A multivariate identity-based broadcast encryption with applications to the internet of things

Abstract

When Kevin Ashton proposed the catchword 'Internet of Things' in 1999, little did he know that technology will become an indispensable part of human lives in just two decades. In short, the Internet of Things (IoT), is a catch-all terminology used to describe devices connected to the internet. These devices can share and receive data as well as provide instructions over a network. By design itself, the IoT system requires multicasting data and information to a set of designated devices, securely. Taking everything into account, Broadcast Encryption (BE) seems to be the natural choice to address the problem. BE allows an originator to broadcast ciphertexts to a big group of receivers in a well-organized and competent way, while ensuring that only designated people can decrypt the data. In this work, we put forward the first Identity-Based Broadcast Encryption scheme based on multivariate polynomials that achieves post-quantum security. Multivariate public key cryptosystems (MPKC), touted as one of the most promising post-quantum cryptography candidates, forms the foundation on which our scheme relies upon, which allows it to be very cost-effective and faster when implemented. In addition, it also provides resistance to collusion attack, and as a consequence our scheme can be utilized to form an efficient and robust IoT system.