FAAS: Fast Authentication with Aggregate Signatures

Energy Delivery Systems (EDS) are highly time-sensitive, and therefore they require command, control and measurement data to be authenticated in a timely and secure manner. On the other hand, standard authentication tools such as traditional digital signatures have been shown to be slow, and therefore might not meet the time-sensitive authentication requirements of EDSs.

We have developed a series of fast digital signatures that can meet the stringent requirements of EDS. We first created SCRA schemes. We then created new signature schemes referred to as Fast Authentication with Aggregate Signatures (FAAS) that addresses all the issues/limitations of SCRA. That is, FAAS offers vastly improved (provable) security and also smaller private key sizes compared to SCRA.

An open-source framework, solely developed at OSU, is in progress for FAAS. FAAS schemes and their open-source implementation will supersede that of SCRA schemes. Therefore, only FAAS schemes should be considered and used as a cryptographic toolbox.

For more information about this technology or opportunities for industrial collaboration, contact Attila Yavuz. More information is also available on the Related Research Activity page.