Multilevel Authentication using QR code based watermarking with mobile OTP and Hadamard transformation

Abstract

In this era of high-speed internet, online banking facilities improve the user transactions with the bank within a few moments of time. This improved communications also leads to many vulnerabilities to the virtual world like phishing, pharming etc. This issue of mobile banking can take care by verifying the authenticity of the user. Here we propose a hybrid mechanism with the use of Quick Response code(QR code), One Time Password(OTP), and digital watermarking-a data hiding technique. Taking OTP as the key to the watermark sequence QR code is generated at the bank. Here OTP can be used for the first level verification for authenticity. Hadamard transformation is used in the watermarking process to hide the sequence for the second level verification. Combination of OTP and watermark sequence enables high security during the online transaction. An advantage of this approach is that the QR code can be designed in a small constraint with an appropriate way of real-time extraction. By the use of an android application, performance can be evaluated, including the real-time extraction using the mobile phone.