 1.5341 ms), as well as communication cost of 2,400 bits. These results demonstrate that the scheme offers lightweight performance with enhanced security.