Secure and efficient Session Initiation Protocol authentication scheme for VoIP Communications

Abstract

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is widely used in Voice-over-IP (VoIP) communication to initiate communication between user and server. SIP authentication mechanism was found insecure against various attacks because of its inherent open text architecture. We analyzed different models for SIP authentication and noted their vulnerability against various attacks. Major identified weakness was lack of mutual authentication in various schemes. In this paper, we provide a new authentication model for SIP communication for secure communication establishment. We use AVISPA tool for formal security evaluation of our model. We then prove how our model can resist against various known attacks and provide mutual authentication. Our model is relatively more efficient as we use symmetric key cryptography with ECC instead of asymmetric key cryptography.