Weaknesses and improvements of an efficient certificateless signature scheme without using bilinear pairings

The certificateless signature (CLS) scheme is a special signature scheme that solves the key escrow problem in identity‐based signature schemes. In CLS schemes, the private key is generated cooperatively by the key generator center (KGC) and signer, such that a malicious KGC cannot masquerade as the signer and sign a message. He et al. in 2011 proposed an efficient CLS scheme without using bilinear pairings. However, we discovered that the CLS scheme by He et al. cannot resist a strong type 2 adversary if this adversary replaces the master public key of the KGC. This work proposes an improved scheme that overcomes this weakness. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A short ID‐based proxy signature scheme

The notion of identity‐based proxy signature with message recovery feature has been proposed to shorten identity‐based proxy signatures and improve their communication overhead because signed messages are not transmitted with these kinds of signatures. There are a few schemes for this notion: the schemes of Singh and Verma and Yoon et al. Unfortunately, Tian et al., by presenting two forgery attacks, show that Singh and Verma scheme is not secure, and also, the scheme of Yoon et al. does not support provable security. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we review the scheme by Yoon et al. and discuss why it does not have message recovery property, and consequently, it is not short. Second, we propose a short identity‐based proxy signature scheme with the help of message recovery property and show that it is secure under computational Diffie–Hellman assumption in the random oracle model. Furthermore, our scheme is more efficient than (as efficient as) previous identity‐based proxy signatures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An authentication and key agreement protocol for satellite communications

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

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.     

Signing a digital signature without using one-way hash functions and message redundancy schemes

In 2000, Shieh et al. proposed some multisignature schemes based on a new digital signature scheme to satisfy the special requirements of the mobile system. In these schemes, one-way hash functions and message redundancy schemes are not used. Later, Hwang and Li indicated that Shieh et al.'s digital signature scheme suffers from the forgery attacks. They also claimed that message redundancy schemes should still be used to resist some attacks. In this letter, we show another attack on Shieh et al.'s signature scheme and propose a secure digital signature scheme, where neither one-way hash functions nor message redundancy schemes are employed.     

Anonymous authentication protocol based on elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman for wireless access networks

Anonymous channel tickets have been proposed as a way to provide user anonymity and to reduce the overhead of re‐authentication for authentication in wireless environments. Chen et al. proposed a secure and efficient protocol, based on a protocol proposed by Yang et al., which is resistant to guessing attacks on networks from which users’ secret keys are easy to obtain. However, their scheme is time‐consuming in the phases of ticket issuing and authentication. Furthermore, a malicious attacker can utilize the expired time, T_exp, to launch a denial of authentication (DoA) attack, which is a type of denial of service attack. Because T_exp is exposed to any user, it would be easy to launch a DoA attack that could make the scheme impractical. To resist against DoAs that the scheme of Chen et al. might suffer, we propose an improved scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography in this paper. Our scheme not only reduces time cost but also enhances security. The basis of the proposed scheme is the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem. The operations of points of an elliptic curve are faster and use fewer bits to achieve the same level of security. Therefore, our scheme is more suitable for mobile devices, which have limited computing power and storage. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cryptanalysis of Chang et al.'s signature scheme with message recovery

Recently, Chang et al., (2004) proposed a new digital signature scheme with message recovery and claimed that neither one-way hash functions nor message redundancy schemes were employed in their scheme. However, in this letter, two forgery attacks are proposed to show that Chang et al.'s signature scheme is not secure. To resist these attacks, the message redundancy schemes may still be used.     

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.     

Provable secure identity‐based multi‐proxy signature scheme

Multi‐proxy signature is one of the useful primitives of the proxy signature. Till now, only a few schemes of identity‐based multi‐proxy signature (IBMPS) have been proposed using bilinear pairings, but most of the schemes are insecure or lack a formal security proof. Because of the important application of IBMPS scheme in distributed systems, grid computing, and so on, construction of an efficient and provable‐secure IBMPS scheme is desired. In 2005, Li & Chen proposed an IBMPS scheme from bilinear pairings, but their paper lacks a formal model and proof of the security. Further, in 2009, Cao & Cao presented an IBMPS scheme with the first formal security model for it. Unfortunately, their scheme is not secure against the Xiong et al's attack. In this paper, first, we present an IBMPS scheme, then we formalize a security model for the IBMPS schemes and prove that the presented scheme is existential unforgeable against adaptive chosen message and identity attack in the random oracle model under the computational Diffie–Hellman assumption. Also, our scheme is not vulnerable for the Xiong et al's attack. The presented scheme is more efficient in the sense of computation and operation time than the existing IBMPS schemes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Identity‐based proxy signature over NTRU lattice

