Generation of Secure One-Time Password Based on Image Authentication

Abstract

Phishing, a serious security threat to Internet users is an e-mail fraud in which the perpetrator sends out an email which looks like legitimate, in an order to gather personal and financial information of the receiver. It is important to prevent such phishing attacks. One of the ways to prevent the password theft is to avoid using passwords and to authenticate a user without a text password. In this paper, we are proposing an authentication service that is image based and which eliminates the need for text passwords. Using the instant messaging service available in internet, user will obtain the One Time Password (OTP) after image authentication. This OTP then can be used by user to access their personal accounts. The image based authentication method relies on the user’s ability to recognize pre-chosen categories from a grid of pictures. This paper integrates Image based authentication and HMAC based one time password to achieve high level of security in authenticating the user over the internet. These algorithms are very economical to implement provided they are time synchronized with the user.