Standards for security associations in personal networks: A comparative analysis

Introducing a new device to a network or to another device is one of the most security critical phases of communication in personal networks. It is particularly challenging to make this process of associating devices easy-to-use, secure and inexpensive at the same time. A cornerstone of this process is key establishment. In this paper, we first present a taxonomy of protocols for key establishment in personal networks as well as describe and analyse specific protocols. We then use this taxonomy in surveying and comparing association models proposed in several emerging standards from security, usability and implementability perspectives.