{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,25]],"date-time":"2026-03-25T15:51:27Z","timestamp":1774453887089,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":62,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,14]],"date-time":"2024-06-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1718323200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)","award":["RGPIN-2018-06250"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["RGPIN-2018-06250"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Future Internet"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized connected devices, with applications in healthcare, data analytics, and smart cities. For time-sensitive applications, 5G wireless networks provide ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) and fog computing offloads IoT processing. Integrating 5G and fog computing can address cloud computing\u2019s deficiencies, but security challenges remain, especially in Authentication and Key Agreement aspects due to the distributed and dynamic nature of fog computing. This study presents an innovative mutual Authentication and Key Agreement protocol that is specifically tailored to meet the security needs of fog computing in the context of the edge\u2013fog\u2013cloud three-tier architecture, enhanced by the incorporation of the 5G network. This study improves security in the edge\u2013fog\u2013cloud context by introducing a stateless authentication mechanism and conducting a comparative analysis of the proposed protocol with well-known alternatives, such as TLS 1.3, 5G-AKA, and various handover protocols. The suggested approach has a total transmission cost of only 1280 bits in the authentication phase, which is approximately 30% lower than other protocols. In addition, the suggested handover protocol only involves two signaling expenses. The computational cost for handover authentication for the edge user is significantly low, measuring 0.243 ms, which is under 10% of the computing costs of other authentication protocols.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/fi16060209","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,17]],"date-time":"2024-06-17T04:48:12Z","timestamp":1718599692000},"page":"209","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol in Hybrid Edge\u2013Fog\u2013Cloud Computing Enhanced by 5G Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0004-7628-529X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jiayi","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western University, London, ON N6A 5B9, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3882-1763","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Abdelkader","family":"Ouda","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western University, London, ON N6A 5B9, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2695-5836","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Raafat","family":"Abu-Rukba","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 26666, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Voorsluys, W., Broberg, J., and Buyya, R. (2011). Introduction to cloud computing. Cloud Computing: Principles and Paradigms, Wiley.","DOI":"10.1002\/9780470940105.ch1"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bonomi, F., Milito, R., Zhu, J., and Addepalli, S. (2012, January 17). Fog computing and its role in the internet of things. Proceedings of the First Edition of the MCC Workshop on Mobile Cloud Computing, Helsinki, Finland.","DOI":"10.1145\/2342509.2342513"},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"Gonzalez, J., Hunt, J., Thomas, M., Anderson, R., and Mangla, U. (2024, April 23). Edge Computing Architecture and Use Cases. 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