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.     

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 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.     

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.     

新的基于智能卡和指纹的动态口令鉴别方案

针对2005年张金颖等人提出的基于智能卡和指纹的动态口令鉴别方案,发现其验证机制存在服务器伪装攻击的安全性问题,即任何一个攻击者可以靠着回传两个固定参数来伪装成一台合法的服务器。为此,提出一个改进方案,采用单向杂凑函数来加密个人信息,保护从服务器传出的参数,并使用共享信息保护服务器所送出的随机数。     

一种增强的智能卡口令认证方案

Hwang等人提出了基于ElGamal算法的智能卡口令认证方案,其安全性依赖于计算有限域上离散对数的难度。Chan等人分析了该方案的安全缺陷,并进行了改进。最近,Awasthi等人指出了改进方案中的安全缺陷,并提出了一种新方案,但新方案仍然存在缺陷。针对新方案的缺陷,基于“一次一密”和“动态口令”,提出了一种增强的智能卡口令认证方案。该方案允许用户自由选择口令,能够抵御重放攻击、内部攻击,能双向认证,具备强安全修复性。     

高效的不可否认的门限代理签名新方案

基于Kim等人的门限代理签名方案,Sun提出了已知签名人的不可否认的门限代理签名方案。在Sun的方案中,代理签名人不能否认他们所进行的代理签名。随后,Hsu等人证明Sun方案不能抵抗共谋攻击,并提出了相应的改进方案。论文首先证明了Hsu等人的改进方案不能抵抗公钥替换的内部攻击,即任何恶意的内部攻击者,不需要其他代理签名人的密钥,对任意的消息能够伪造一个有效的门限代理签名。然后提出了一种不可否认的门限代理签名新方案,能同时抵抗内部的公钥替换攻击和共谋攻击。就计算复杂度和通信成本而言,该文的方案比Hsu等人的方案更有效、更实用。     

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.     

An efficient two-factor user authentication scheme with unlinkability for wireless sensor networks

User authentication with unlinkability is one of the corner stone services for many security and privacy services which are required to secure communications in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Recently, Xue et al. proposed a temporal-credential-based mutual authentication and key agreement scheme for WSNs, and claimed that their scheme achieves identity and password protection, and the resiliency of stolen smart card attacks. However, we observe that Xue et al.’s scheme is subject to identity guessing attack, tracking attack, privileged insider attack and weak stolen smart card attack. In order to fix the drawbacks, we propose an enhanced authentication scheme with unlinkability. Additionally, the proposed scheme further cuts the computational cost. Therefore, the proposed scheme not only remedies its security flaws but also improves its performance. It is more suitable for practical applications of WSNs than Xue et al.’s scheme.     

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.     

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 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.     

Two robust remote user authentication protocols using smart cards

With the rapid growth of electronic commerce and enormous demand from variants of Internet based applications, strong privacy protection and robust system security have become essential requirements for an authentication scheme or universal access control mechanism. In order to reduce implementation complexity and achieve computation efficiency, design issues for efficient and secure password based remote user authentication scheme have been extensively investigated by research community in these two decades. Recently, two well-designed password based authentication schemes using smart cards are introduced by Hsiang and Shih (2009) and Wang et al. (2009), respectively. Hsiang et al. proposed a static ID based authentication protocol and Wang et al. presented a dynamic ID based authentication scheme. The authors of both schemes claimed that their protocol delivers important security features and system functionalities, such as mutual authentication, data security, no verification table implementation, freedom on password selection, resistance against ID-theft attack, replay attack and insider attack, as well as computation efficiency. However, these two schemes still have much space for security enhancement. In this paper, we first demonstrate a series of vulnerabilities on these two schemes. Then, two enhanced protocols with corresponding remedies are proposed to eliminate all identified security flaws in both schemes.     

一个安全的多群签名方案

基于Kim等人的可转换群签名的思想，提出了一个安全的多群签名方案,该方案不仅能实现单群签名，而且能实现多群签名，并且能抵抗Li和Wang等人对Kim等人方案提出的攻击．此外，新方案还具有注销群成员的特性.     

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.     

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.     

A password based authentication scheme for wireless multimedia systems

In this digital era, where Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing day by day, use of resource constrained devices is also increasing. Indeed, the features such as low cost, less maintenance, more adaptive to hostile environment, etc. make the wireless multimedia devices to be the best choice as the resource constrained devices. For the security, the end user device requires to establish the session key with the server before transferring the data. Mobile is one of the device having more and more usage as wireless multimedia device in recent years. In 2013, Li et al. proposed an efficient scheme for the wireless mobile communications and claimed it to be secure against various attacks. Recently, Shen et al. claimed that the scheme of Li et al. is still vulnerable to the privileged insider attack, the stolen verifier attack and finally proposed a scheme to withstand the mentioned and other attacks. However, in this paper we claim that the scheme of Shen et al. is still susceptible to the user anonymity, the session specific temporary information attack and the replay attack. In addition, Shen et al.’s scheme requires more time due to many operations. Further, we propose an efficient scheme that is secure against various known attacks and due to reduced time complexity our scheme is a preferred choice for the wireless mobile networks and hence for wireless multimedia systems.     

Improvement of Chien et al.'s remote user authentication scheme using smart cards

In 2000, Sun proposed an efficient remote user authentication scheme using smart cards. Later, Chien et al. pointed out that Sun's scheme does not provide the mutual authentication between the user and the server and allow users to freely choose password themselves. Chien et al. further proposed a new efficient and practical solution to solve the problems. However, Hsu showed that Chien et al.'s scheme is vulnerable to the parallel session attack. This paper proposes an improved scheme to overcome the weakness while maintaining the advantages of Chien et al.'s scheme.     

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.