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.     

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.     

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.     

Cryptanalysis of a dynamic identity‐based remote user authentication scheme with verifiable password update

In the authentication scheme, it is important to ensure that the user's identity changed dynamically with the different sessions, which can protect the user's privacy information from being tracked. Recently, Chang et al. proposed an untraceable dynamic identity‐based remote user authentication scheme with verifiable password update. However, our analysis show that the property of untraceability can easily be broken by the legal user of the system. Besides, we find the scheme of Chang et al. vulnerable to offline password guessing attack, impersonation attack, stolen smart card attack, and insider attack. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Security flaws in two improved remote user authentication schemes using smart cards

Understanding security failures of cryptographic protocols is the key to both patching existing protocols and designing future schemes. In this paper, we analyze two recent proposals in the area of password‐based remote user authentication using smart cards. First, we point out that the scheme of Chen et al. cannot achieve all the claimed security goals and report its following flaws: (i) it is vulnerable to offline password guessing attack under their nontamper resistance assumption of the smart cards; and (ii) it fails to provide forward secrecy. Then, we analyze an efficient dynamic ID‐based scheme without public‐key operations introduced by Wen and Li in 2012. This proposal attempts to overcome many of the well‐known security and efficiency shortcomings of previous schemes and supports more functionalities than its counterparts. Nevertheless, Wen–Li's protocol is vulnerable to offline password guessing attack and denial of service attack, and fails to provide forward secrecy and to preserve user anonymity. Furthermore, with the security analysis of these two schemes and our previous protocol design experience, we put forward three general principles that are vital for designing secure smart‐card‐based password authentication schemes: (i) public‐key techniques are indispensable to resist against offline password guessing attack and to preserve user anonymity under the nontamper resistance assumption of the smart card; (ii) there is an unavoidable trade‐off when fulfilling the goals of local password update and resistance to smart card loss attack; and (iii) at least two exponentiation (respectively elliptic curve point multiplication) operations conducted on the server side are necessary for achieving forward secrecy. The cryptanalysis results discourage any practical use of the two investigated schemes and are important for security engineers to make their choices correctly, whereas the proposed three principles are valuable to protocol designers for advancing more robust schemes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于电子钥匙的双向身份鉴别方案

通过改进鉴别方案的安全策略和身份鉴别信息,提出了一种基于USB Key的可有效对抗离线口令猜测攻击和内部攻击的改进方案。安全性分析表明,改进后的方案保持了非存储数据型鉴别方案特点,且没有增加计算代价,具有更好的安全性和实用性。     

A secure and efficient identity‐based mutual authentication scheme with smart card using elliptic curve cryptography

The e‐commerce has got great development in the past decades and brings great convenience to people. Users can obtain all kinds of services through e‐commerce platform with mobile device from anywhere and at anytime. To make it work well, e‐commerce platform must be secure and provide privacy preserving. To achieve this goal, Islam et al. proposed a dynamic identity‐based remote user mutual authentication scheme with smart card using Elliptic Curve Cryptography(ECC). Islam et al claimed that the security of their scheme was good enough to resist various attacks. However, we demonstrate that their scheme is vulnerable to insider attack and suffers from off‐line password guessing attack if smart card is compromised. To overcome the deficiencies, we present an improved scheme over Islam's scheme. The security proof and analysis shows that our scheme can also provide user anonymity and mutual authentication, and the security is enough to against relay attack, impersonation attack, and other common secure attackers. The performance analysis shows that the proposed scheme is more efficient than Islam et al's 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.     

