An anonymous and untraceable password‐based authentication scheme for session initiation protocol using smart cards

Recently, Zhang et al. proposed a password‐based authenticated key agreement for session initiation protocol (Int J Commun Syst 2013, doi:10.1002/dac.2499). They claimed that their protocol is secure against known security attacks. However, in this paper, we indicate that the protocol by Zhang et al. is vulnerable to impersonation attack whereby an active adversary without knowing the user's password is able to introduce himself/herself as the user. In addition, we show that the protocol by Zhang et al. suffers from password changing attack. To overcome the weaknesses, we propose an improved authentication scheme for session initiation protocol. The rigorous analysis shows that our scheme achieves more security than the scheme by Zhang et al. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cryptanalysis of smart‐card‐based password authenticated key agreement protocol for session initiation protocol of Zhang et al.

As the core signaling protocol for multimedia services, such as voice over internet protocol, the session initiation protocol (SIP) is receiving much attention and its security is becoming increasingly important. It is critical to develop a roust user authentication protocol for SIP. The original authentication protocol is not strong enough to provide acceptable security level, and a number of authentication protocols have been proposed to strengthen the security. Recently, Zhang et al. proposed an efficient and flexible smart‐card‐based password authenticated key agreement protocol for SIP. They claimed that the protocol enjoys many unique properties and can withstand various attacks. However, we demonstrate that the scheme by Zhang et al. is insecure against the malicious insider impersonation attack. Specifically, a malicious user can impersonate other users registered with the same server. We also proposed an effective fix to remedy the flaw, which remedies the security flaw without sacrificing the efficiency. The lesson learned is that the authenticators must be closely coupled with the identity, and we should prevent the identity from being separated from the authenticators in the future design of two‐factor authentication protocols. Copyright © 2014 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.     

Secure communication in CloudIoT through design of a lightweight authentication and session key agreement scheme

Internet of Things (IoT) is a newly emerged paradigm where multiple embedded devices, known as things, are connected via the Internet to collect, share, and analyze data from the environment. In order to overcome the limited storage and processing capacity constraint of IoT devices, it is now possible to integrate them with cloud servers as large resource pools. Such integration, though bringing applicability of IoT in many domains, raises concerns regarding the authentication of these devices while establishing secure communications to cloud servers. Recently, Kumari et al proposed an authentication scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) for IoT and cloud servers and claimed that it satisfies all security requirements and is secure against various attacks. In this paper, we first prove that the scheme of Kumari et al is susceptible to various attacks, including the replay attack and stolen-verifier attack. We then propose a lightweight authentication protocol for secure communication of IoT embedded devices and cloud servers. The proposed scheme is proved to provide essential security requirements such as mutual authentication, device anonymity, and perfect forward secrecy and is robust against security attacks. We also formally verify the security of the proposed protocol using BAN logic and also the Scyther tool. We also evaluate the computation and communication costs of the proposed scheme and demonstrate that the proposed scheme incurs minimum computation and communication overhead, compared to related schemes, making it suitable for IoT environments with low processing and storage capacity.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of ‘an improved authentication with key agreement scheme on elliptic curve cryptosystem for global mobility networks’

Authentication schemes assure that authorised user can fraudulently obtain his/her required services from home domains. Recently, Li et al. (International Journal of Network Management, 2013; 23(5):311–324) proposed a remote user authentication scheme. They claimed that their protocol is secure against known security attacks. However, in this paper, we indicate that Li et al.'s scheme is insecure against user impersonation attack. We show that an active adversary can easily masquerade as a legitimate user without knowing the user's secret information. As a remedy, we also proposed an improved authentication scheme to overcome the security weaknesses of Li et al.'s scheme. To show the security of our scheme, we prove its security the random oracle model. The implementation results show that our improved scheme offers a reduction of 58% in computational cost and a communication cost reduction of 48% with respect to Li et al.'s scheme. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

一种可证安全的车联网无证书聚合签名改进方案

车联网(VANETs)是组织车－X(X:车、路、行人及互联网等)之间的无线通信和信息交换的大型网络,是智慧城市重要组成部分。其消息认证算法的安全与效率对车联网至关重要。该文分析王大星等人的VANETs消息认证方案的安全不足,并提出一种改进的可证安全的无证书聚合签名方案。该文方案利用椭圆曲线密码构建了一个改进的安全无证书聚合认证方案。该方案降低了密码运算过程中的复杂性,同时实现条件隐私保护功能。严格安全分析证明该文方案满足VANETs的安全需求。性能分析表明该文方案相比王大星等人方案,较大幅度地降低了消息签名、单一验证以及聚合验证算法的计算开销,同时也减少了通信开销。     

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.     

