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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

An enhanced lightweight anonymous biometric based authentication scheme for TMIS

In recent past, Mir and Nikooghadam presented an enhanced biometrics based authentication scheme using lightweight symmetric key primitives for telemedicine networks. This scheme was introduced in an anticipation to the former biometrics based authentication system proposed by Yan et al. Mir and Nikooghadam declared that their scheme is invincible against potential attacks while providing user anonymity. Our study and in-depth analysis unveil that Mir and Nikooghadam’s authentication scheme is susceptible to smart card stolen attack, moreover anonymity violation is still possible despite the claim of Mir and Nikooghadam. We have utilized the random oracle model in order to perform security analysis. The analysis endorses that the proposed scheme is robust enough to provide protection against all potential attacks specially smart card stolen attack and user anonymity violation attack. Analysis is further substantiated through an automated software application ProVerif. The analysis also shows that proposed scheme is computationally efficient than Mir and Nikooghadam’s scheme.     

Efficient and secure two-factor dynamic ID-based password authentication scheme with provable security

Password-based remote user authentication schemes using smart cards are designed to ensure that only a user who possesses both the smart card and the corresponding password can gain access to the remote servers. Despite many research efforts, it remains a challenging task to design a secure password-based authentication scheme with user anonymity. The author uses Kumari et al.’s scheme as the case study. Their scheme uses non-public key primitives. The author first presents the cryptanalysis of Kumari et al.’s scheme in which he shows that their scheme is vulnerable to user impersonation attack, and does not provide forward secrecy and user anonymity. Using the case study, he has identified that public-key techniques are indispensable to construct a two-factor authentication scheme with security attributes, such as user anonymity, unlinkability and forward secrecy under the nontamper resistance assumption of the smart card. The author proposes a password-based authentication scheme using elliptic curve cryptography. Through the informal and formal security analysis, he shows that proposed scheme is secure against various known attacks, including the attacks found in Kumari’s scheme. Furthermore, he verifies the correctness of mutual authentication using the BAN logic.     

A secure and robust temporal credential-based three-factor user authentication scheme for wireless sensor networks

User authentication is one of the most important security services required for the resource-constrained wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In user authentication, for critical applications of WSNs, a legitimate user is allowed to query and collect the real-time data at any time from a sensor node of the network as and when he/she demands for it. In order to get the real-time information from the nodes, the user needs to be first authenticated by the nodes as well as the gateway node (GWN) of WSN so that illegal access to nodes do not happen in the network. Recently, Jiang et al. proposed an efficient two-factor user authentication scheme with unlinkability property in WSNs Jiang (2014). In this paper, we analyze Jiang et al.’s scheme. Unfortunately, we point out that Jiang et al.’s scheme has still several drawbacks such as (1) it fails to protect privileged insider attack, (2) inefficient registration phase for the sensor nodes, (3) it fails to provide proper authentication in login and authentication phase, (4) it fails to update properly the new changed password of a user in the password update phase, (5) it lacks of supporting dynamic sensor node addition after initial deployment of nodes in the network, and (6) it lacks the formal security verification. In order to withstand these pitfalls found in Jiang et al.’s scheme, we aim to propose a three-factor user authentication scheme for WSNs. Our scheme preserves the original merits of Jiang et al.’s scheme. Our scheme is efficient as compared to Jiang et al.’s scheme and other schemes. Furthermore, our scheme provides better security features and higher security level than other schemes. In addition, we simulate our scheme for the formal security analysis using the widely-accepted AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool. The simulation results clearly demonstrate that our scheme is also secure.     

An efficient and security dynamic identity based authentication protocol for multi-server architecture using smart cards

Generally, if a user wants to use numerous different network services, he/she must register himself/herself to every service providing server. It is extremely hard for users to remember these different identities and passwords. In order to resolve this problem, various multi-server authentication protocols have been proposed. Recently, Sood et al. analyzed Hsiang and Shih's multi-server authentication protocol and proposed an improved dynamic identity based authentication protocol for multi-server architecture. They claimed that their protocol provides user's anonymity, mutual authentication, the session key agreement and can resist several kinds of attacks. However, through careful analysis, we find that Sood et al.'s protocol is still vulnerable to leak-of-verifier attack, stolen smart card attack and impersonation attack. Besides, since there is no way for the control server CS to know the real identity of the user, the authentication and session key agreement phase of Sood et al.'s protocol is incorrect. We propose an efficient and security dynamic identity based authentication protocol for multi-server architecture that removes the aforementioned weaknesses. The proposed protocol is extremely suitable for use in distributed multi-server architecture since it provides user's anonymity, mutual authentication, efficient, and security.     