一种改进的动态ID远程用户身份认证方案

由于网络安全的需要,利用智能卡的双因子身份鉴别方案越来越受到重视。首先分析了Wang Yan-yan等人提出的基于动态ID的远程用户身份认证方案的安全性,指出其方案的安全缺陷是不能抵抗离线的口令猜测攻击;随后提出了一种改进的方案,改进之后的方案能有效抵抗重放攻击、离线口令猜测攻击、假冒服务器/用户攻击。经过安全分析,新的方案在保留了原方案优点的同时,具有了更高的安全性。     

Secure Remote User Mutual Authentication Scheme with Key Agreement for Cloud Environment

Authentication schemes are widely used mechanisms to thwart unauthorized access of resources over insecure networks. Several smart card based password authentication schemes have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we demonstrate the security limitations of a recently proposed password based authentication scheme, and show that their scheme is still vulnerable to forgery and offline password guessing attacks and it is also unable to provide user anonymity, forward secrecy and mutual authentication. With the intention of fixing the weaknesses of that scheme, we present a secure authentication scheme. We show that the proposed scheme is invulnerable to various attacks together with attacks observed in the analyzed scheme through both rigorous formal and informal security analysis. Furthermore, the security analysis using the widely-accepted Real-Or-Random (ROR) model ensures that the proposed scheme provides the session key (SK) security. Finally, we carry out the performance evaluation of the proposed scheme and other related schemes, and the result favors that the proposed scheme provides better trade-off among security and performance as compared to other existing related schemes.

     

An improved lightweight multiserver authentication scheme

Multiserver authentication complies with the up‐to‐date requirements of Internet services and latest applications. The multiserver architecture enables the expedient authentication of subscribers on an insecure channel for the delivery of services. The users rely on a single registration of a trusted third party for the procurement of services from various servers. Recently, Chen and Lee, Moon et al, and Wang et al presented multiserver key agreement schemes that are found to be vulnerable to many attacks according to our analysis. The Chen and Lee scheme was found susceptible to impersonation attack, trace attack, stolen smart card attack exposing session key, key‐compromise impersonation attack, and inefficient password modification. The Moon et al is susceptible to stolen card attack leading to further attacks, ie, identity guessing, key‐compromise impersonation attack, user impersonation attack, and session keys disclosure, while Wang et al is also found to be prone to trace attack, session‐specific temporary information attack, key‐compromise information attack, and privileged insider attack leading to session key disclosure and user impersonation attacks. We propose an improved protocol countering the indicated weaknesses of these schemes in an equivalent cost. Our scheme demonstrates automated and security analysis on the basis of Burrows‐Abadi‐Needham logic and also presents the performance evaluation for related schemes.     

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.     

On the security of a dynamic identity‐based remote user authentication scheme with verifiable password update

Recently, Chang et al. [Chang Y, Tai W, Chang H. Untraceable dynamic identity‐based remote user authentication scheme with verifiable password update. International Journal of Communication Systems 2013; doi:10.1002/dac.2552] proposed a dynamic identity‐based remote user authentication scheme with verifiable password update. They also proved that their scheme could withstand various attacks. Unfortunately, by proposing concrete attacks, we show that their scheme is vulnerable to three kinds of attacks. We also point out that their scheme cannot provide untraceability. The analysis shows that the scheme of Chang et al. is not suitable for practical applications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cryptanalysis and Improvement of a Robust Smart Card Authentication Scheme for Multi-server Architecture

A multi-server authentication scheme enables a remote user to access the services provided by multiple servers after registering with the registration center. Recently, Pippal et al. (Wirel Pers Commun 2013, doi:10.1007/s11277-013-1039-6) introduced a robust smart card authentication scheme for multi-server architecture. They also illustrated that their scheme could be free from potential network attacks, and validated the scheme by using BAN logic. In this paper, by presenting concrete attacks, we demonstrate that Pippal et al.’s scheme can not withstand off-line password guessing attacks, impersonation attacks and privileged insider attacks. Furthermore, to overcome these attacks, we propose an improved authentication scheme for multi-server architecture using smart card and password. Security and efficiency analysis indicates that our scheme not only actually achieves intended security goals (e.g., two-factor authentication, perfect forward secrecy etc.), but also is efficient enough to be implemented for practical applications.     

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.     

