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.

     

Provable analysis and improvement of smart card–based anonymous authentication protocols

Nowadays, authentication protocols are essential for secure communications specially for roaming networks, distributed computer networks, and remote wireless communication. The numerous users in these networks rise vulnerabilities. Thus, privacy‐preserving methods have to be run to provide more reliable services and sustain privacy. Anonymous authentication is a method to remotely authenticate users with no revelation about their identity. In this paper, we analyze 2 smart card–based protocols that the user's identity is anonymous. However, we represent that they are vulnerable to privileged insider attack. It means that the servers can compromise the users' identity for breaking their privacy. Also, we highlight that the Wen et al protocol has flaws in both stolen smart card and stolen server attacks and the Odelu et al protocol is traceable. Then, we propose 2 modified anonymous authentication protocols. Finally, we analyze our improved protocols with both heuristic and formal methods.     

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.     

基于生物特征标识的无线传感器网络三因素用户认证协议

为满足高安全级别场景（如军事、国家安全、银行等）的应用需求,进一步提高无线传感器网络用户认证协议的安全性,提出了基于生物特征识别的三因素用户认证协议.针对Althobaiti协议无法防御节点妥协攻击、模拟攻击、中间人攻击和内部特权攻击的安全缺陷,增加智能卡和密码作为协议基本安全因素,并利用生物特征标识信息生成函数与回复函数处理的生物特征标识作为附加安全因素;在密钥管理中,为每个节点配置了与网关节点共享唯一密钥,保证认证过程的独立性与安全性;实现用户自主选择与网关节点的共享密钥,提高公共信道通信的安全性;在网关节点不参与的情况下,设计密码和生物特征标识更新机制,保证二者的新鲜性.通过Dolev-Yao拓展威胁模型的分析与AVISPA的OFMC分析终端的仿真,结果证明该认证协议克服了Althobaiti协议安全缺陷,且对计算能力的需求小于公钥加密.权衡安全性与计算成本,该协议适用于资源受限且安全需求高的无线传感器网络应用.     

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.     

Lightweight authentication protocol for e-health clouds in IoT-based applications through 5G technology

Modern information technology has been utilized progressively to store and distribute a large amount of healthcare data to reduce costs and improve medical facilities. In this context, the emergence of e-Health clouds offers novel opportunities, like easy and remote accessibility of medical data. However, this achievement produces plenty of new risks and challenges like how to provide integrity, security, and confidentiality to the highly susceptible e-Health data. Among these challenges, authentication is a major issue that ensures that the susceptible medical data in clouds is not available to illegal participants. The smart card, password and biometrics are three factors of authentication which fulfill the requirement of giving high security. Numerous three-factor ECC-based authentication protocols on e-Health clouds have been presented so far. However, most of the protocols have serious security flaws and produce high computation and communication overheads. Therefore, we introduce a novel protocol for the e-Health cloud, which thwarts some major attacks, such as user anonymity, offline password guessing, impersonation, and stolen smart card attacks. Moreover, we evaluate our protocol through formal security analysis using the Random Oracle Model (ROM). The analysis shows that our proposed protocol is more efficient than many existing protocols in terms of computation and communication costs. Thus, our proposed protocol is proved to be more efficient, robust and secure.     

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。     

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.     

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.     

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 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 improved mutual authentication protocol based on perfect forward secrecy for satellite communications

As the mobile network progresses fast, mobile communications have a far‐reaching influence in our daily life. In order to guarantee the communication security, a myriad of experts introduced many authentication protocols. Recently, Qi et al presented an enhanced authentication with key agreement protocol for satellite communications, and they proclaimed that their protocol could defend various attacks and support varied security requirements. Regrettably, in this paper, we prove that their protocol was fruitless in resisting smart card stolen or loss attack, supporting perfect forward secrecy and had a fundamental error. To solve these problems, we present an improved protocol based on perfect forward secrecy. In addition, the analysis of our improved protocol suggests that it gets possession of faultless security properties and overcomes the flaws in the protocol of Qi et al perfectly. Thus, our improved protocol can be appropriated for the mobile communications.     

