Unified Authentication Scheme Based on IBE in Trusted Network

Abstract

The existing unified authentication schemes are based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)/Privilege Management Infrastructure (PMI), WS-Security, Kerberos etc. But they can't support the developing Trusted Network Connect (TNC) environment. To solve the problem, a unified authentication scheme supporting multi-authentication modes based on Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) in trusted network named IEUAS is proposed. IEUAS authenticates the identity of a user by loading different authentication plugins to communicate with the related authentication servers. According to the legal identity of the user, a lightweight IBE system enforces four management mechanisms. They are the identity management, the key management, the application management and the domain management. Single Sign-On (SSO) and cross-domain SSO are implemented. The experiment results show that IEUAS can effectively solve the unified authentication problem in the TNC environment, and provide better security, efficiency and availability.