An authentication and key agreement protocol for satellite communications

In 2009 and 2011, Chen et al. and Lasc et al. proposed two separate authentication schemes for mobile satellite communication systems. Unfortunately, their schemes are unable to protect security in the event of smart card loss. In this paper, we propose a novel version that resists common malicious attacks and improves both the schemes of Chen et al. and Lasc et al. The security of our scheme is based on the discrete logarithm problem and one‐way hash function. A nonce mechanism is also applied to prevent replay attack. Furthermore, our scheme is more efficient than related schemes and thus more suitable for being implemented in satellite communication systems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于智能卡的轻量级非平衡型口令认证方案

智能卡与口令相结合的身份认证方式既可保留使用强密钥优势,又具有使用方便的特点,是一种理想的安全双因子认证方式。当前许多公开的口令认证方案,要么需要较强的计算环境而难于采用智能卡快速实现,要么不能抵抗离线口令猜测攻击或服务端内部攻击而存在安全缺陷。提出一种非平衡型口令认证方案,基于智能卡和用户口令双因子设计,具有简便高效、口令安全、双向认证特点,能够抵御离线口令猜测攻击和服务端内部攻击,可用于满足设备开机时的安全认证需求。     

A robust ElGamal‐based password‐authentication protocol using smart card for client‐server communication

Smart card‐based client‐server authentication protocol is well popular for secure data exchange over insecure and hostile networks. Recently, Lee et al. put forward an authentication protocol by utilizing ElGamal cryptosystem and proved that it can withstand known security threats. This article evinces that the protocol of Lee et al. is unwilling to protect various important security vulnerabilities such as forgery attack and off‐line password‐guessing attack. To vanquish these loopholes, this article presents a robust authentication protocol for client‐server communication over any insecure networks. The security explanation of our protocol has done through the formal and informal mechanism and its outcome makes sure that the designed protocol is strong enough to resist the known vulnerabilities. In addition, we have simulated our protocol using ProVerif online software and its results certify that our protocol is safe against private information of the client and server. This paper also has made performance estimation of the presented protocol and others, and the outcome favors the presented protocol.     

A new authenticated key agreement for session initiation protocol

The session initiation protocol (SIP) is an authentication protocol used in 3G mobile networks. In 2009, Tsai proposed an authenticated key agreement scheme as an enhancement to SIP. Yoon et al. later pointed out that the scheme of Tsai is vulnerable to off‐line password guessing attack, Denning–Sacco attack, and stolen‐verifier attack and does not support perfect forward secrecy (PFS). Yoon et al. further proposed a new scheme with PFS. In this paper, we show that the scheme of Yoon et al. is still vulnerable to stolen‐verifier attack and may also suffer from off‐line password guessing attack. We then propose several countermeasures for solving these problems. In addition, we propose a new security‐enhanced authentication scheme for SIP. Our scheme also maintains low computational complexity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cryptanalysis of smart‐card‐based password authenticated key agreement protocol for session initiation protocol of Zhang et al.

As the core signaling protocol for multimedia services, such as voice over internet protocol, the session initiation protocol (SIP) is receiving much attention and its security is becoming increasingly important. It is critical to develop a roust user authentication protocol for SIP. The original authentication protocol is not strong enough to provide acceptable security level, and a number of authentication protocols have been proposed to strengthen the security. Recently, Zhang et al. proposed an efficient and flexible smart‐card‐based password authenticated key agreement protocol for SIP. They claimed that the protocol enjoys many unique properties and can withstand various attacks. However, we demonstrate that the scheme by Zhang et al. is insecure against the malicious insider impersonation attack. Specifically, a malicious user can impersonate other users registered with the same server. We also proposed an effective fix to remedy the flaw, which remedies the security flaw without sacrificing the efficiency. The lesson learned is that the authenticators must be closely coupled with the identity, and we should prevent the identity from being separated from the authenticators in the future design of two‐factor authentication protocols. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.