An anonymous mobile user authentication protocol using self-certified public keys based on multi-server architectures

As a smart phone becomes a daily necessity, mobile services are springing up. A mobile user should be authenticated and authorized before accessing these mobile services. Generally, mobile user authentication is a method which is used to validate the legitimacy of a mobile login user. As the rapid booming of computer networks, multi-server architecture has been pervasive in many network environments. Much recent research has been focused on proposing password-based remote user authentication protocols using smart cards for multi-server environments. To protect the privacy of users, many dynamic identity based remote user authentication protocols were proposed. In 2009, Hsiang and Shih claimed their protocol is efficient, secure, and suitable for the practical application environment. However, Sood et al. pointed out Hsiang et al.’s protocol is susceptible to replay attack, impersonation attack and stolen smart card attack. Moreover, the password change phase of Hsiang et al.’s protocol is incorrect. Thus, Sood et al. proposed an improved protocol claimed to be practical and computationally efficient. Nevertheless, Li et al. found that Sood et al.’s protocol is still vulnerable to leak-of-verifier attack, stolen smart card attack and impersonation attack and consequently proposed an improvement to remove the aforementioned weaknesses. In 2012, Liao et al. proposed a novel pairing-based remote user authentication protocol for multi-server environment, the scheme based on elliptic curve cryptosystem is more secure and efficient. However, through careful analyses, we find that Liao et al.’s protocol is still susceptible to the trace attack. Besides, Liao et al.’s protocol is inefficient since each service server has to update its ID table periodically. In this paper, we propose an improved protocol to solve these weaknesses. By enhancing the security, the improved protocol is well suited for the practical environment.     

Weaknesses and improvement of Wang et al.'s remote user password authentication scheme for resource-limited environments

Recently, Wang et al. showed that two new verifier-free remote user password authentication schemes, Ku-Chen's scheme and Yoon et al.'s scheme, are vulnerable to an off-line password guessing attack, a forgery attack, and a denial-of-service attack, and then proposed an improved scheme for the real application in resource-limited environments. Unfortunately, we find that Wang et al.'s scheme is still vulnerable to an impersonation attack and an off-line password guessing attack. In addition, Wang et al.'s scheme is not easily reparable and is unable to provide perfect forward secrecy. Finally, we propose an improved scheme with better security strength.     

Secure Dynamic Identity-Based Authentication Scheme Using Smart Cards

ABSTRACT

In 2004, Das et al. proposed a dynamic identity-based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards. This scheme allows users to choose and change their passwords freely, and the server does not maintain any verification table. Das et al. claimed that their scheme is secure against stolen verifier attack, replay attack, forgery attack, dictionary attack, insider attack and identity theft. However, many researchers have demonstrated that Das et al.'s scheme is susceptible to various attacks. Furthermore, this scheme does not achieve mutual authentication and thus cannot resist malicious server attack. In 2009, Wang et al. argued that Das et al.'s scheme is susceptible to stolen smart card attack. If an attacker obtains the smart card of the user and chooses any random password, the attacker gets through the authentication process to get access of the remote server. Therefore, Wang et al. suggested an improved scheme to preclude the weaknesses of Das et al.'s scheme. However, we found that Wang et al.'s scheme is susceptible to impersonation attack, stolen smart card attack, offline password guessing attack, denial of service attack and fails to preserve the user anonymity. This paper improves Wang et al.'s scheme to resolve the aforementioned problems, while keeping the merits of different dynamic identity based smart card authentication schemes.     

Dynamic ID-based remote user password authentication schemes using smart cards: A review

Remote user authentication is a mechanism, in which the remote server verifies the legitimacy of a user over an insecure communication channel. Until now, there have been ample of remote user authentication schemes published in the literature and each published scheme has its own merits and demerits. A common feature among most of the published schemes is that the user's identity (ID) is static in all the transaction sessions, which may leak some information about that user and can create risk of identity theft during the message transmission. To overcome this risk, many researchers have proposed dynamic ID based remote user authentication schemes. In this paper, we have defined all the security requirements and all the goals an ideal password authentication scheme should satisfy and achieve. We have presented the results of our survey through six of the currently available dynamic ID based remote user authentication schemes. All the schemes are vulnerable to guessing attack except Khan et al.'s scheme, and do not meet the goals such as session key agreement, secret key forward secrecy. In the future, we hope an ideal dynamic ID based password authentication scheme, which meets all the security requirements and achieves all the goals can be developed.     