NFC安全通信架构的研究

随着数字信息的使用越来越广泛,信息遭受攻击的次数和种类也越来越多,现阶段的智能卡身份验证架构在安全性和性能上,依然有一定程度的提升空间。在基于智能卡安全性的前提下,增加智能卡进行身份认证时的计算性能,加入了NFC近距离无线通信技术,以目前个人式手持设备中使用率最高的手机为例,模拟NFC手机在ATM上进行用户身份认证的沟通流程,以期能为用户提供一个崭新、可靠、便利性高的安全通信机制。     

Efficient and flexible password authenticated key agreement for Voice over Internet Protocol Session Initiation Protocol using smart card

Providing a suitable key agreement protocol for session initiation protocol is crucial to protecting the communication among the users over the open channel. This paper presents an efficient and flexible password authenticated key agreement protocol for session initiation protocol associated with Voice over Internet Protocol. The proposed protocol has many unique properties, such as session key agreement, mutual authentication, password updating function and the server not needing to maintain a password or verification table, and so on. In addition, our protocol is secure against the replay attack, the impersonation attack, the stolen‐verifier attack, the man‐in‐the‐middle attack, the Denning–Sacco attack, and the offline dictionary attack with or without the smart card. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

A secure authentication with key agreement scheme using ECC for satellite communication systems

Recently, Liu et al came up with an authentication with key agreement scheme for securing communication over the low‐earth‐orbit satellite communication systems. However, this paper demonstrates that this scheme cannot provide perfect forward secrecy or defend against the smart card stolen attack, and has some very bad design defects, making it unpractical. Thus, to design a truly secure authentication scheme for satellite communication systems, this paper presents a new scheme, making use of the advantages of elliptic curve cryptography and symmetric cryptography. The security analyses by the widely used BAN logic and heuristic discussions demonstrate that our new scheme possesses perfect security properties and can defend against various well‐known malicious attacks. Moreover, our new scheme allows users to update passwords locally in accordance with their wishes, achieving a good user experience.     

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.     

Two-factor authenticated key agreement protocol based on biometric feature and password

A new two-factor authenticated key agreement protocol based on biometric feature and password was proposed.The protocol took advantages of the user’s biological information and password to achieve the secure communication without bringing the smart card.The biometric feature was not stored in the server by using the fuzzy extractor technique,so the sensitive information of the user cannot be leaked when the server was corrupted.The authentication messages of the user were protected by the server’s public key,so the protocol can resist the off-line dictionary attack which often appears in the authentication protocols based on password.The security of the proposed protocol was given in the random oracle model provided the elliptic computational Diffie-Hellman assumption holds.The performance analysis shows the proposed protocol has better security.     

ELAKA: Energy-Efficient and Lightweight Multi-Server Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol Based on Dynamic Biometrics

Authentication and key agreement (AKA) provides flexible and convenient sercices. Most traditional AKA protocols are designed to apply in single-server environment, where a user has to register at different servers to access different types of network services and the user have to remember or manage a large number of usernames and passwords. Later, multi-server AKA protocols resolve the repeated registration problem of single-server AKA protocols, where a user can access different servers to get different services using a single registration and the same username and password. Recently, in 2015, Lu et al proposed a light-weight ID based authentication and key agreement protocol for multi-server architecture, referred to as LAKA protocol. They claimed their protocol can overcome all shortcomings which existed in Xue et al’s protocol. Unfortunately, our further research shows that LAKA protocol still suffers from server spoofing attack, stolen smart card attack etc. To overcome the weakness of LAKA protocol, an energy-efficient and lightweight authentication and key agreement protocol for multi-server architecture is proposed (abbreviated to ELAKA). The ELAKA protocol not only provides the security features declared by LAKA protocol, but also has some other advantages. First, the ELAKA protocol can realize authentication and key agreement just by three handshakes with extremely low communication cost and computation cost between users and servers, which can achieve a delicate balance of security and performance. Second, ELAKA protocol can enable the user enjoy the remote services with privacy protection. Finally the ELAKA protocol is proved secure against known possible attacks by using BAN logic. As a result, these features make ELAKA protocol is very suitable for computation-limited mobile devices (such as smartphone, PAD, tablets) in comparison to other related existing protocols.     

基于智能卡和密码保护的WSN远程用户安全认证方案

针对无线传感器网络（WSN）用户远程安全认证问题,分析现有方案的不足,提出一种新颖的基于智能卡的WSN远程用户认证方案。通过用户、网关节点和传感器节点之间的相互认证来验证用户和节点的合法性,并结合动态身份标识来抵抗假冒攻击、智能卡被盗攻击、服务拒绝攻击、字典攻击和重放攻击。同时对用户信息进行匿名保护,且用户能够任意修改密码。性能比较结果表明,该方案具有较高的安全性能,且具有较小的计算开销。