Proxy signature scheme is an important cryptographic primitive, for an entity can delegate his signing right to another entity. Although identity‐based proxy signature schemes based on conventional number‐theoretic problems have been proposed for a long time, the researchers have paid less attention to lattice‐based proxy signature schemes that can resist quantum attack. In this paper, we first propose an identity‐based proxy signature scheme over Number Theory Research Unit (NTRU)‐lattice. We proved that the proposed paradigm is secure under the hardness of the γ‐shortest vector problem on the NTRU lattice in random oracle model; furthermore, the comparison with some existing schemes shows our scheme is more efficient in terms of proxy signature secret key size, proxy signature size, and computation complexity. As the elemental problem of the proposed scheme is difficult even for quantum computation model, our scheme can work well in quantum age.     

两种签密方案的安全性分析及改进

签密是能够在同一算法中提供认证性和机密性的密码方案,而所需要的计算量、通信成本和密文长度比先签名后加密的分开来实现要低,有较多的实际应用需求。多签密方案是多个签密者对同一明文执行签密操作。该文分析了两个签密方案:Li等(2006)提出的签密方案和Zhang等(2008)提出的多签密方案,并通过选择明文攻击证明二者不能不具有语义安全性,并在此基础上提出了改进的方案,采用隐藏消息明文方法抵抗选择明文攻击,采用多签密成员签名认证的方法防止多成员签密密文被篡改,可抵抗选择明文攻击和选择身份攻击,达到语义安全性。     

Further improvement of a certificateless signature scheme without pairing

Recently, He et al. proposed an efficient certificateless signature (CLS) scheme without pairings and demonstrated their scheme to be provably secure in the random oracle model. Unfortunately, Tian and Huang and Tsai et al. pointed out that the scheme cannot withstand a Type II adversary's attack. Tsai et al. also proposed an improved scheme to enhance security. However, the schemes of He et al. and Tsai et al. are not real CLS schemes because the user's public key is used to generate its partial private key. Besides, He et al. and Tsai et al. just demonstrated that their schemes are secure against the normal adversary in the random oracle model. In this paper, we propose a real CLS scheme and demonstrate that our scheme is secure against the super adversary. Security analysis and performance analysis show that our scheme could enhance security and increase computational cost slightly. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A robust and efficient dynamic identity‐based multi‐server authentication scheme using smart cards

In single‐server architecture, one service is maintained by one server. If a user wants to employ multiple services from different servers, he/she needs to register with these servers and to memorize numerous pairs of identities and passwords corresponding to each server. In order to improve user convenience, many authentication schemes have been provided for multi‐server environment with the property of single registration. In 2013, Li et al. provided an efficient multi‐server authentication scheme, which they contended that it could resist several attacks. Nevertheless, we find that their scheme is sensitive to the forgery attack and has a design flaw. This paper presents a more secure dynamic identity‐based multi‐server authentication scheme in order to solve the problem in the scheme by Li et al. Analyses show that the proposed scheme can preclude several attacks and support the revocation of anonymity to handle the malicious behavior of a legal user. Furthermore, our proposed scheme has a lower computation and communication costs, which make it is more suitable for practical applications. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Provable secure proxy signature scheme without bilinear pairings

Proxy signature is an active research area in cryptography. A proxy signature scheme allows an entity to delegate his or her signing capability to another entity in such a way that the latter can sign messages on behalf of the former. Many proxy signature schemes using bilinear pairings have been proposed. But the relative computation cost of the pairing is more than 10 times of the scalar multiplication over elliptic curve group. In order to save the running time and the size of the signature, we propose a proxy signature scheme without bilinear pairings and prove its security against adaptive chosen‐message attack in random oracle model. The security of our scheme is based on the hardness of the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem. With the running time being saved greatly, our scheme is more practical than the previous related scheme for practical applications. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design of a user anonymous password authentication scheme without smart card

