Secure checkpointing using public key cryptography in mobile computing

Abstract

A secure checkpointing algorithm for resource constrained and failure prone mobile computing system is proposed here. A mobile node saves checkpoint of processes running on it. If a process fails then it recovers from last saved checkpoint due to security attack. Today's e-commerce is getting converted to m-commerce where mobile devices are used to do transactions on the Internet. A checkpoint contains system specific as well as application specific data. If checkpoint data itself gets corrupted confidentiality of application specific data is lost and recovery of failed process cannot be ensured. Hence checkpoints must be saved and retrieved securely through wireless channels. Here we define a term “Time to Security Attack “(TTS) for checkpoints of applications running on mobile nodes. TTS is defined as a function of number of mobile nodes, mobility rate, failure rate and handoff rate of mobile node in a safety critical mobile computing system. We analyze the performance of proposed secure checkpointing algorithm and compare recovery cost with and without cryptography.