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。     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of authentication scheme for roaming service in ubiquitous network

Abstract

The paper analyzes a recently proposed secure authentication and key agreement scheme for roaming service in a ubiquitous network. In 2018, Lee et al. proposed a biometric-based anonymous authentication scheme for roaming in ubiquitous networks. But, we found that Lee et al. scheme is prone to the off-line dictionary attack when a user’s smart device is stolen, replay attack due to static variables and de-synchronization attack when an adversary blocks a message causing failure of authentication mechanism. Further, the scheme lacks no key control property and has incorrect XOR calculation. In the sequel, we presented an improved biometric based scheme to remove the weaknesses in Lee et al.’s scheme, which also does not require an update of identity in every session, hence preventing de-synchronization attack. Also, the security of the proposed schemes were analyzed in a widely accepted random oracle model. Further, computational and communication cost comparisons indicate that our improved scheme is more suitable for ubiquitous networks.     

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。     

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.     

改进的基于智能卡的远程异步认证协议

远程认证协议允许远程服务器和用户通过不安全信道实现相互认证。唐宏斌等指出Chen等方案的基于智能卡的远程认证协议存在着一些安全问题,如丢失智能卡攻击,重放攻击等,并且提出一种基于智能卡的远程认证协议,为了抵抗重放攻击而引入时间戳机制。提出一种改进的基于智能卡的远程异步认证方案,在能抵抗提到的所有攻击条件下,不需要考虑时钟同步问题而能抵抗重放攻击,使操作更简单且未增加计算性能代价。     

Security analysis and enhancements of an improved authentication for session initiation protocol with provable security

Very recently, Tu et al. proposed an authentication scheme for session initiation protocol using smart card to overcome the security flaws of Zhang et al.’s protocol. They claimed that their protocol is secure against known security attacks. However, in this paper, we indicate that Tu et al.’s protocol is insecure against impersonation attack. We show that an adversary can easily masquerade as a legal server to fool users. As a remedy, we also improve Tu et al.’s protocol without imposing extra computation cost. To show the security of our protocol, we prove its security in the random oracle model.     

Enhanced Dynamic Authentication Scheme (EDAS)

With non-stop growth in network environments, communication security is necessary. A strong protocol guarantees that users and service providers are secure against many kinds of attacks, such as impersonation and replay attack. Sood et al. proposed an authentication scheme based on dynamic identity to prevent transactions from being intercepted by malicious users. Although they claimed that their scheme has advantages over previous schemes with the same approach, we prove that their scheme is vulnerable to impersonation attack and stolen verification attack, and can be affected by clock synchronization. Therefore we propose a novel authentication scheme to enhance security and overcome limitations existing in Sood’s scheme. Our security analysis shows that our proposed method can efficiently resist known types of attacks. Experimental results also show that the method can be implemented and processed in real-time thus applicable for not only regular computers but also mobile devices.     

Robust one-time password authentication scheme using smart card for home network environment

Due to the exponential growth of the Internet users and wireless devices, interests on home networks have been enormously increased in recent days. In digital home networks, home services including remote access and control to home appliances as well as services offered by service providers are alluring. However, the remote control services cause digital home networks to have various security threats. Hence, for digital home networks, robust security services, especially remote user authentication, should be considered. This paper presents a robust and efficient authentication scheme based on strong-password approach to provide secure remote access in digital home network environments. The proposed scheme uses lightweight computation modules including hashed one-time password and hash-chaining technique along with low-cost smart card technology. It aims to satisfy several security requirements including stolen smart card attack and forward secrecy with lost smart card as well as functional requirements including no verification table and no time synchronization. Comparing with the existing representative schemes, it can be validated that the proposed scheme is more robust authentication mechanism having better security properties. We have conducted formal verification of the proposed scheme.     

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。     

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.     

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.     

A secure user anonymity-preserving biometric-based multi-server authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards

Advancement in communication technology provides a scalable platform for various services, where a remote user can access the server from anywhere without moving from its place. It provides a unique opportunity for online services such that a user does not need to be physically present at the service center. These services adopt authentication and key agreement protocols in order to ensure authorized and secure access to the resources. Most of the authentication schemes proposed in the literature support a single-server environment, where the user has to register with each server. If a user wishes to access multiple application servers, he/she requires to register with each server. The multi-server authentication introduces a scalable platform such that a user can interact with any server using single registration. Recently, Chuang and Chen proposed an efficient multi-server authenticated key agreement scheme based on a user’s password and biometrics (Chuang and Chen, 2014). Their scheme is a lightweight, which requires the computation of only hash functions. In this paper, we first analyze Chuang and Chen’s scheme and then identify that their scheme does not resist stolen smart card attack which causes the user’s impersonation attack and server spoofing attack. We also show that their scheme fails to protect denial-of-service attack. We aim to propose an efficient improvement on Chuang and Chen’s scheme to overcome the weaknesses of their scheme, while also 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 Chuang and Chen’s scheme. Furthermore, we simulate our scheme for the formal security verification using the widely-accepted AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool and show that our scheme is secure against the replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. In addition, our scheme is comparable in terms of the communication and computational overheads with Chuang and Chen’s scheme and other related existing schemes.