A secure and enhanced elliptic curve cryptography‐based dynamic authentication scheme using smart card

In remote system security, 2‐factor authentication is one of the security approaches and provides fundamental protection to the system. Recently, numerous 2‐factor authentication schemes are proposed. In 2014, Troung et al proposed an enhanced dynamic authentication scheme using smart card mainly to provide anonymity, secure mutual authentication, and session key security. By the analysis of Troung et al's scheme, we observed that Troung et al' s scheme does not provide user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, server's secret key security and does not allow the user to choose his/her password. We also identified that Troung et al's scheme is vulnerable to replay attack. To fix these security weaknesses, a robust authentication scheme is proposed and analyzed using the formal verification tool for measuring the robustness. From the observation of computational efficiency of the proposed scheme, we conclude that the scheme is more secure and easy to implement practically.     

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.     

Secure user authentication scheme with novel server mutual verification for multiserver environments

The fast growth of mobile services and devices has made the conventional single‐server architecture ineffective from the point of its functional requirements. To extend the scalability and availability of mobile services to various applications, it is required to deploy multiserver architecture. In 2016, Moon et al insisted that Lu et al's scheme is weak to insiders and impersonation attack, then they proposed a biometric‐based scheme for authentication and key agreement of users in multiserver environments. Unfortunately, we analyze Moon et al's scheme and demonstrate that their scheme does not withstand various attacks from a malicious registered server. We propose a user authentication scheme with server mutual verification to overcome these security drawbacks. The proposed scheme withstands an attack from malicious insiders in multiserver environments. We use a threshold cryptography to strengthen the process of server authorization and to provide better security functionalities. We then prove the authentication and session key of the proposed scheme using Burrows‐Abadi‐Needham (BAN) logic and show that our proposed scheme is secure against various attacks.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

异构无线网络中基于标识的匿名认证协议

针对异构无线网络中的认证协议的安全问题,提出一种基于CPK算法和改进的ECDH算法的双向认证和密钥协商协议,引入用户的临时认证身份和临时通信身份实现用户的身份匿名;提出采用临时通信身份有序对防止重认证过程中的重放攻击,并且在协议设计中规避了密钥泄漏带来的风险。分析表明该协议具有身份认证、会话密钥安全、匿名性等安全属性。     

A post quantum secure construction of an authentication protocol for satellite communication

Satellite's communication system is used to communicate under significant distance and circumstances where the other communication systems are not comfortable. Since all the data are exchanged over a public channel, so the security of the data is an essential component for the communicating parties. Both key exchange and authentication are two cryptographic tools to establish a secure communication between two parties. Currently, various kinds of authentication protocols are available to establish a secure network, but all of them depend on number–theoretical (discrete logarithm problem/factorization assumption) hard assumptions. Due to Shor's and Grover's computing algorithm number theoretic assumptions are breakable by quantum computers. Although Kumar and Garg have proposed a quantum attack-resistant protocol for satellite communication, it cannot resist stolen smart card attack. We have analyzed that how Kumar and Garg is vulnerable to the stolen smart card attack using differential power analysis attack described in He et al and Chen and Chen. We have also analyzed the modified version of signal leakage attack and sometimes called improved signal leakage attack on Kumar and Garg's protocol. We have tried to construct a secure and efficient authentication protocol for satellites communication that is secure against quantum computing. This is more efficient as it requires only three messages of exchange. This paper includes security proof and performance of the proposed authentication and key agreement protocol.     

On the security and improvement of privacy‐preserving 3‐factor authentication scheme for TMIS

The telecare medicine information system (TMIS) enables patients from different regions to remotely share the same telecare services, which significantly enhances the quality and effectiveness of medical treatment. On the other hand, patients' electronic health records usually involve their privacy information, they thus hesitate to directly transmit these information in TMIS over the public network due to the threat of privacy disclosure. The authenticated key agreement, as a core building of securing communications over the public network, is considered to be necessary for strengthening the security of TMIS. Recently, we note Zhang et al introduced a 3‐factor authenticated key agreement scheme for TMIS and asserted that the proposed scheme can resist various well‐known attacks. Unfortunately, in this paper, we point out that the scheme of Zhang et al cannot achieve the claimed security guarantees. Specifically, their scheme is vulnerable to offline password/identity guessing attack and user/server impersonation attack. To conquer the above security pitfalls, we put forward a new 3‐factor authenticated key agreement scheme with privacy preservation for TMIS. The security evaluation and performance discussion indicate that our scheme can be free from those well‐known and classical attacks including offline guessing attack and impersonation attack, without increasing additional computation cost when compared with related works. Consequently, the new authentication scheme would be more desirable for securing communications in TMIS.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

