In recent years, research has increasingly focused on enhancing implicit certificates, particularly the Elliptic Curve Qu-Vanstone (ECQV) scheme. Im- plicit certificates offer a significant advantage, shorter signatures, making them ideal for resource- constrained IoT devices that must store and ex- change numerous certificates. However, despite their potential, several challenges persist:
- Decentralized Issuance - Can third parties is- sue certificates independently at a local level?
- Reputability Concerns - Traditional public key possession does not inherently prove own- ership by the original requester.
With the emergence of more powerful IoT devices, we must reevaluate the role of implicit certificates:
- Do they still offer a significant advantage over explicit certificates?
- In which direction should future research on implicit certificates evolve?
If you are interested in cryptographic security for IoT and want to contribute to shaping the fu- ture of certificate-based authentication, this thesis topic offers a look at an alternative opportunity!
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Student Target Groups:
- Students of ICE/Telematics;
- Students of Computer Science;
- Students of Software Engineering;
- Students of Digital Engineering.
Thesis Type:
- Bachelor Thesis, Seminar Project, Master Project / Master Thesis
Goal and Tasks:
- Review the available literature on implicit cer- tificates and their use with embedded devices, understanding the main challenges.
- Replicate some of the research claims, such as 1, and work on exploring potential integrations;
- Gain an understanding of both the latest im- plicit and explicit certificate reference models and integrate them into an embedded system;
- Evaluate the potential security extensions us- ing either a formal or informal security analysis and perform performance analysis on an imple- mented wireless networked system.
1: Liu et al., “Extension of elliptic curve Qu-Vanstone certificates and their applications”, Journal of In- formation Security and Applications, 2022.
Recommended Prior Knowledge:
- Skills in C programming;
- Understanding of security concepts;
- Experience with embedded systems is a plus.
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