Universal Serial Bus Mass Storage Research Articles

Design of a Secure Three-Factor Authentication Scheme for Smart Healthcare.

Now-a-days, the society is witnessing a keen urge to enhance the quality of healthcare services with the intervention of technology in the health sector. The main focus in transforming traditional healthcare to smart healthcare is on facilitating the patients as well as medical professionals. However, this changover is not easy due to various issues of security and integrity associated with it. Security of patients's personal health record and privacy can be handled well by permitting only authorized access to the confidential health-data via suitably designed authentication scheme. In pursuit to contribute in this direction, we came across the role of Universal Serial Bus (USB), the most widely accepted interface, in enabling communication between peripheral devices and a host controller like laptop, personal computer, smart phone, tablet etc. In the process, we analysed a recently proposed a three-factor authentication scheme for consumer USB Mass Storage Devices (MSD) by He et al. In this paper, we demonstrate that He et al.'s scheme is vulnerable to leakage of temporary but session specific information attacks, late detection of message replay, forward secrecy attacks, and backward secrecy attacks. Then motivated with the benefits of USB, we propose a secure three-factor authentication scheme for smart healthcare.

An Efficient Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme for Consumer USB MSDs Resilient to Unauthorized File Decryption

The Mass Storage Class (MSC) of universal serial bus (USB) interface is a collection of communication protocols that enables USB Mass Storage Device(s) [MSD(s)] to be connected with the host system for data transfer in full duplex fashion. USB_MSDs are common in use due to their affordable price, high storage capacity, and excellent transmission speed. But because of security vulnerabilities, its use is strictly prohibited in many classified and commercial environments. Authenticated key agreement between client terminal and authentication server is an essential security feature to securely store data on USB_MSD. Recently, Giri et al. proposed an authenticated key agreement scheme for USB_MSD, having session spanning file decryption characteristics. In this paper, we have reviewed and pointed out several security vulnerabilities, including unauthorized file decryption attack of the aforesaid scheme. This paper introduces the notion of unauthorized file decryption attack and defines its adversarial model. Next, an improved security protocol for USB_MSD(s) has been proposed. The formal and informal security along with Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Application (AVISPA) tool verification of proposed scheme shows that it is safe against eminent attacks. The performance comparison in terms of computational complexity, communication overhead, storage space and security features showed that proposed scheme is computationally efficient and has improved security characteristics also.

An Authentication and Data Protection Scheme Research for Mass Storage Devices

Universal serial bus mass storage is a widely used storage device. In order to protect the user data security in USB storage devices, an effective authentication and data protection scheme is proposed. Using the attribute-based control technology, the security authentication of the USB device user is realized, and the privacy data fine-grained control of the USB device is realized. Security analysis shows that the scheme has strong security, it can resist replay attack, denial of service attack, the online password guessing attack, user impersonation attack, etc. Experimental performance analysis shows that the scheme has high efficiency in user registration, authentication and file decryption.

A novel and efficient session spanning biometric and password based three-factor authentication protocol for consumer USB Mass Storage Devices

This paper proposes a key agreement scheme after secure authentication to prevent the unauthorized access of the data stored in a Universal Serial Bus (USB) Mass Storage Device (MSD). Due to the system architecture of this proposed scheme, authorized users can store their data in a secure encrypted form after performing authentication. The novelty of this work is that users can retrieve the encrypted data in not only the current session but also across different sessions, thus reducing the required communications overhead. This paper then analyses the security of the proposed protocol through a formal analysis to demonstrate that the information has been stored securely and is also protected offering strong resilience to relevant security attacks. The computational and communication costs of the proposed scheme is analyzed and compared to related works to show that the proposed scheme has an improved tradeoff for computational cost, communication cost and security1.

