Secure user authentication scheme with novel server mutual verification for multiserver environments

The fast growth of mobile services and devices has made the conventional single‐server architecture ineffective from the point of its functional requirements. To extend the scalability and availability of mobile services to various applications, it is required to deploy multiserver architecture. In 2016, Moon et al insisted that Lu et al's scheme is weak to insiders and impersonation attack, then they proposed a biometric‐based scheme for authentication and key agreement of users in multiserver environments. Unfortunately, we analyze Moon et al's scheme and demonstrate that their scheme does not withstand various attacks from a malicious registered server. We propose a user authentication scheme with server mutual verification to overcome these security drawbacks. The proposed scheme withstands an attack from malicious insiders in multiserver environments. We use a threshold cryptography to strengthen the process of server authorization and to provide better security functionalities. We then prove the authentication and session key of the proposed scheme using Burrows‐Abadi‐Needham (BAN) logic and show that our proposed scheme is secure against various attacks.     

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 enhanced authentication with key agreement scheme for satellite communication systems

To ensure secure communication in satellite communication systems, recently, Zhang et al presented an authentication with key agreement scheme and claimed that their scheme satisfies various security requirements. However, this paper demonstrates that Zhang et al's scheme is insecure against the stolen‐verifier attack and the denial of service attack. Furthermore, to authenticate a user, Zhang et al's scheme requires large computational load to exhaustively retrieve the user's identity and password from the account database according to a temporary identity and then update the temporary identity in the database. To overcome the weaknesses existing in Zhang et al's scheme, we proposed an enhanced authentication with key agreement scheme for satellite communication systems. The analyses of our proposed scheme show that the proposed scheme possesses perfect security properties and eliminates the weaknesses of Zhang et al's scheme well. Therefore, from the authors' viewpoints, the proposed scheme is more suitable for the authentication scheme of mobile satellite communication systems.     

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.     

A lightweight anonymous two‐factor authentication protocol for wireless sensor networks in Internet of Vehicles

Internet of Vehicles (IoV), as the next generation of transportation systems, tries to make highway and public transportation more secure than used to be. In this system, users use public channels for their communication so they can be the victims of passive or active attacks. Therefore, a secure authentication protocol is essential for IoV; consequently, many protocols are presented to provide secure authentication for IoV. In 2018, Yu et al proposed a secure authentication protocol for WSNs in vehicular communications and claimed that their protocol could satisfy all crucial security features of a secure authentication protocol. Unfortunately, we found that their protocol is susceptible to sensor capture attack, user traceability attack, user impersonation attack, and offline sink node's secret key guessing attack. In this paper, we propose a new authentication protocol for IoV which can solve the weaknesses of Yu et al's protocol. Our protocol not only provides anonymous user registration phase and revocation smart card phase but also uses the biometric template in place of the password. We use both Burrow‐Abadi‐Needham (BAN) logic and real‐or‐random (ROR) model to present the formal analysis of our protocol. Finally, we compare our protocol with other existing related protocols in terms of security features and computation overhead. The results prove that our protocol can provide more security features and it is usable for IoV system.     

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.     

Cryptanalysis of a dynamic ID‐based remote user authentication with key agreement scheme

A dynamic user authentication scheme allows a user and a remote server to authenticate each other without leaking the user's identity. In 2011, Wen and Li proposed an improved dynamic ID‐based remote user authentication with key agreement scheme for mobile and home networks. They claimed that their scheme was more secure than the scheme of Wang et al. However, we demonstrate that their scheme is vulnerable to the privileged insider, off‐line password guessing, impersonation, and server spoofing attacks. At the same time, it does not provide any user anonymity and forward secrecy property. Thus, it is not feasible for real‐life implementation.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

An efficient and secure 3‐factor user‐authentication protocol for multiserver environment

In the last decade, the number of web‐based applications is increasing rapidly, which leads to high demand for user authentication protocol for multiserver environment. Many user‐authentication protocols have been proposed for different applications. Unfortunately, most of them either have some security weaknesses or suffer from unsatisfactory performance. Recently, Ali and Pal proposed a three‐factor user‐authentication protocol for multiserver environment. They claimed that their protocol can provide mutual authentication and is secure against many kinds of attacks. However, we find that Ali and Pal's protocol cannot provide user anonymity and is vulnerable to 4 kinds of attacks. To enhance security, we propose a new user‐authentication protocol for multiserver environment. Then, we provide a formal security analysis and a security discussion, which indicate our protocol is provably secure and can withstand various attacks. Besides, we present a performance analysis to show that our protocol is efficient and practical for real industrial environment.     

