Improving the Authentication Mechanism of Business to Consumer (B2C) Platform in a Cloud Computing Environment: Preliminary Findings

Abstract

The reliance of e-commerce infrastructure on cloud computing environment has undoubtedly increased the security challenges in web-based e-commerce portals. This has necessitated the need for a built-in security feature, essentially to improve the authentication mechanism, during the execution of its dependent transactions. Comparative analysis of the existing works and studies on XML-based authentication and non-XML signaturebased security mechanisms for authentication in Business to Consumer (B2C) e-commerce showed the advantage of using XML-based authentication, and its inherent weaknesses and limitations. It is against this background that this study, based on review and meta-analysis of previous works, proposes an improved XML digital signature with RSA algorithm, as a novel algorithmic framework that improves the authentication strength of XML digital signature in the B2C e-commerce in a cloud-based environment. Our future works include testing and validation, and simulation, of the proposed authentication framework in Cisco’s XML Management Interface with inbuilt feature of NETCONF. The evaluation will be done in conformity to international standard and guideline –such as W3C and NIST.