{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,19]],"date-time":"2026-05-19T12:50:36Z","timestamp":1779195036056,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":32,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,26]],"date-time":"2025-04-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1745625600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Tianjin College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program","award":["202410057084"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["202410057084"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>As a data-centric next-generation network architecture, Named Data Networking (NDN) exhibits inherent compatibility with the distributed nature of the Internet of Things (IoT) through its name-based routing mechanism. However, existing signature schemes for NDN-IoT face dual challenges: resource-constrained IoT terminals struggle with certificate management and computationally intensive bilinear pairings under traditional Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), while NDN routers require low-latency batch verification for high-speed data forwarding. To address these issues, this study proposes ECAE, an efficient certificateless aggregate signature scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). ECAE introduces a partial private key distribution mechanism in key generation, enabling the authentication of identity by a Key Generation Center (KGC) for terminal devices. It leverages ECC and universal hash functions to construct an aggregate verification model that eliminates bilinear pairing operations and reduces communication overhead. Security analysis formally proves that ECAE resists forgery, replay, and man-in-the-middle attacks under the random oracle model. Experimental results demonstrate substantial efficiency gains: total computation overhead is reduced by up to 46.18%, and communication overhead is reduced by 55.56% compared to state-of-the-art schemes. This lightweight yet robust framework offers a trusted and scalable verification solution for NDN-IoT environments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e27050471","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,29]],"date-time":"2025-04-29T09:00:39Z","timestamp":1745917239000},"page":"471","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["ECAE: An Efficient Certificateless Aggregate Signature Scheme Based on Elliptic Curves for NDN-IoT Environments"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"27","author":[{"given":"Cong","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Artificial Intelligence, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin 300457, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0002-4743-225X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Haoyu","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Artificial Intelligence, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin 300457, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yulong","family":"Gan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Artificial Intelligence, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin 300457, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rui","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Artificial Intelligence, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin 300457, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1438-7018","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Maode","family":"Ma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Engineering, Qatar University, Doha P.O. Box 2713, Qatar"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"24872","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2024.3385317","article-title":"D-NDNoT: Deterministic Named Data Networking for Time-Sensitive IoT Applications","volume":"11","author":"Anjum","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"27043","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2024.3399031","article-title":"A Secure and Lightweight NDN-Based Vehicular Network Using Edge Computing and Certificateless Signcryption","volume":"11","author":"Cobblah","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"619","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2023.3338015","article-title":"AI-Empowered Fog\/Edge Resource Management for IoT Applications: A Comprehensive Review, Research Challenges, and Future Perspectives","volume":"26","author":"Walia","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. 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