M. MEZRAG Fares

MCB

Directory of teachers

Department

Informatics Department

Research Interests

CyberSecurity in IoT/ WSN Post-quantum cryptography Routing in WSN Identity-based cryptography IoT security

Contact Info

University of M'Sila, Algeria

Email : fares.mezrag@univ-msila.dz

On the Web:

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Recent Publications

2025-01-28

An Efficient ECC-Based Authentication Protocol for Secure RFID Healthcare Applications

As Internet and Communication Technologies (ICT)
evolve, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) has become essen-
tial in healthcare for efficiently tracking and managing tagged
medical devices. While RFID tags are extensively used on various
healthcare assets, they are exposed to serious security and privacy
risks, such as eavesdropping, data tampering, and interception,
which threaten the confidentiality of healthcare professionals and
patients. Despite the development of multiple lightweight RFID
authentication schemes, many still suffer from vulnerabilities
like replay, impersonation, and de-synchronization attacks. To
address these limitations, we present a robust and efficient
RFID authentication scheme designed specifically for IoT-enabled
healthcare applications. By integrating Elliptic Curve Cryptog-
raphy (ECC), our scheme delivers strong security with a low
computational footprint, ensuring resilience against all evaluated
attack types. Comprehensive security and performance testing
demonstrate that our protocol offers an effective balance of
security and efficiency, making it an ideal and secure choice
for real-time healthcare environments.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2025-01-28), "An Efficient ECC-Based Authentication Protocol for Secure RFID Healthcare Applications", [international] THE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INNOVATIVE INFORMATICS OF BISKRA , universite de Biskra

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2024-12-10

A new Authentication Protocol for RFID-based healthcare Application

With the rise of Internet and Communication Technologies (ICT), RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology has become indispensable in healthcare for tracking and managing tagged medical devices. Widely deployed across numerous healthcare assets, RFID tags face critical security and privacy challenges, as adversaries can eavesdrop, alter, or intercept transmitted data, compromising the confidentiality of healthcare personnel and patients. Although various lightweight RFID authentication schemes have been proposed to address these risks, many remain vulnerable to attacks, including replay, impersonation, and de-synchronization. To overcome these security limitations, we propose a resilient and efficient RFID authentication scheme tailored for IoT-enabled healthcare applications. Leveraging Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) to ensure high security with minimal computational load, our scheme demonstrates strong resistance to all assessed attack vectors. Rigorous security and performance evaluations confirm that our protocol achieves an optimal balance of security and efficiency, positioning it as a practical and secure solution for real-time healthcare environments.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2024-12-10), "A new Authentication Protocol for RFID-based healthcare Application", [international] ISIA 2024 , Msila

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2024-11-27

Implementation and Performance Evaluation of Public-Key Algorithms in Constrained Devices

Designing efficient and lightweight cryptographic schemes is crucial for resource-constrained devices.
This research paper evaluates the performance of five well-established public-key cryptographic
schemes on three such devices: IOTLAB-M3, Arduino-Zero, and Decawave DWM1001.
The evaluated schemes fall into two categories: integer factorization-based (RSA and Rabin) and
elliptic curve-based (ECIES, ECDH, and ECDSA). Through comprehensive experiments, the paper
compares the computational time and energy consumption of these schemes. The findings provide
valuable insights for selecting the optimal cryptographic schemes to use in resource-limited environments.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2024-11-27), "Implementation and Performance Evaluation of Public-Key Algorithms in Constrained Devices", [national] Second National Conference on Mathematics and Applications , M'Sila

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2024-11-01

Emas: an efficient MLWE-based authentication scheme for advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid environment

Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) plays a critical role in the smart grid by integrating metering systems with communication capabilities, especially for the industrial internet of things. However, existing authentication protocols have proven ineffective against quantum computing attacks and are computationally intensive since AMI contains limited computing components, such as smart meters. In this paper, we present a novel, efficient module learning with errors-based authentication and key agreement system for AMI, which we call EMAS. As part of the security measures of EMAS, Kyber Post-Quantum Public Key Encryption, a one-time pad mechanism, and hash functions are used. A formal and informal analysis of the security features is presented, showing that the proposed system is secure and resistant to known attacks. The performance analysis of our proposed EMAS on a B-L475E-IOT01A node equipped with a ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller shows that EMAS is more efficient than existing relevant schemes. About the computation time, EMAS takes 15.693 ms. This result is lower than other existing relevant schemes.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2024-11-01), "Emas: an efficient MLWE-based authentication scheme for advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid environment", [national] journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing , springer

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2024-09-17

Performance evaluation and analysis of public-key schemes in embedded IoT devices

