An efficient three factor–based authentication scheme in multiserver environment using ECC

Recently, Li et al have developed a smartcard‐based remote user authentication scheme in multiserver environment. They have claimed that their scheme is secured against some possible cryptographic attacks. However, we have analyzed that the scheme of Li et al cannot preserve all the proclaimed security goals, which are given as follows: (1) It is not withstanding password‐guessing, user impersonation, insider, and smartcard theft attacks, and (2) it fails to facilitate user anonymity property. To remedy these above‐mentioned security flaws, we have proposed an efficient three factor–based authentication scheme in a multiserver environment using elliptic curve cryptography. The Burrows‐Abadi‐Needham logic is used to confirm the security validation of our scheme, which ensures that it provides mutual‐authentication and session‐key agreement securely. Then, the random oracle model is also considered to analyze the proposed scheme, and it shows that the backbone parameters, ie, identity, password, biometrics, and the session key, are secure from an adversary. Further, the informal security analysis confirms that the suggested scheme can withstand against some possible mentioned attacks. Later, the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool is incorporated to ensure its security against passive and active attacks. Finally, the performance comparison of the scheme is furnished to confirm its enhanced security with other relevant schemes.     

A new three-factor authentication and key agreement protocol for multi-server environment

Several password and smart-card based two-factor security remote user authentication protocols for multi-server environment have been proposed for the last two decades. Due to tamper-resistant nature of smart cards, the security parameters are stored in it and it is also a secure place to perform authentication process. However, if the smart card is lost or stolen, it is possible to extract the information stored in smart card using power analysis attack. Hence, the two factor security protocols are at risk to various attacks such as password guessing attack, impersonation attack, replay attack and so on. Therefore, to enhance the level of security, researchers have focused on three-factor (Password, Smart Card, and Biometric) security authentication scheme for multi-server environment. In existing biometric based authentication protocols, keys are generated using fuzzy extractor in which keys cannot be renewed. This property of fuzzy extractor is undesirable for revocation of smart card and re-registration process when the smart card is lost or stolen. In addition, existing biometric based schemes involve public key cryptosystem for authentication process which leads to increased computation cost and communication cost. In this paper, we propose a new multi-server authentication protocol using smart card, hash function and fuzzy embedder based biometric. We use Burrows–Abadi–Needham logic to prove the correctness of the new scheme. The security features and efficiency of the proposed scheme is compared with recent schemes and comparison results show that this scheme provides strong security with a significant efficiency.

     

Improvement of robust smart‐card‐based password authentication scheme

Smart‐card‐based password authentication scheme is one of the commonly used mechanisms to prevent unauthorized service and resource access and to remove the potential security threats over the insecure networks and has been investigated extensively in the last decade. Recently, Chen et al. proposed a smart‐card‐based password authentication scheme and claimed that the scheme can withstand offline password guessing attacks even if the information stored in the smart card is extracted by the adversary. However, we observe that the scheme of Chen et al. is insecure against offline password guessing attacks in this case. To remedy this security problem, we propose an improved authentication protocol, which inherits the merits of the scheme of Chen et al. and is free from the security flaw of their scheme. Compared with the previous schemes, our improved scheme provides more security guarantees while keeping efficiency. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A lightweight password‐based authentication protocol using smart card

With its simplicity and feasibility, password‐based remote user authentication becomes a popular way to control remote access to network. These years, numerous password‐based authentication schemes have been proposed. Recently, Maitra et al proposed a smart card–based scheme which claims to be resistant to various attacks. Unfortunately, we found some important flaws in this scheme. Therefore, in this paper, we will demonstrate that the scheme of Maitra et al is not secure enough as claimed: neither resisting against off‐line password guessing attack and insider attack nor preserve forward secrecy. To overcome those flaws, we put forward an improved new scheme which not only is resistant to all known attacks but also provides many attractive attributes, such as user revocation and re‐register. Also, we compared the scheme with other related schemes, the result proved the superiority of our scheme. Particularly, we show a new way (beyond the conventional Deffie‐Hellman approach) to achieve forward secrecy. Furthermore, we put some efforts into exploring the design principle of authentication schemes.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of 2 mutual authentication schemes for Session Initiation Protocol

Recently, Chaudhry et al and Kumari et al proposed an advanced mutual authentication protocol for Session Initiation Protocol on the basis of the protocol of Lu et al. The authors claimed that their schemes can be resistant to various attacks. Unfortunately, we observe some important flaws in their respective schemes. We point out that their schemes are prone to off‐line password guessing and privileged insider attacks. To remedy their protocols's drawbacks, in this paper, we present a new improved authentication scheme keeping apart the threats encountered in the design of the schemes of Chaudhry et al and Kumari et al. Furthermore, the security analysis illustrates that our proposed scheme not only removes these drawbacks in their schemes but also can resist all known attacks and provide session key security. We give a heuristic security analysis and also provide the security analysis of the proposed scheme with the help of widespread Burrows‐Abadi‐Needham Logic. Finally, our scheme is compared with the previously proposed schemes on security and performance.     