A Secure and Effective Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Roaming Service in Global Mobility Networks

Recently, Mun et al. analyzed Wu et al.’s authentication scheme and proposed an enhanced anonymous authentication scheme for roaming service in global mobility networks. However, through careful analysis, we find that Mun et al.’s scheme is vulnerable to impersonation attacks and insider attacks, and cannot provide user friendliness, user’s anonymity, proper mutual authentication and local verification. To remedy these weaknesses, we propose a novel anonymous authentication scheme for roaming service in global mobility networks. Compared with previous related works, our scheme has many advantages. Firstly, the secure authenticity of the scheme is formally validated by an useful formal model called BAN logic. Secondly, the scheme enjoys many important security attributes including prevention of various attacks, user anonymity, no verification table, local password verification and so on. Thirdly, the scheme does not use timestamp, thus it avoids the clock synchronization problem. Further, the scheme contains the authentication and establishment of session key scheme when mobile user is located in his/her home network, therefore it is more practical and universal for global mobility networks. Finally, performance and cost analysis show our scheme is more suitable for low-power and resource limited mobile devices and thus availability for real implementation.     

Privacy‐preserving registration protocol for mobile network

In this paper, we propose a novel privacy‐preserving registration protocol that combines the verifier local revocation group signature with mobile IP. The protocol could achieve strong security guarantee, such as user anonymity via a robust temporary identity, local user revocation with untraceability support, and secure key establishment against home server and eavesdroppers. Various kinds of adversary attacks can be prevented by the proposed protocol, especially that deposit‐case attack does not work here. Meanwhile, a concurrent mechanism and a dynamical revocation method are designed to minimize the handover authentication delay and the home registration signals. The theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed scheme could provide high security level besides lightweight computational cost and efficient communication performance. For instance, compared with Yang's scheme, the proposed protocol could decrease the falling speed of handover authentication delay up to about 40% with privacy being preserved. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

Secure anonymous authentication scheme without verification table for mobile satellite communication systems

An authentication scheme is one of the most basic and important security mechanisms for satellite communication systems because it prevents illegal access by an adversary. Lee et al. recently proposed an efficient authentication scheme for mobile satellite communication systems. However, we observed that this authentication scheme is vulnerable to a denial of service (DoS) attack and does not offer perfect forward secrecy. Therefore, we propose a novel secure authentication scheme without verification table for mobile satellite communication systems. The proposed scheme can simultaneously withstand DoS attacks and support user anonymity and user unlinkability. In addition, the proposed scheme is based on the elliptic curve cryptosystem, has low client‐side and server‐side computation costs, and achieves perfect forward secrecy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A practical authentication protocol with anonymity for wireless access networks

The use of anonymous channel tickets was proposed for authentication in wireless environments to provide user anonymity and to probably reduce the overhead of re‐authentications. Recently, Yang et al. proposed a secure and efficient authentication protocol for anonymous channel in wireless systems without employing asymmetric cryptosystems. In this paper, we will show that Yang et al.'s scheme is vulnerable to guessing attacks performed by malicious visited networks, which can easily obtain the secret keys of the users. We propose a new practical authentication scheme not only reserving the merits of Yang et al.'s scheme, but also extending some additional merits including: no verification table in the home network, free of time synchronization between mobile stations and visited networks, and without obsolete anonymous tickets left in visited networks. The proposed scheme is developed based on a secure one‐way hash function and simple operations, a feature which is extremely fit for mobile devices. We provide the soundness of the authentication protocol by using VO logic. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An independent three‐factor mutual authentication and key agreement scheme with privacy preserving for multiserver environment and a survey

In the past decades, the demand for remote mutual authentication and key agreement (MAKA) scheme with privacy preserving grows rapidly with the rise of the right to privacy and the development of wireless networks and Internet of Things (IoT). Numerous remote MAKA schemes are proposed for various purposes, and they have different properties. In this paper, we survey 49 three‐factor–based remote MAKA schemes with privacy preserving from 2013 to 2019. None of them can simultaneously achieve security, suitability for multiserver environments, user anonymity, user untraceability, table free, public key management free, and independent authentication. Therefore, we propose an efficient three‐factor MAKA scheme, which achieves all the properties. We propose a security model of a three‐factor–based MAKA scheme with user anonymity for multiserver environments and formally prove that our scheme is secure under the elliptic curve computational Diffie‐Hellman problem assumption, decisional bilinear Diffie‐Hellman problem assumption, and hash function assumption. We compare the proposed scheme to relevant schemes to show our contribution and also show that our scheme is sufficiently efficient for low‐power portable mobile devices.     