A secure dynamic ID based remote user authentication scheme for multi-server environment using smart cards

Recently, Hsiang et al. pointed out that Liao-Wang’s dynamic ID based remote user authentication scheme for multi-server environment is vulnerable to insider attack, masquerade attack, server spoofing attack, registration center attack and is not easily reparable. Besides, Liao-Wang’s scheme cannot achieve mutual authentication. For this, Hsiang et al. proposed an improved scheme to overcome these weaknesses and claimed that their scheme is efficient, secure, and suitable for the practical application environment. However, we observe that Hsiang et al.’s scheme is still vulnerable to a masquerade attack, server spoofing attack, and is not easily reparable. Furthermore, it cannot provide mutual authentication. Therefore, in this paper we propose an improved scheme to solve these weaknesses.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of ‘a secure authentication scheme for telecare medical information system’ with nonce verification

In 2009, Xu et al. presented an improved smartcard based authentication scheme while using a security model previously applied by Bellare et al. to prove the security of their authentication methods. Later on, in 2012, Wu et al. pointed out number of authentication attacks in Xu et al. scheme. To address these issues, Wu et al. presented a Smartcard based Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) scheme for Telecare Medical Information System (TMIS) facility. In this study, we prove that authentication scheme of Wu et al. is still vulnerable to impersonation attack, offline password guessing attack, forgery attack and many other attacks. Moreover, number of performance and verification issues are also outlined in the authentication scheme of Wu et al. To overcome these issues, an improved and enhanced 3FA Smartphone based authentication method is proposed on a Cloud Computing environment. The proposed scheme is further corroborated using Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic (BAN logic) nonce verification. The detailed BAN logic verification and further security analysis shows that the proposed authentication protocol is highly reliable and secure in terms of message verifications, message freshness and trustworthiness of its origin. Moreover, the comparative security, performance and feature analysis shows that the proposed work yields an even more improved and enhanced authentication framework as compared to Wu et al. authentication scheme.     

Cryptanalysis and security enhancement of a ‘more efficient & secure dynamic ID-based remote user authentication scheme’

Remote user authentication is a method, in which remote server verifies the legitimacy of a user over an insecure communication channel. Currently, smart card-based remote user authentication schemes have been widely adopted due to their low computational cost and convenient portability for the authentication purpose. Recently, Wang et al. proposed a dynamic ID-based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards. They claimed that their scheme preserves anonymity of user, has the features of strong password chosen by the server, and protected from several attacks. However, in this paper, we point out that Wang et al.’s scheme has practical pitfalls and is not feasible for real-life implementation. We identify that their scheme: does not provide anonymity of a user during authentication, user has no choice in choosing his password, vulnerable to insider attack, no provision for revocation of lost or stolen smart card, and does provide session key agreement. To remedy these security flaws, we propose an enhanced authentication scheme, which covers all the identified weaknesses of Wang et al.’s scheme and is more secure and efficient for practical application environment.     

Two efficient two-factor authenticated key exchange protocols in public wireless LANs

Recently, Parks et al. proposed an authentication and key agreement protocol for low-power PDAs in public wireless LANs using two factors including a password and a token, e.g. a smart card. They claimed that their proposed scheme provided mutual authentication, identity privacy, half-forward secrecy and low computation cost for a client including just one symmetric key encryption and five hash operations. In this paper, we point out that Park et al.’s protocol is vulnerable to the dictionary attack upon identity privacy. We propose two schemes with mutual authentication, half-forward secrecy, lower computation cost and less exchanged messages than Park et al.’s protocol. In additional to these properties, identity privacy, which is not satisfied by Park et al.’s protocol, is also provided by our second scheme.     

Cryptanalysis of Arshad et al.’s ECC-based mutual authentication scheme for session initiation protocol

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) has been widely used in the current Internet protocols such as Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP) and Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP). However, the original SIP authentication scheme was insecure and many researchers tried to propose schemes to overcome the flaws. In the year 2011, Arshad et al. proposed a SIP authentication protocol using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), but their scheme suffered from off-line password guessing attack along with password change pitfalls. To conquer the mentioned weakness, we proposed an ECC-based authentication scheme for SIP. Our scheme only needs to compute four elliptic curve scale multiplications and two hash-to-point operations, and maintains high efficiency. The analysis of security of the ECC-based protocol shows that our scheme is suitable for the applications with higher security requirement.     

对三个多服务器环境下匿名认证协议的分析

设计安全高效的多服务器环境下匿名身份认证协议是当前安全协议领域的研究热点。基于广泛接受的攻击者模型,对多服务器环境下的三个代表性匿名认证协议进行了安全性分析.指出Wan等协议无法实现所声称的离线口令猜测攻击,且未实现用户匿名性和前向安全性;指出Amin等协议同样不能抵抗离线口令猜测攻击,且不能提供匿名性,对两种破坏前向安全性的攻击是脆弱的;指出Reedy等协议不能抵抗所声称的用户仿冒攻击和离线口令猜测攻击,且无法实现用户不可追踪性.突出强调这些协议失败的根本原因在于,违反协议设计的三个基本原则：公钥原则、用户匿名性原则和前向安全性原则.明确协议的具体失误之处,并提出相应修正方法.     