An enhanced bilinear pairing based authenticated key agreement protocol for multiserver environment

To circumvent using of multiple single servers, the theory of multiserver communication exists and numerous authentication protocols put forward for providing secure communication. Very recently, Amin‐Biswas proposes bilinear pairing–based multiserver scheme by describing some security pitfalls of Hsieh‐Leu protocol and claims that it is secured against related security threats. However, this paper claims that Amin‐Biswas protocol is still susceptible to off‐line identity and password guessing attack, user untraceability attack, and server masquerading attack. The cryptographic protocol should be attacks‐free for real‐time application. To achieve attacks‐free security, we put forward smart card–based multiserver authentication protocol by using the concept of bilinear pairing operation. The formal method strand space model has been used to prove the correctness of the proposed scheme. Additionally, rigorous security analysis ensures pliability of common security threats. The performance and security features of our scheme are also compared with that of the similar existing schemes. The comparison results show that our protocol achieves more security features with less complexity.     

Robust smart‐card‐based remote user password authentication scheme

Smart‐card‐based remote user password authentication schemes are commonly used for providing authorized users a secure method for remotely accessing resources over insecure networks. In 2009, Xu et al. proposed a smart‐card‐based password authentication scheme. They claimed their scheme can withstand attacks when the information stored on the smart card is disclosed. Recently, Sood et al. and Song discovered that the smart‐card‐based password authentication scheme of Xu et al. is vulnerable to impersonation and internal attacks. They then proposed their respective improved schemes. However, we found that there are still flaws in their schemes: the scheme of Sood et al. does not achieve mutual authentication and the secret key in the login phase of Song's scheme is permanent and thus vulnerable to stolen‐smart‐card and off‐line guessing attacks. In this paper, we will propose an improved and efficient smart‐card‐based password authentication and key agreement scheme. According to our analysis, the proposed scheme not only maintains the original secret requirement but also achieves mutual authentication and withstands the stolen‐smart‐card attack. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improved remote password authentication scheme with smart card

This paper analyzes the security performance of a latest proposed remote two-factor user authentication scheme and proposes an improved scheme based on the dynamic ID to avoid the attacks it suffers. Besides this, in our proposed scheme the password is no longer involved in the calculation of verification phase which makes our scheme more secure and costs less than the old one. At last we analyze the performance of our proposed scheme to prove it provides mutual authentication between the user and the server. Moreover, it also resists password guessing attack, server and user masquerade attack and replay attack effectively.     

An Improved and Secure Two-factor Dynamic ID Based Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme for Multiserver Environment

The smart card based password authentication scheme is one of the most important and efficient security mechanism, which is used for providing security to authorized users over an insecure network. In this paper, we analyzed major security flaws of Jangirala et al.’s scheme and proved that it is vulnerable to forgery attack, replay attack, user impersonation attack. Also, Jangirala et al.’s scheme fail to achieve mutual authentication as it claimed. We proposed an improved two factor based dynamic ID based authenticated key agreement protocol for the multiserver environment. The proposed scheme has been simulated using widely accepted AVISPA tool. Furthermore, mutual authentication is proved through BAN logic. The rigorous security and performance analysis depicts that the proposed scheme provides users anonymity, mutual authentication, session key agreement and secure against various active attacks.     

Analysis and Improvement of a Robust Smart Card Based-Authentication Scheme for Multi-Server Architecture

Recently, Pippal et al. proposed an authentication scheme for multi-server architecture and claimed that their scheme had many advantages compared to the previous schemes, such as security, reliability, etc. In this paper, we reanalyze the security of their scheme and demonstrate that their scheme is vulnerable to impersonation attack even if the adversary doesn’t know the information stored in the user’s smart card. Moreover, the adversary can proceed off-line password guessing attack if the user’s smart card is compromised. In order to eliminate those shortcomings, we propose an improved multi-server authentication scheme which can preserve user anonymity. We demonstrate the completeness of the proposed scheme through the BAN logic. Compared with other related protocols, the security analysis and performance evaluation show that our proposed scheme can provide stronger security.     

