Security Analysis of Two Recent Pairing-Free Certificateless Two-Party Authenticated Key Agreement Protocols for Smart Grid

Abstract: Smart grids are intelligent power transmission networks that monitor and control communication participants and grid nodes to ensure bidirectional flow of information and power between all nodes. To secure the smart grid, it is very important to design the key agreement protocol. The pairing-free certificateless two-party authenticated key agreement protocol has been widely studied and applied as a basic core protocol to protect the security of the smart grid. Until now, various protocols have been proposed, and these protocols are being introduced and operated not only in smart grid, but also in smart cities, healthcare, and vehicle ad hoc networks. In this paper, we analyzed the security properties of two recently proposed pairing-free certificateless two-party authenticated key agreement protocols for Smart grid. According to our analysis, these two protocols are insecure against basic impersonation attacks of malicious key-generator centers, man-in-the-middle attacks of malicious key generator centers, and key offset attacks. We also found and pointed out some errors in the descriptions of these protocols.