对两个基于智能卡的口令认证协议的安全性分析

身份认证是确保信息系统安全的重要手段,基于智能卡的口令认证协议由于实用性较强而成为近期研究热点。采用基于场景的攻击技术,对最近新提出的两个基于智能卡的口令认证协议进行了安全性分析。指出“对Liao等身份鉴别方案的分析与改进”(潘春兰,周安民,肖丰霞,等.对Liao等人身份鉴别方案的分析与改进.计算机工程与应用,2010,46(4):110-112)中提出的认证协议无法实现所声称的抗离线口令猜测攻击;指出“基于双线性对的智能卡口令认证改进方案”(邓粟,王晓峰.基于双线性对的智能卡口令认证改进方案.计算机工程,2010,36(18):150-152)中提出的认证协议无法抗拒绝服务(DoS)攻击和内部人员攻击,且口令更新阶段存在设计缺陷。分析结果表明,这两个口令认证协议都存在严重安全缺陷,不适合安全需求较高的应用环境。     

A lightweight dynamic pseudonym identity based authentication and key agreement protocol without verification tables for multi-server architecture

Traditional password based authentication schemes are mostly considered in single-server environments. They are unfit for the multi-server environments from two aspects. Recently, base on Sood et al.?s protocol (2011), Li et al. proposed an improved dynamic identity based authentication and key agreement protocol for multi-server architecture (2012). Li et al. claim that the proposed scheme can make up the security weaknesses of Sood et al.?s protocol. Unfortunately, our further research shows that Li et al.?s protocol contains several drawbacks and cannot resist some types of known attacks. In this paper, we further propose a lightweight dynamic pseudonym identity based authentication and key agreement protocol for multi-server architecture. In our scheme, service providing servers don?t need to maintain verification tables for users. The proposed protocol provides not only the declared security features in Li et al.?s paper, but also some other security features, such as traceability and identity protection.     

对两个无线传感器网络中匿名身份认证协议的安全性分析

针对设计安全高效的无线传感器网络环境下匿名认证协议的问题,基于广泛接受的攻击者能力假设,采用基于场景的攻击技术,对新近提出的两个无线传感器网络环境下的双因子匿名身份认证协议进行了安全性分析。指出刘聪等提出的协议(刘聪,高峰修,马传贵,等.无线传感器网络中具有匿名性的用户认证协议.计算机工程,2012,38(22):99-103)无法实现所声称的抗离线口令猜测攻击,且在协议可用性方面存在根本性设计缺陷;指出闫丽丽等提出的协议(闫丽丽,张仕斌,昌燕.一种传感器网络用户认证与密钥协商协议.小型微型计算机系统,2013,34(10):2342-2344)不能抵抗用户仿冒攻击和离线口令猜测攻击,且无法实现用户不可追踪性。结果表明,这两个匿名身份认证协议都存在严重安全缺陷,不适于在实际无线传感器网络环境中应用。     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of a robust smart card secured authentication scheme on SIP using elliptic curve cryptography

The session initiation protocol (SIP) has been receiving a lot of attention to provide security in the Voice over IP (VoIP) in Internet and mobility management. Recently, Yeh et al. proposed a smart card-based authentication scheme for SIP using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). They claimed that their scheme is secure against known security attacks. However, in this paper, we indicate that Yeh et al.’s scheme is vulnerable to off-line password guessing attack, user impersonation attack and server impersonation attack, in the case that the smart card is stolen and the information stored in the smart card is disclosed. As a remedy, we also propose an improved smart card-based authentication scheme which not only conquers the security weaknesses of the related schemes but also provides a reduction in computational cost. The proposed scheme also provides the user anonymity and untraceability, and allows a user to change his/her password without informing the remote server. To show the security of our protocol, we prove its security the random oracle model.     

A user friendly mutual authentication and key agreement scheme for wireless sensor networks using chaotic maps

Spread of wireless network technology has opened new doors to utilize sensor technology in various areas via Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Many authentication protocols for among the service seeker users, sensing component sensor nodes (SNs) and the service provider base-station or gateway node (GWN) are available to realize services from WSNs efficiently and without any fear of deceit. Recently, Li et al. and He et al. independently proposed mutual authentication and key agreement schemes for WSNs. We find that both the schemes achieve mutual authentication, establish session key and resist many known attacks but still have security weaknesses. We show the applicability of stolen verifier, user impersonation, password guessing and smart card loss attacks on Li et al.’s scheme. Although their scheme employs the feature of dynamic identity, an attacker can reveal and guess the identity of a registered user. We demonstrate the susceptibility of He et al.’s scheme to password guessing attack. In both the schemes, the security of the session key established between user and SNs is imperfect due to lack of forward secrecy and session-specific temporary information leakage attack. In addition both the schemes impose extra computational load on resource scanty sensor-nodes and are not user friendly due to absence of user anonymity and lack of password change facility. To handle these drawbacks, we design a mutual authentication and key agreement scheme for WSN using chaotic maps. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose an authentication scheme for WSN based on chaotic maps. We show the superiority of the proposed scheme over its predecessor schemes by means of detailed security analysis and comparative evaluation. We also formally analyze our scheme using BAN logic.     

