Nonce-based Authentication Research Articles

A Long Tweak Goes a Long Way: High Multi-user Security Authenticated Encryption from Tweakable Block Ciphers

We analyze the multi-user (mu) security of a family of nonce-based authentication encryption (nAE) schemes based on a tweakable block cipher (TBC). The starting point of our work is an analysis of the mu security of the SCT-II mode which underlies the nAE scheme Deoxys-II, winner of the CAESAR competition for the defense-in-depth category. We extend this analysis in two directions, as we detail now. First, we investigate the mu security of several TBC-based variants of the counter encryption mode (including CTRT, the encryption mode used within SCT-II) that differ by the way a nonce, a random value, and a counter are combined as tweak and plaintext inputs to the TBC to produce the keystream blocks that will mask the plaintext blocks. Then, we consider the authentication part of SCT-II and study the mu security of the nonce-based MAC Nonce-as-Tweak (NaT) built from a TBC and an almost universal (AU) hash function. We also observe that the standard construction of an AU hash function from a (T)BC can be proven secure under the assumption that the underlying TBC is unpredictable rather than pseudorandom, allowing much better conjectures on the concrete AU advantage. This allows us to derive the mu security of the family of nAE modes obtained by combining these encryption/MAC building blocks through the NSIV composition method. Some of these modes require an underlying TBC with a larger tweak length than what is usually available for existing ones. We then show the practicality of our modes by instantiating them with two new TBC constructions, Deoxys-TBC-512 and Deoxys-TBC-640, which can be seen as natural extensions of the Deoxys-TBC family to larger tweak input sizes. Designing such TBCs with unusually large tweaks is prone to pitfalls: Indeed, we show that a large-tweak proposal for SKINNY published at EUROCRYPT 2020 presents an inherent construction flaw. We therefore provide a sound design strategy to construct large-tweak TBCs within the Superposition Tweakey (STK) framework, leading to new Deoxys-TBC and SKINNY variants. We provide software benchmarks indicating that while ensuring a very high security level, the performances of our proposals remain very competitive.

Preventing delegation-based mobile authentications from man-in-the-middle attacks

In this paper, an approach of mutual authentication and key exchange for mobile access, based on the trust delegation and message authentication code, is developed, and a novel nonce-based authentication approach is presented. The proposed protocols can effectively defend all known attacks to mobile networks including the denial-of-service attacks and man-in-the-middle attacks. In particular, in contrast to some previous work, our design gives users a chance to set a session key according to users' will, and does not require a mobile user to compute useless hash key chains in the face of HLR-online authentication failures or run the initial authentication protocol before HLR-offline authentication. Moreover, our design enjoys both computation efficiency and communication efficiency as compared to known mobile authentication schemes.

Elliptic curve cryptography based mutual authentication scheme for session initiation protocol

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is the most widely used signaling protocol for controlling communication on the internet, establishing, maintaining, and terminating the sessions. The services that are enabled by SIP are equally applicable in the world of multimedia communication. Recently, Tsai proposed an efficient nonce-based authentication scheme for SIP. In this paper, we do a cryptanalysis of Tsai's scheme and show that Tsai's scheme is vulnerable to the password guessing attack and stolen-verifier attack. Furthermore, Tsai's scheme does not provide known-key secrecy and perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a novel and secure mutual authentication scheme based on elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem for SIP which is immune to the presented attacks.

Robust Mutual Authentication with a Key Agreement Scheme for the Session Initiation Protocol

The session initiation protocol (SIP) is a powerful signaling protocol that controls communication on the Internet, establishing, maintaining, and terminating the sessions. The services that are enabled by SIP are equally applicable in the world of mobile and ubiquitous computing. In 2009, Tsai proposed an efficient nonce-based authentication scheme for SIP. The current paper, however, demonstrates that Tsai’s authentication scheme is still vulnerable to offline password guessing attacks, Denning-Sacco attacks, and stolen-verifier attacks, and does not provide perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a new secure and efficient authentication scheme based on the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem for SIP in order to overcome such security problems.