The Internet of Things (IoT) is considered one of the emerging technologies that have attracted widespread attention from industry and academia as a result of their ability to usethem in many applications, including military, healthcare, and industrial control. The inherent vulnerabilities in communications of IoT networks, which consist of resource-constraineddevices, pose significant security challenges. To protect sensitive data exchanged within thesenetworks, it is necessary to design and implement lightweight and efficient cryptographicschemes that consider resource-constrained IoT devices. This paper evaluates the performanceof five well-known public-key schemes on three real-world IoT devices including IOTLAB-M3,Arduino-Zero, and Decawave DWM1001. The examined public-key schemes arecategorizedinto two classes: integer factorization-based (RSA and Rabin schemes) and elliptic curve-based (ECIES, ECDH, and ECDSA schemes). By conducting comprehensive experiments, wecompare these schemes in terms of computational time and energy consumption, providingvaluable insights for selecting optimal public-key schemes in resource-constrained IoT environments.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2024-09-17), "Performance evaluation and analysis of public-key schemes in embedded IoT devices", [national] Studies in Engineering and Exact Sciences , STUDIES

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2024-08-25

New Direct Torque Control of Dual Star Induction Motor using modified Grey Wolf Optimization Technique (mGWO)

This document compares two ways for direct torque management of the dual star induction motor drive (DSIM): standard PID and innovative heuristic optimization based on the modified grey wolf optimizer mGWO-PID. DSIM speed control loop issues can be reduced by this combination. Programming and MATLAB implementation of the mGWO algorithm. The most important mGWO-PID method reduces high torque ripple, steady-state error, rising time, and drive performance disturbances.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2024-08-25), "New Direct Torque Control of Dual Star Induction Motor using modified Grey Wolf Optimization Technique (mGWO)", [international] 5 TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING AND APPLIED NATURAL SCIENCES , Konya/Turkey.

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Enhanced Security for IoT Data Transmission

There has a remarkable amount of progress in the Internet of Things (IoT) in terms of
healthcare applications and everyday activities. IoT enables everyday objects to be connected to the
Internet. These devices are equipped with sensors and actuators that enable data collection and sharing.
However, the transmission of this data may be subject to several security and privacy concerns. To secure
data transmission in IoT networks, a mutual authentication and key management scheme (SDTS) has
proposed recently. However, this scheme suffers from security flaws such as Man-in-the-Middle (MITM)
attack vulnerabilities and a lack of mutual authentication between IoT devices. As a result of these
weaknesses, this paper proposes an enhanced scheme to address these vulnerabilities. By utilizing the
cryptographic library RELIC, the proposed scheme is implemented and evaluated through experiments
using IoTLAB-M3 devices equipped with ARM Cortex M3 micro-controllers. Compared to SDTS, the
proposed scheme achieves improved security and performance, as well as lower computational,
communication, and energy costs.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2024-08-25), "Enhanced Security for IoT Data Transmission", [international] 5 TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING AND APPLIED NATURAL SCIENCES , Konya/Turkey.

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2022

An efficient and lightweight identity-based scheme for secure communication in clustered wireless sensor networks

Clustered Wireless Sensor Networks (CWSNs) are typically deployed in unsecured or even hostile areas, making them vulnerable to many cyber-attacks and security threats that adversely affect their performance. Furthermore, the design of an efficient cryptographic scheme for CWSN is challenging due to the dynamic nature of the network and resource-constrained sensor devices. The paper presents a new identity-based authentication and key agreement scheme for CWSNs called IBAKAS, which combines Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and Identity-Based Cryptography (IBC) to provide mutual authentication and establish secret session keys over insecure channels. IBAKAS achieves all desirable security properties of key agreement and prevents specific cyber-attacks on CWSN. Moreover, the formal security of the proposed scheme is verified using the AVISPA tool. Comparison with existing relevant schemes shows that the proposed scheme decreases computational and communication overheads, saves keys storage space and prolongs the network lifetime by reducing the energy consumption of the sensor node.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2022), "An efficient and lightweight identity-based scheme for secure communication in clustered wireless sensor networks", [national] Journal of Network and Computer Applications , Elsevier

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2019

IDSP: A New Identity-Based Security Protocol for Cluster-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