Recently, Jiang et al. and He et al. independently found security problems in Chen et al.'s remote user authentication scheme for non‐tamper‐proof storage devices like Universal Serial Bus stick and proposed improvements. Nonetheless, we detect that the schemes proposed by Jiang et al. and He et al. overlook a user's privacy. We also observe that Jiang et al.'s scheme is vulnerable to insider attack and denial of service attacks and lacks forward secrecy. We point out that the password changing facility in He et al.'s scheme is equivalent to undergoing registration, whereas in Jiang et al.'s scheme, it is unsuitable. Moreover, the login phase of both the schemes is incapable to prevent the use of wrong password leading to the computation of an unworkable login request. Therefore, we design a new scheme with user anonymity to surmount the identified weaknesses. Without adding much in communication/computational cost, our scheme provides more security characteristics and keeps the merits of the original schemes. As compared with its predecessor schemes, the proposed scheme stands out as a more apt user authentication method for common storage devices. We have also presented a formal proof of security of the proposed scheme based on the logic proposed by Burrows, Abadi and Needham (BAN logic). Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Proxy re-signature scheme based on isomorphisms of polynomial

Most of the existing proxy resignature schemes were based on the hardness of big integer factoring,discrete logarithm,elliptic curve.However,none of them can resist the attack by a quantum computer.Motivated by these concerns,a new proxy resignature scheme was proposed.By employing secret affine transformations and homogeneous polynomials,the proposed scheme could implement the signature transformation with high-efficiency,and meanwhile it was secure against the attack by a quantum computer.The results of analysis showed that the proposed scheme was correct and consistent,and had the unforgeability in the random oracle model.Compared with the existing schemes,the proposed scheme not only inherits the resistance to quantum attack and high efficiency from the multivariate public key cryptosystems,but also has the properties of multi-use,transparent and private proxy.     

关于“两类ElGamal型数字签名方案的安全性和性能分析”的讨论

为了加强ElGamal型数字签名方案的安全性,最近祁明等人对两类ElGamal型数字签名方案的安全性和基于两类签名方案的通行字认证方案进行了分析和讨论,并且提出了两类改进型的方案.本文首先指出了他们提出的第一个p型方案是不安全的,攻击者可以伪造任意消息的数字签名.本文证明了广义ElGamal型数字签名方案都不能抵御代换攻击.本文最后还证明了他们提出的两类改进型方案也不能抵御同态攻击,因而并不具有所说的安全性.     

Cryptanalysis of Shieh-Lin-Yang-Sun signature scheme

Due to the special requirements of the mobile code system, Shieh et al. (see IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol.49, p.1464-73, July 2000) proposed some multisignature schemes based on a new digital signature scheme with message recovery. One major characteristic of these schemes is to avoid using one-way hash functions and message redundancy schemes. However, this causes some security flaw. An attack is proposed to show that the underlying signature scheme is not secure. To overcome the attack, the message redundancy schemes may be still used.     

Nyberg-Rueppel消息恢复盲签名的一般化和改进

给出Nyberg-Rueppel消息恢复签名方案的一般性盲化方法,由该方法可以得到其3个盲化方案,其中一个就是Camenisch等人的方案,另外两个则是新的。在这两个新的方案中,一个与已有方案效率相当,另一个因无需求逆运算而效率更高。使用填充技术和hash函数,得到在ROM(randomoraclemodel)和GM(genericgroupmodel)模型下抗适应性选择消息伪造的可证明安全的消息恢复盲签名方案。     

标准模型下安全的无证书签名方案

随机预言模型下的证明能够为无证书签名方案提供基本的安全保证,但随机预言机的实现方式可能会导致方案不安全。一些标准模型下的方案在提出后被证明无法抵抗公钥替换攻击。为了解决这一问题,构造了一个标准模型下安全的无证书签名方案,基于NGBDH和Many-DH困难问题,证明所提出的方案对自适应选择消息攻击是存在性不可伪造的。此外,提出的方案具有计算代价和通信代价较低、能够抵抗密钥替换攻击等优点。