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.     

Improvement of robust smart‐card‐based password authentication scheme

Smart‐card‐based password authentication scheme is one of the commonly used mechanisms to prevent unauthorized service and resource access and to remove the potential security threats over the insecure networks and has been investigated extensively in the last decade. Recently, Chen et al. proposed a smart‐card‐based password authentication scheme and claimed that the scheme can withstand offline password guessing attacks even if the information stored in the smart card is extracted by the adversary. However, we observe that the scheme of Chen et al. is insecure against offline password guessing attacks in this case. To remedy this security problem, we propose an improved authentication protocol, which inherits the merits of the scheme of Chen et al. and is free from the security flaw of their scheme. Compared with the previous schemes, our improved scheme provides more security guarantees while keeping efficiency. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

An improved authentication scheme for mobile satellite communication systems

Recently, Lee et al. proposed a simple and efficient authentication scheme for mobile satellite communication systems. However, we find that their scheme is vulnerable to the smart card loss attack, the denial of service attack and the replay attack. To overcome the weaknesses of Lee et al.'s scheme, we proposed an authentication scheme for mobile satellite communication systems to improve security. The proposed scheme possesses the essential properties and security requirements, which should be considered for the authentication scheme of mobile satellite communication systems. 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.     

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.     

A secure and effective biometric‐based user authentication scheme for wireless sensor networks using smart card and fuzzy extractor

User authentication is a prominent security requirement in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for accessing the real‐time data from the sensors directly by a legitimate user (external party). Several user authentication schemes are proposed in the literature. However, most of them are either vulnerable to different known attacks or they are inefficient. Recently, Althobaiti et al. presented a biometric‐based user authentication scheme for WSNs. Although their scheme is efficient in computation, in this paper, we first show that their scheme has several security pitfalls such as (i) it is not resilient against node capture attack; (ii) it is insecure against impersonation attack; and (iii) it is insecure against man‐in‐the‐middle attack. We then aim to propose a novel biometric‐based user authentication scheme suitable for WSNs in order to withstand the security pitfalls found in Althobaiti et al. scheme. We show through the rigorous security analysis that our scheme is secure and satisfies the desirable security requirements. Furthermore, the simulation results for the formal security verification using the most widely used and accepted Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool indicate that our scheme is secure. Our scheme is also efficient compared with existing related schemes. Copyright © 2015 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.     

A new authenticated key agreement for session initiation protocol

The session initiation protocol (SIP) is an authentication protocol used in 3G mobile networks. In 2009, Tsai proposed an authenticated key agreement scheme as an enhancement to SIP. Yoon et al. later pointed out that the scheme of Tsai is vulnerable to off‐line password guessing attack, Denning–Sacco attack, and stolen‐verifier attack and does not support perfect forward secrecy (PFS). Yoon et al. further proposed a new scheme with PFS. In this paper, we show that the scheme of Yoon et al. is still vulnerable to stolen‐verifier attack and may also suffer from off‐line password guessing attack. We then propose several countermeasures for solving these problems. In addition, we propose a new security‐enhanced authentication scheme for SIP. Our scheme also maintains low computational complexity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design and analysis of an improved smartcard‐based remote user password authentication scheme

With the fast development of the Internet and the telecommunication technologies, internet users are carrying out various electronic transactions over internet by means of the authentication protocols. To ensure efficient and robust online transaction, security of authentication protocol turns out to be a great concern nowadays. As a result, smartcard‐based password authentication and session key agreement scheme receives significant attention in recent years. In the literature, various authentication schemes have been proposed by the cryptographic research community. Recently, Li et al. analyze some security weaknesses of the authentication scheme of Chen et al. and propose an enhancement based on the discrete logarithm problem and computational Diffie–Hellman problem. This paper further cryptanalyzes the scheme of Li et al. and identifies various security loopholes and then constructs a modified authentication scheme as a remedy. The security and efficiency evaluations demonstrate that our scheme has more security features and low computation costs than the related schemes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An anonymous biometric‐based remote user‐authenticated key agreement scheme for multimedia systems

We analyze the security of the Li et al . authentication scheme and show its vulnerability to off‐line password‐guessing and replay attacks. We design a new anonymous authentication scheme. The proposed scheme not only removes the drawback of the scheme of the Li et al . scheme but also protects user's anonymity. Moreover, we show validity of our proposed scheme using Burrows, Abadi, and Needham logic. Our scheme is comparable in terms of the communication and computational overhead with related schemes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.