对两个基于智能卡的多服务器身份认证方案的密码学分析与改进

身份认证是用户访问网络资源时的一个重要安全问题。近来,Xu等(XU C, JIA Z, WEN F, et al. Cryptanalysis and improvement of a dynamic ID based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards [J]. Journal of Computational Information Systems, 2013, 9(14): 5513-5520)提出了一个基于智能卡的动态身份用户认证方案。分析指出其方案不能抵抗中间人攻击和会话密钥泄露攻击,且无法实现会话密钥前向安全性。此外,指出Choi等(CHOI Y, NAM J, LEE D, et al. Security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards and biometrics [J]. The Scientific World Journal, 2014, 2014: 281305)提出的基于智能卡和生物特征的匿名多服务器身份认证方案(简称CNL方案)易遭受智能卡丢失攻击、服务器模仿攻击,且不能提保护用户的匿名性。最后,基于生物特征和扩展混沌映射,提出了一个安全的多服务器认证方案,安全分析结果表明,新方案消除了Xu方案和CNL方案的安全漏洞。     

An enhanced smart card based remote user password authentication scheme

Smart card based password authentication is one of the simplest and efficient authentication mechanisms to ensure secure communication in insecure network environments. Recently, Chen et al. have pointed out the weaknesses of some password authentication schemes and proposed a robust smart card based remote user password authentication scheme to improve the security. As per their claims, their scheme is efficient and can ensure forward secrecy of the session key. However, we find that Chen et al.'s scheme cannot really ensure forward secrecy, and it cannot detect the wrong password in login phase. Besides, the password change phase of Chen et al.'s scheme is unfriendly and inefficient since the user has to communicate with the server to update his/her password. In this paper, we propose a modified smart card based remote user password authentication scheme to overcome the aforementioned weaknesses. The analysis shows that our proposed scheme is user friendly and more secure than other related schemes.     

基于D-H密钥交换协议的用户认证方案

分析指出Liaw等人的远程用户认证方案(Mathematical and Computer Modelling,2006,No.1/2)容易受到重放攻击和中间人攻击,并且密码修改阶段和注册阶段存在安全漏洞,在此基础上提出一个基于D-H密钥交换协议的远程用户认证方案.理论分析结果表明,该方案可以抵抗假冒攻击、重放攻击、中间人攻击,安全地实现相互认证及会话密钥生成.     

A secure and efficient ECC-based user anonymity-preserving session initiation authentication protocol using smart card

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling communications protocol, which has been chosen for controlling multimedia communication in 3G mobile networks. The proposed authentication in SIP is HTTP digest based authentication. Recently, Tu et al. presented an improvement of Zhang et al.’s smart card-based authenticated key agreement protocol for SIP. Their scheme efficiently resists password guessing attack. However, in this paper, we analyze the security of Tu et al.’s scheme and demonstrate their scheme is still vulnerable to user’s impersonation attack, server spoofing attack and man-in-the middle attack. We aim to propose an efficient improvement on Tu et al.’s scheme to overcome the weaknesses of their scheme, while retaining the original merits of their scheme. Through the rigorous informal and formal security analysis, we show that our scheme is secure against various known attacks including the attacks found in Tu et al.’s scheme. Furthermore, we simulate our scheme for the formal security analysis using the widely-accepted AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool and show that our scheme is secure against passive and active attacks including the replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. Additionally, the proposed scheme is comparable in terms of the communication and computational overheads with Tu et al.’s scheme and other related existing schemes.     

增强的基于智能卡的远程用户认证协议

基于智能卡的远程用户认证协议比基于口令的安全协议能提供更好的安全性。2011年Chen等提出一种对Hsiang-Shih方案改进的基于智能卡的远程认证协议,并称解决了相关方案中存在的各种攻击问题。指出Chen等方案仍然存在着内部攻击、丢失智能卡攻击、重放攻击和身份冒充攻击,并针对基于口令和智能卡的远程认证协议类存在的离线口令猜测攻击提出一种基于智能卡和椭圆曲线离散对数问题的认证协议。该协议能抵抗提到的所有攻击,在登陆和认证阶段只需要一个点乘运算。