Flexible data access control in D2D communications

Device-to-Device (D2D) communications have been regarded as an advanced technology for the next generation mobile communication networks and wireless systems (5G). It is essential to secure D2D communication data for resisting malicious attacks. However, secure D2D communications among mobile devices have not been well solved. By paying attention to the important role of trust in securing D2D communications, in this paper, we propose a scheme using either a General Trust (GT) level issued by a core network or a Local Trust (LT) level evaluated by a device or both to control D2D communication data access by applying Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE). This scheme realizes secure data communications among mobile devices under the legacy system model of Long-Term Evolution (LTE). Performance analysis and evaluation demonstrate that the proposed scheme is effective with regard to security, computation complexity, communication cost, flexibility and scalability.