Communication security in Cluster-Based Wireless
Sensor Network (CWSN) is considered as a challenging task
facing this type of network. The dynamic nature of CWSN and
its deployment in open areas making these networks vulnerable
to different kinds of cyber-attacks that can adversely affect its
own functioning. Moreover, the resource-constrained nature of
sensor devices make it impractical to apply conventional security
schemes in CWSN, which require high overhead of computation,
communication and memory storage. To deal with this issue of
communication security, we propose an efficient secure protocol
in CWSN called IDentity-based Security Protocol (IDSP), which
guarantees secure communication between Cluster Head (CH)
and Base Station (BS), as well as communication between CH and
Sensor Node (SN). IDSP is based on Identity-Based Cryptography
(IBC) that doesn’t require Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) or
complicated certificate management. The cornerstone of our
protocol is to provide a perfect trade-off between three key
factors: (i) ensuring a good protection level, especially against
various cyber-attacks that may target CWSN, (ii) proposing an
efficient process regarding energy consumption and key storage,
(iii) introducing a key exchange mechanism in IDSP which is
lightweight and uncomplicated. Moreover, our protocol treats
public key authentication problem. The proposed protocol is
tested in Cooja network simulator with WiSMote platform, and
the performance results showed that IDSP is efficient, lightweight
and secure.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2019), "IDSP: A New Identity-Based Security Protocol for Cluster-Based Wireless Sensor Networks", [international] IEEE 30th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC) , Istanbul, Turkey

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2017

Sécurité du Routage Hiérarchique Basé sur les Clusters dans les RCSFs

Les RCSFs connaissent actuellement une grande extension et une large utilisation dans différents types d’applications exigeant une grande sécurité. Ils sont typiquement déployés dans des zones hostiles, ce qui les rend vulnérables à plusieurs attaques dans lesquelles l’intrus peut prendre le contrôle d’un ou plusieurs nœuds capteurs pour perturber le bon fonctionnement du réseau. Les protocoles de routage hiérarchique dans les réseaux de capteurs sont spécifiés sans aucune mesure de sécurité (LEACH, TEEN, PEGASIS...). Pourtant, les services de sécurité sont identifiés comme essentiels pour assurer un déploiement large de ces réseaux. Dans ce livre, nous nous sommes intéressés à proposer une version sécurisée de protocole LEACH, l’idée consiste à intégrer dans ce protocole un mécanisme de sécurité qui tient compte, d’une part, des ressources limités des nœuds de capteurs et d’autre part, pour faire face aux attaques qui sont fréquemment menées contre le protocole LEACH
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2017), "Sécurité du Routage Hiérarchique Basé sur les Clusters dans les RCSFs", [national] , Editions universitaires europeennes

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Secure Routing in Cluster-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

One of the most important source of WSN vulnerability
is the forwarding process between the nodes. In fact, routing
protocols are often based on clustering principle, where a set of
clusters represented by a Cluster Head (CH) for each cluster,
is conceived to rely fundamentally data packets between the
network nodes. These protocols are vulnerable to several attacks
affecting different routing processes such as hello flooding,
selective forwarding, replay process. These attacks are more
damaging if the CH is corrupted by a malicious node playing CH
role. This paper proposes a new secure protocol based on the wellknown
LEACH routing protocol named Hybrid Cryptography-
Based Scheme for secure data communication in cluster-based
WSN (HCBS). As a multi-constrained criteria approach, HCBS
is built on a combination of the cryptography technique based
on Elliptic Curves to exchange keys that uses symmetric keys
for data encryption and MAC operations. After a set of tests on
TOSSIM simulator, the results obtained showed that our proposal
achieves good performances in terms of energy consumption, loss
rate and end-to-end delay. In addition, HCBS guaranties a high
level of security.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, (2017), "Secure Routing in Cluster-Based Wireless Sensor Networks", [international] GLOBECOM 2017 - 2017 IEEE Global Communications Conference , Singapore, Singapore

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2014

Sécurité du Routage Hiérarchique Basé sur les Clusters dans les Réseaux de Capteurs sans Fil

Les réseaux de capteurs sans fil connaissent actuellement
une grande extension et une large utilisation dans différents
types d’applications exigeant une grande sécurité. Ils
sont typiquement déployés dans des zones hostiles, ce qui les
rend vulnérables à plusieurs attaques dans lesquelles l’intrus
peut prendre le contrôle d’un ou plusieurs noeuds capteurs pour
perturber le bon fonctionnement du réseau. Les protocoles de
routage hiérarchique dans les réseaux de capteurs sont spécifiés
sans aucune mesure de sécurité (LEACH, TEEN, PEGASIS).
Pourtant, les services de sécurité sont identifiés comme essentiels
pour assurer un déploiement large de ces réseaux. Nous proposons
dans cet article, un protocole sécurisé basé sur le protocole
LEACH afin que notre protocole résiste contre les attaques
auxquelles LEACH est vulnérable.
Citation

M. MEZRAG Fares, Mohamed Benmohammed, , (2014), "Sécurité du Routage Hiérarchique Basé sur les Clusters dans les Réseaux de Capteurs sans Fil", [international] The First International Symposium on Informatics and its Applications , M’Sila University

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