The Resurrecting Duckling: Security Issues for Ad-hoc Wireless Networks

TLDR: A resurrecting duckling security policy model is presented, which describes secure transient association of a device with multiple serialised owners over the air in a short range wireless channel.

Abstract: In the near future, many personal electronic devices will be able to communicate with each other over a short range wireless channel. We investigate the principal security issues for such an environment. Our discussion is based on the concrete example of a thermometer that makes its readings available to other nodes over the air. Some lessons learned from this example appear to be quite general to ad-hoc networks, and rather different from what we have come to expect in more conventional systems: denial of service, the goals of authentication, and the problems of naming all need re-examination. We present the resurrecting duckling security policy model, which describes secure transient association of a device with multiple serialised owners.