An Improved Securer and Efficient Nonce-Based Authentication Scheme with Token-Update

In this paper, we propose a mutual authentication scheme using nonce variable instead of Mac address and accompanying with token updates to improve the functionality. Lee et al. (2005a) and Shi et al. (2006) proposed the site authentication schemes by using the generating random numbers. The site authentication can identify a personal computer using LAN card's Mac address, but the Mac address is easily detected through Address Resolution Protocol in the Open Systems Interconnection model. Therefore, we propose an improved securer and efficient nonce-based authentication scheme providing mutual authentication to resist the replay attack, man-in-the-middle attack and Mac address attack.

Efficient nonce-based authentication scheme for Session Initiation Protocol

In recent years, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is more and more popular. However, there are many security problems in the Session Initiation Protocol. In 2005, Yang et al. [9] proposed a secure authentication scheme for Session Initiation Protocol. This authentication scheme is based on Diffe-Hellman [2] concept, so the computation cost of this authentication scheme is very high. In order to improve this shortcoming, Durlanik et al. [3] also proposed an authentication Scheme using ECDH in 2005. However, the computation cost of this authentication scheme is still very high. In this paper, we propose an efficient nonce-based authentication scheme. The computation cost of this authentication scheme is lower than Yang et al. s authentication scheme and Durlanik et al.s authentication scheme, and it is very suitable for low computation power equipment.

Reducing Communication Overhead for Wireless Roaming Authentication: Methods and Performance Evaluation

The protocol design for wireless roaming authentication is challenging because of the key management regarding users and home/visited networks. In this paper, we present two authentication methods that demonstrate better performance in terms of authentication latency and energy consumption of a mobile terminal, compared to the 3G cellular network approach of home network transporting authentication vector to visited network. The proposed Method I, referred to as Nonce-based Authentication, eliminates the sequence numbers used in the 3G roaming authentication and employs the key derivation and caching technique for mobile terminal and visited network. The proposed Method II, called Lightweight Localized Authentication, introduces the computation-efficient protocol based on a carefully designed public key certificate infrastructure. With the design goal of achieving security by lower cost, both methods significantly reduce the communication overhead between home and visited networks for roaming authentication, as indicated by analytical and experimental result.

An efficient nonce-based authentication scheme with key agreement

Many authentication protocols using smart cards have been proposed recently. In this article, we propose an efficient nonce-based authentication (ENA) protocol with key agreement. Generally, nonce-based authentication schemes require verification tables in servers to authenticate users. In ENA, both verification tables and synchronized timestamps are not required. Thus, ENA can be easily implemented in both users and servers. ENA also provides key agreement based on the nonce values generated in authentication. The ENA protocol has several features including: (1) no verification table is required in a server; (2) time synchronization is not needed between users and servers; (3) both the communication and computation cost are extremely low; (4) it provides mutual authentication between users and servers; (5) it supports session key agreement.

ID-based password authentication scheme using smart cards and fingerprints

This paper proposes two ID-based password authentication schemes, which does not require a dictionary of passwords or verification tables, with smart card and fingerprint. In these schemes, users can change their passwords freely. For a network without synchronization clocks, the proposed nonce-based authentication scheme can withstand message replay attacks. The proposed two schemes require a system to authenticate each user by each user's knowledge, possession, and biometrics, and this feature makes our schemes more reliable.

Password authentication schemes with smart cards

In this paper, two password authentication schemes with smart cards are proposed. In the schemes, users can change their passwords freely, and the remote system does not need the directory of passwords or verification tables to authenticate users. Once the secure network environment is set up, authentication can be handled solely by the two parties involved. For a network without synchronized clocks, the proposed nonce-based authentication scheme is able to prevent malicious reply attacks.

An efficient and secure authentication protocol using uncertified keys

Most authentication protocols for distributed systems achieve identification and key distributions on the belief that the use of a uncertified key, i.e. the key whose freshness and authenticity cannot be immediately verified by its receiving principal while being received, should be avoided during the mid-way of an authentication process. In this paper we claim that using a uncertified key prudently can give performance advantages and not necessarily reduces the security of authentication protocols, as long as the validity of the key can be verified at the end of an authentication process. A nonce-based authentication protocol using uncertified keys is proposed. Its total number of messages is shown to be the minimal of all authentication protocols with the same formalized goals of authentication. The properties which make the protocol optimal in terms of message complexity are elaborated, and a formal logical analysis to the protocol is performed. The protocol is extended to counter the session key compromise problem and to support repeated authentication, in a more secure and flexible way without losing its optimality.