Cryptanalysis of Three Password-Based Remote User Authentication Schemes with Non-Tamper-Resistant Smart Card

Abstract

Remote user authentication is the first step to guarantee the security of online services. Online services grow rapidly and numerous remote user authentication schemes were proposed with high capability and efficiency. Recently, there are three new improved remote user authentication schemes which claim to be resistant to various attacks. Unfortunately, according to our analysis, these schemes all fail to achieve some critical security goals. This paper demonstrates that they all suffer from offline dictionary attack or fail to achieve forward secrecy and user anonymity. It is worth mentioning that we divide offline dictionary attacks into two categories: (1) the ones using the verification from smart cards and (2) the ones using the verification from the open channel. The second is more complicated and intractable than the first type. Such distinction benefits the exploration of better design principles. We also discuss some practical solutions to the two kinds of attacks, respectively. Furthermore, we proposed a reference model to deal with the first kind of attack and proved its effectiveness by taking one of our cryptanalysis schemes as an example.