Abstract
A significant percentage of security research that is conducted suffers from common issues that prevent wide-scale adoption. Common snags of such proposed methods tend to include (i) introduction of additional nodes within the communication architecture, breaking the simplicity of the typical client–server model, or fundamental restructuring of the Internet ecosystem; (ii) significant inflation of responsibilities or duties for the user and/or server operator; and (iii) adding increased risks surrounding sensitive data during the authentication process. Many schemes seek to prevent brute-forcing attacks; they often ignore either partially or holistically the dangers of other cyber-attacks such as MiTM or replay attacks. Therefore, there is no incentive to implement such proposals, and it has become the norm instead to inflate current username/password authentication systems. These have remained standard within client–server authentication paradigms, despite insecurities stemming from poor user and server operator practices, and vulnerabilities to interception and masquerades. Besides these vulnerabilities, systems which revolve around secure authentication typically present exploits of two categories; either pitfalls which allow MiTM or replay attacks due to transmitting data for authentication constantly, or the storage of sensitive information leading to highly specific methods of data storage or facilitation, increasing chances of human error. This paper proposes a more secure method of authentication that retains the current structure of accepted paradigms, but minimizes vulnerabilities which result from the process, and does not inflate responsibilities for users or server operators. The proposed scheme uses a hybrid, layered encryption technique alongside a two-part verification process, and provides dynamic protection against interception-based cyber-attacks such as replay or MiTM attacks, without creating additional vulnerabilities for other attacks such as bruteforcing. Results show the proposed mechanism outperforms not only standardized methods, but also other schemes in terms of deployability, exploit resilience, and speed.
Highlights
Authentication is one of the most important structural components within wider, secure cyber-systems
The scheme works through a multi-factor verification based on segmented mutual data between nodes
The key is kept encrypted with a rotating randomized one-time-pad between sessions
Summary
Authentication is one of the most important structural components within wider, secure cyber-systems. While many aspects of how we maintain and secure systems have continued to evolve, accepted norms of authentication have not undergone significant changes in a similar parallel. The usage of username/password style authentication has remained a controversial methodology despite its widespread usage. Sensors 2020, 20, 4212 that this methodology is increasingly flawed and insecure, but the continued advance of technology, and processing speeds, has continued to further this insecurity. Some studies have proposed outsourcing an authentication mechanism that requires IoT RFID-based devices to use a server on the edge of the network to complete the verification and the authentication process [5], which provides an increasingly secure communications by measuring four different security factors
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