An enhanced anonymous and unlinkable user authentication and key agreement protocol for TMIS by utilization of ECC

The telecare medicine information systems (TMISs) not only help patients to receive incessant health care services but also assist the medical staffs to access patients' electronic health records anytime and from anywhere via Internet. Since the online communications are exposed to numerous security threats, the mutual authentication and key agreement between patients and the medical servers are of prime significance. During the recent years, various user authentication schemes have been suggested for the TMISs. Nonetheless, most of them are susceptible to some known attacks or have high computational cost. Newly, an effective remote user authentication and session key agreement protocol has been introduced by Ravanbakhsh and Nazari for health care systems. Besides the nice contributions of their work, we found that it has two security weaknesses, namely, known session‐specific temporary information attack and lack of perfect forward secrecy. As a result, to overcome these deficiencies, this paper suggests a novel anonymous and unlinkable user authentication and key agreement scheme for TMISs using the elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC). We have evaluated the security of the proposed scheme by applying the automated validation of internet security protocols and applications (AVISPA) tool with the intention of indicating that our scheme can satisfy the vital security features. In addition, we have compared the proposed protocol with related schemes to show that it has a proper level of performance. The obtained results demonstrate that the new scheme is more preferable considering both efficiency and security criteria.     

Secure anonymous authentication scheme without verification table for mobile satellite communication systems

An authentication scheme is one of the most basic and important security mechanisms for satellite communication systems because it prevents illegal access by an adversary. Lee et al. recently proposed an efficient authentication scheme for mobile satellite communication systems. However, we observed that this authentication scheme is vulnerable to a denial of service (DoS) attack and does not offer perfect forward secrecy. Therefore, we propose a novel secure authentication scheme without verification table for mobile satellite communication systems. The proposed scheme can simultaneously withstand DoS attacks and support user anonymity and user unlinkability. In addition, the proposed scheme is based on the elliptic curve cryptosystem, has low client‐side and server‐side computation costs, and achieves perfect forward secrecy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improved authentication with key agreement scheme on elliptic curve cryptosystem for global mobility networks

In this paper, we cryptanalyze Rhee et al.'s ‘Remote user authentication scheme without using smart cards’, and prove that their scheme is not completely secure against user impersonation attack. The security flaw is caused by mathematical homomorphism of the registration information. In addition, their scheme lacks key agreement procedures for generating the session key to encrypt the communication messages after mutual authentication. Furthermore, a modification is proposed to improve the security, practicability and robustness of such scheme. Firstly, we introduce elliptic curve cryptosystem to enhance the security. Secondly, in order to improve the practicability, our improvement is much more easily implemented using portable devices in global mobility networks; moreover, a synchronized clock system, traditional password table or ancillary equipment are not required in our improvement. Finally, the proposed scheme not only achieves mutual authentication, but also provides the procedure for key agreement and update of secrets for users and servers to increase the robustness. Copyright © 2013 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.     

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.     

Cryptanalysis and Enhancement of an Anonymous Self-Certified Key Exchange Protocol

Authentication protocols with anonymity have gained much popularity recently which allows users to access any public network without compromising their identity. Several key exchange protocols have been proposed in the literature using either public key infrastructure or identity-based cryptosystem. However, the former suffers from heavy computation cost and latter fails to prevent key escrow problem. Recently, Islam et al. have proposed a self-certified authenticated key agreement protocol based on ECC which removes the above limitations. However, through careful analysis, we found that their scheme lack anonymity and vulnerable to trace the attack, clogging attack, and fails to prevent the replay attack. To overcome these weaknesses, we propose an anonymous self-certified authenticated key exchange protocol by including the required security features. The scheme is formally proved using Automated Validation of Internet Security protocols and Applications software. Also, the formal authentication proofs using Burrows–Abadi–Needham logic ensures successful authentication. Furthermore, the performance analysis demonstrates that the proposed scheme accomplishes less computational cost and is applicable to a client–server architecture.