Efficient biometric and password based mutual authentication for consumer USB mass storage devices

A Universal Serial Bus (USB) Mass Storage Device (MSD), often termed a USB flash drive, is ubiquitously used to store important information in unencrypted binary format. This low cost consumer device is incredibly popular due to its size, large storage capacity and relatively high transfer speed. However, if the device is lost or stolen an unauthorized person can easily retrieve all the information. Therefore, it is advantageous in many applications to provide security protection so that only authorized users can access the stored information. In order to provide security protection for a USB MSD, this paper proposes a session key agreement protocol after secure user authentication. The main aim of this protocol is to establish session key negotiation through which all the information retrieved, stored and transferred to the USB MSD is encrypted. This paper not only contributes an efficient protocol, but also does not suffer from the forgery attack and the password guessing attack as compared to other protocols in the literature. This paper analyses the security of the proposed protocol through a formal analysis which proves that the information is stored confidentially and is protected offering strong resilience to relevant security attacks. The computational cost and communication cost of the proposed scheme is analyzed and compared to related work to show that the proposed scheme has an improved tradeoff for computational cost, communication cost and security.

Secure control protocol for universal serial bus mass storage devices

The universal serial bus (USB) has some advantages like high transmission speed, plug-and-play and hot swapping, and has become the most popular interface standard for peripheral connections. However, such features also make it easier for a malicious user to extract confidential files from computer systems via USB ports. Consequently, to control the potential security risks of USB interface, many workplace and commercial corporations have directly forbidden their employees from using USB devices. To provide a flexible way of using USB without compromising security, this study proposes a novel secure control protocol for USB storage devices. The device and the server are required to complete mutual authentication and establish a session key used to encrypt the transferred files. The details of each phase of the new protocol are given. Security analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol conquers those security pitfalls existing in the available protocols and can resist various attacks. Performance discussion indicates that the new protocol is also efficient enough for practical applications.

Enhanced three-factor security protocol for consumer USB mass storage devices

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an extremely popular interface standard for computer peripheral connections and is widely used in consumer Mass Storage Devices (MSDs). While current consumer USB MSDs provide relatively high transmission speed and are convenient to carry, the use of USB MSDs has been prohibited in many commercial and everyday environments primarily due to security concerns. Security protocols have been previously proposed and a recent approach for the USB MSDs is to utilize multi-factor authentication. This paper proposes significant enhancements to the three-factor control protocol that now makes it secure under many types of attacks including the password guessing attack, the denial-of-service attack, and the replay attack. The proposed solution is presented with a rigorous security analysis and practical computational cost analysis to demonstrate the usefulness of this new security protocol for consumer USB MSDs.

Three‐factor control protocol based on elliptic curve cryptosystem for universal serial bus mass storage devices

This study proposes a three-factor control protocol for universal serial bus (USB) on an elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC). USB is a universal interface used in an enormous number of devices. It has become the most popular interface standard for computer connections. However, since USB provides high transmission speed and is very convenient to carry, many workplace and commercial establishments have prohibited their employees from using USB devices. This precaution is an important way to prevent confidential data leaks via USB devices, as USB connections lack security management. Therefore the authors use a three-factor control protocol to ensure the security of USB connections. The proposed authentication protocol combines biometric, password and smart card to provide high security on the USB mutual authentication. To provide secure and efficient transmission between the user and the USB server, the proposed protocol adopts ECC to encrypt data. Compared to other encryption methods, the proposed protocol uses much smaller key sizes. As a further benefit, this protocol reduces the smart card computational cost and provides an efficient transmission for USB devices. This new scheme improves the security, efficiency and usability of the authentication process. More studies on USB are needed.

A secure control protocol for USB mass storage devices

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) has become the most popular interface standard for hardware connection, and there has been an explosion in the number of USB peripheral devices. External USB storage devices, in particular, are finding widespread application. Unfortunately, because USB affords high transmission speeds and is extremely convenient, many workplaces and businesses have prohibited the use of USB devices to prevent confidential data from being extracted from computer systems via USB ports. However, this compromises the convenience of the USB connection and demonstrates a lack of flexibility in management. Therefore, finding a way to take the considerations of both convenience and management into account has become a significant issue. This study proposes a secure control protocol which provides mutual authentication and key agreement between client and server to solve this problem.