A pairing‐free identity‐based handover AKE protocol with anonymity in the heterogeneous wireless networks

Nowadays, seamless roaming service in heterogeneous wireless networks attracts more and more attention. When a mobile user roams into a foreign domain, the process of secure handover authentication and key exchange (AKE) plays an important role to verify the authenticity and establish a secure communication between the user and the access point. Meanwhile, to prevent the user's current location and moving history information from being tracked, privacy preservation should be also considered. However, existing handover AKE schemes have more or less defects in security aspects or efficiency. In this paper, a secure pairing‐free identity‐based handover AKE protocol with privacy preservation is proposed. In our scheme, users' temporary identities will be used to conceal their real identities during the handover process, and the foreign server can verify the legitimacy of the user with the home server's assistance. Besides, to resist ephemeral private key leakage attack, the session key is generated from the static private keys and the ephemeral private keys together. Security analysis shows that our protocol is provably secure in extended Canetti‐Krawczyk (eCK) model under the computational Diffie‐Hellman (CDH) assumption and can capture desirable security properties including key‐compromise impersonation resistance, ephemeral secrets reveal resistance, strong anonymity, etc. Furthermore, the efficiency of our identity‐based protocol is improved by removing pairings, which not only simplifies the complex management of public key infrastructure (PKI) but also reduces the computation overhead of ID‐based cryptosystem with pairings. It is shown that our proposed handover AKE protocol provides better security assurance and higher computational efficiency for roaming authentication in heterogeneous wireless networks.     

A lightweight anonymous authentication scheme for consumer roaming in ubiquitous networks with provable security

Ubiquitous networks provide roaming service for mobile nodes enabling them to use the services extended by their home networks in a foreign network. A mutual authentication scheme between the roamed mobile node and the foreign network is needed to be performed through the home network. Various authentication schemes have been developed for such networks, but most of them failed to achieve security in parallel to computational efficiency. Recently, Shin et al. and Wen et al. separately proposed two efficient authentication schemes for roaming service in ubiquitous networks. Both argued their schemes to satisfy all the security requirements for such systems. However, in this paper, we show that Shin et al. 's scheme is susceptible to: (i) user traceability; (ii) user impersonation; (iii) service provider impersonation attacks; and (iv) session key disclosure. Furthermore, we show that Wen et al. 's scheme is also insecure against: (i) session key disclosure; and (ii) known session key attacks. To conquer the security problems, we propose an improved authentication scheme with anonymity for consumer roaming in ubiquitous networks. The proposed scheme not only improved the security but also retained a lower computational cost as compared with existing schemes. We prove the security of proposed scheme in random oracle model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于动态ID远程用户身份认证方案的改进

对Wang提出的动态ID远程用户身份认证方案进行了回顾和分析,指出了Wang方案中存在不能保护用户匿名和不能抗拒绝服务攻击的缺陷。针对此缺陷,在保留原方案优点的基础上提出了一种改进的动态ID远程用户身份认证方案,并通过对比分析说明了改进方案的安全性和有效性。     

An Efficient Ticket Based Authentication Protocol with Unlinkability for Wireless Access Networks

The concept of anonymous channel ticket is one of the effective measures to protect user privacy and to reduce the overhead of re-authentication for wireless environments. Most recently, Hsieh et al. proposed an anonymous authentication protocol based on elliptic curve cryptography to enhance the efficiency and security strength. However, we identify that Hsieh et al.’s scheme has four weaknesses. (1) The scheme fails to provide identity anonymity. (2) The ticket authentication phase of the scheme suffers from desynchronization attack. (3) The scheme is vulnerable to the privileged insider attack. (4) Users cannot change passwords when required. We further propose an improved authentication scheme, which not only preserves the merits of the scheme of Hsieh et al., but also enjoys several other advantages. Our improved scheme is effective in protection from the weaknesses identified and achieves user anonymity and unlinkability. We compare the functionality and performance of our improved scheme with other related schemes, which indicates that our scheme is more secure and yet efficient for wireless access networks.     

Revised anonymous authentication protocol for adaptive client‐server infrastructure

Rapid evolution in information and communication technologies has facilitated us to experience mobile communication in our daily routine. Mobile user can only avail the services from the server, once he/she is able to accomplish authentication process successfully. In the recent past, several researchers have contributed diverse authentication protocols for mobile client‐server environment. Currently, Lu et al designed two‐factor protocol for authenticating mobile client and server to exchange key between them. Lu et al emphasized that their scheme not only offers invincibility against potential security threats but also offers anonymity. Although this article reveals the facts that their protocol is vulnerable against client and server impersonation, man‐in‐the‐middle, server key breach, anonymity violation, client traceability, and session‐specific temporary attacks, therefore, we have enhanced their protocol to mitigate the above mention vulnerabilities. The enhanced protocol's security strength is evaluated through formal and informal security analysis. The security analysis and performance comparison endorses the fact that our protocol is able to offer more security with least possible computation complexity.