View source for Secure Key Management for Partitioned IoBT Environments

{{StudentProjectTemplate
|Summary=Design a decentralized and lightweight key management scheme that ensures secure communication even under network partitions.
|References=A Review of the Authentication Techniques for Internet of Things Devices in Smart Cities: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions. https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/6/1649

Authentication in Internet of Things, Protocols, Attacks, and Open Issues: A Systematic Literature Review. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10207-023-00806-8 
|Supervisor=Edison Pignaton de Freitas
|Level=Master
|Status=Open
}}
Problem:
IoBT nodes often lose connectivity with centralized Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), leaving them vulnerable to key compromise, replay attacks, and confidentiality breaches when operating offline.

Goal:
Design a decentralized and lightweight key management scheme that ensures secure communication even under network partitions.

Proposed Solution & Tasks:
Implement a RAM-only key storage system for tactical nodes (keys vanish if devices are captured).
Develop a peer-to-peer ephemeral certificate exchange system based on self-issued credentials.
Integrate elliptic-curve lightweight cryptography (e.g., Curve25519, ChaCha20) for constrained devices.
Simulate adversarial scenarios such as node capture and network jamming to test resilience.

Evaluation Criteria:
Key compromise resistance (measured by % of scenarios where captured nodes reveal useful credentials).
Cryptographic overhead (CPU and memory usage).
Communication resilience in partitioned networks (latency, delivery ratio).