On the design of secure user authenticated key management scheme for multigateway‐based wireless sensor networks using ECC

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), there are many critical applications (for example, healthcare, vehicle tracking, and battlefield), where the online streaming data generated from different sensor nodes need to be analyzed with respect to quick control decisions. However, as the data generated by these sensor nodes usually flow through open channel, so there are higher chances of various types of attacks either on the nodes or on to the data captured by these nodes. In this paper, we aim to design a new elliptic curve cryptography–based user authenticated key agreement protocol in a hierarchical WSN so that a legal user can only access the streaming data from generated from different sensor nodes. The proposed scheme is based upon 3‐factor authentication, as it applies smart card, password, and personal biometrics of a user (for ticket generation). The proposed scheme maintains low computation cost for resource‐constrained sensor nodes, as it uses efficient 1‐way cryptographic hash function and bitwise exclusive‐OR operations for secure key establishment between different sensor nodes. The security analysis using the broadly accepted Burrows‐Abadi‐Needham logic, formal security verification using the popular simulation tool (automated validation of Internet security protocols and applications), and informal security show that the proposed scheme is resilient against several well‐known attacks needed for a user authentication scheme in WSNs. The comparison of security and functionality requirements, communication and computation costs of the proposed scheme, and other related existing user authentication schemes shows the superior performance of the proposed scheme.     

An improved password‐based authentication scheme for session initiation protocol using smart cards without verification table

Authentication schemes have been widely deployed access control and mobility management in various communication networks. Especially, the schemes that are based on multifactor authentication such as on password and smart card come to be more practical. One of the standard authentication schemes that have been widely used for secure communication over the Internet is session initiation protocol (SIP). The original authentication scheme proposed for SIP was vulnerable to some crucial security weaknesses. To overcome the security problems, various improved authentication schemes have been developed, especially based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). Very recently, Zhang et al . proposed an improved authentication scheme for SIP based on ECC using smart cards to overcome the security flaws of the related protocols. Zhang et al . claimed that their protocol is secure against all known security attacks. However, this paper indicates that Zhang et al . protocol is still insecure against impersonation attack. We show that an active attacker can easily masquerade as a legal server to fool users. As a remedy, we also improve Zhang et al . protocol by imposing a little extra computation cost. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design and Validation of an Efficient Authentication Scheme with Anonymity for Roaming Service in Global Mobility Networks

Designing a user authentication protocol with anonymity for the global mobility network (GLOMONET) is a difficult task because wireless networks are susceptible to attacks and each mobile user has limited power, processing and storage resources. In this paper, a secure and lightweight user authentication protocol with anonymity for roaming service in the GLOMONET is proposed. Compared with other related approaches, our proposal has many advantages. Firstly, it uses low-cost functions such as one-way hash functions and exclusive-OR operations to achieve security goals. Having this feature, it is more suitable for battery-powered mobile devices. Secondly, it uses nonces instead of timestamps to avoid the clock synchronization problem. Therefore, an additional clock synchronization mechanism is not needed. Thirdly, it only requires four message exchanges between the user, foreign agent and home agent. Further, the security properties of our protocol are formally validated by a model checking tool called AVISPA. We also demonstrate that this protocol enjoys important security attributes including prevention of various attacks, single registration, user anonymity, no password table, and high efficiency in password authentication. Security and performance analyses show that compared with other related authentication schemes, the proposed scheme is more secure and efficient.     

Cryptanalysis and security enhancement of a robust two‐factor authentication and key agreement protocol

Two‐factor user authentication scheme allows a user to use a smart card and a password to achieve mutual authentication and establish a session key between a server and a user. In 2012, Chen et al. showed that the scheme of Sood et al. does not achieve mutual authentication and is vulnerable to off‐line password guessing and smart card stolen attacks. They also found that another scheme proposed by Song is vulnerable to similar off‐line password guessing and smart card stolen attacks. They further proposed an improved scheme. In this paper, we first show that the improved scheme of Chen et al. still suffers from off‐line password guessing and smart card stolen attacks, does not support perfect forward secrecy, and lacks the fairness of session key establishment. We then propose a new security‐enhanced scheme and show its security and authentication using the formal verification tool ProVerif, which is based on applied pi calculus. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An anonymous biometric‐based remote user‐authenticated key agreement scheme for multimedia systems

We analyze the security of the Li et al . authentication scheme and show its vulnerability to off‐line password‐guessing and replay attacks. We design a new anonymous authentication scheme. The proposed scheme not only removes the drawback of the scheme of the Li et al . scheme but also protects user's anonymity. Moreover, we show validity of our proposed scheme using Burrows, Abadi, and Needham logic. Our scheme is comparable in terms of the communication and computational overhead with related schemes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Security Enhanced Anonymous User Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme Using Smart Card

Nowadays, the password-based remote user authentication mechanism using smart card is one of the simplest and convenient authentication ways to ensure secure communications over the public network environments. Recently, Liu et al. proposed an efficient and secure smart card based password authentication scheme. However, we find that Liu et al.’s scheme is vulnerable to the off-line password guessing attack and user impersonation attack. Furthermore, it also cannot provide user anonymity. In this paper, we cryptanalyze Liu et al.’s scheme and propose a security enhanced user authentication scheme to overcome the aforementioned problems. Especially, in order to preserve the user anonymity and prevent the guessing attack, we use the dynamic identity technique. The analysis shows that the proposed scheme is more secure and efficient than other related authentication schemes.     

Secure and Efficient Mutual Adaptive User Authentication Scheme for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks Using Multimedia Client–Server Systems

In hierarchical wireless sensor networks (H-WSNs), adaptive user authentication scheme has attracted significantly for the purposes of mutual authentication, session key establishment and resiliency to the attacks, like impersonation, parallel-session and password guessing. Several user authentication schemes have been proposed recently; though the schemes have had many potential vulnerabilities, such as key-impersonation, user anonymity, eavesdropping and masquerade. Thus, this paper proposes secure-cum-efficient mutual adaptive user authentication (S-Cum-EMAUA) scheme for practical use in H-WSNs. The scheme of S-Cum-EMAUA) is not only resilient to the most of the potential attacks, but also provides mutual authentication, user anonymity and session-key establishment. In addition, the proposed scheme is well secured, since it has the usage of the hash-function and X-OR operation.

     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of ‘a robust smart‐card‐based remote user password authentication scheme’

With the use of smart card in user authentication mechanisms, the concept of two‐factor authentication came into existence. This was a forward move towards more secure and reliable user authentication systems. It elevated the security level by requiring a user to possess something in addition to know something. In 2010, Sood et al. and Song independently examined a smart‐card‐based authentication scheme proposed by Xu et al. They showed that in the scheme of Xu et al., an internal user of the system can turn hostile to impersonate other users of the system. Both of them also proposed schemes to improve the scheme of Xu et al. Recently, Chen et al. identified some security problems in the improved schemes proposed by Sood et al. and Song. To fix these problems, Chen et al. presented another scheme, which they claimed to provide mutual authentication and withstand lost smart card attack. Undoubtedly, in their scheme, a user can also verify the legitimacy of server, but we find that the scheme fails to resist impersonation attacks and privileged insider attack. We also show that the scheme does not provide important features such as user anonymity, confidentiality to air messages, and revocation of lost/stolen smart card. Besides, the scheme defies the very purpose of two‐factor security. Furthermore, an attacker can guess a user's password from his or her lost/stolen smart card. To meet these challenges, we propose a user authentication method with user anonymity. We show through analysis and comparison that the proposed scheme exhibits enhanced efficiency in contrast to related schemes, including the scheme of Chen et al. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Threshold password authentication against guessing attacks in Ad hoc networks

Password authentication has been accepted as one of the commonly used solutions in network environment to protect resources from unauthorized access. The emerging mobile Ad hoc network, however, has called for new requirements for designing authentication schemes due to its dynamic nature and vulnerable-to-attack structure, which the traditional schemes overlooked, such as availability and strong security against off line guessing attacks in face of node compromise. In this paper, we propose a threshold password authentication scheme, which meets both availability and strong security requirements in the mobile Ad hoc networks. In our scheme, t out of n server nodes can jointly achieve mutual authentication with a registered user within only two rounds of message exchanges. Our scheme allows users to choose and change their memorable password without subjecting to guessing attacks. Moreover, there is no password table in the server nodes end, which is preferable since mobile nodes are usually memory-restricted devices. We also show that our scheme is efficient to be implemented in mobile devices.     

Dynamic ID-based remote user mutual authentication scheme with smartcard using Elliptic Curve Cryptography

In the literature, several dynamic ID-based remote user mutual authentication schemes are implemented using password, smartcard and Elliptic Curve Cryptography （ECC）, however, none of them provides resilience against different attacks. Therefore, there is a great need to design an efficient scheme for practical applications. In this paper, we proposed such a scheme in order to provide desired security attributes and computation efficiencies. Compared with other existing techniques, our scheme is more efficient and secured. In addition, our scheme is provably secure in the random oracle model under the hardness assumption of computational Diffie-Hellman problem.