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Multi-Tier Authentication Scheme to Enhance Security in Cloud Computing

April 2019
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL REVIEWS 6(2):833-840

April 2019
6(2):833-840

Authors:

J.P.Morgan Chase & Co

The goal of this work is to demonstrate the design of a more advanced and secure authentication mechanism for executing secure financial transactions over the Internet. Since technology is evolving at a rapid pace, security techniques such as authentication schemes must be updated as well. Security measures are extremely important in the banking and financial industries. Single-tier authentication is insufficient for any internet application that exchanges personal or confidential information. Authentication techniques using more than one tier are considered to be safer than single-tier authentication schemes. Secure authentication techniques that are well-designed are more fraud-deterrent. In several computing disciplines, diff multi-tier authentication techniques have been developed and implemented. The fundamental disadvantage of these systems is that they do not protect against insider attacks in the majority of cases. Another disadvantage of Cloud Computing is that the entire authentication control is delegated to the server. In Cloud Computing, trusting a third-party server is quite difficult. This paper presents a technique that divides the authentication process into two levels or tiers. Simple username and password are used in the first tier. The second tier consists of a predetermined sequence of steps. This technique has the advantage of not requiring any new hardware or software. As a result, it may be utilised and accessed it from anywhere in the world.

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Multi-Tier Authentication Scheme to Enhance

Security in Cloud Computing

Karuturi S R V Satish1, M Swamy Das2

Research Scholar, Mewar University, Rajastan, India1

Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Mewar University, Rajastan, India2

Abstract: The goal of this work is to demonstrate

the design of a more advanced and secure

authentication mechanism for executing secure

financial transactions over the Internet. Since

technology is evolving at a rapid pace, security

techniques such as authentication schemes must

be updated as well. Security measures are

extremely important in the banking and financial

industries. Single-tier authentication is

insufficient for any internet application that

exchanges personal or confidential information.

Authentication techniques using more than one

tier are considered to be safer than single-tier

authentication schemes. Secure authentication

techniques that are well-designed are more

fraud-deterrent. In several computing

disciplines, diff multi-tier authentication

techniques have been developed and

implemented. The fundamental disadvantage of

these systems is that they do not protect against

insider attacks in the majority of cases. Another

disadvantage of Cloud Computing is that the

entire authentication control is delegated to the

server. In Cloud Computing, trusting a third-

party server is quite difficult. This paper presents

a technique that divides the authentication

process into two levels or tiers. Simple username

and password are used in the first tier. The

second tier consists of a predetermined sequence

of steps. This technique has the advantage of not

requiring any new hardware or software. As a

result, it may be utilised and accessed it from

anywhere in the world.

Keywords: Different authentication schemes,

man-in-middle insider attacks and multi-tier

authentication.

1 INTRODUCTION

Computing technology has advanced at a

breakneck pace during the last few decades.

Systems with great resource handling capacity,

capability and computing power have been

designed. So, The researchers' main focus for the

last decade has been to develop both hardware

and software. Many tasks are now completed

online as a result of advancements in internet

technology. Chatting, entertainment,

information collecting, and money transactions

are all examples of this. Authentication is

required for all of these online activities.

Authentication refers to the process of verifying

a user's identification, or whether the person is

who he claims to be. In the event of financial

transactions, information security is necessary to

carry out the transaction, which includes the

individual's data authentication parameters as

well as other transactions related sensitive data.

Various mechanisms, such as username-

passwords, biometric facial recognition, fake

screen, public key infrastructure, and

symmetric/non-symmetric key based

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834

authentication algorithms, are used for

authentication. Authentication systems are

important strategies for ensuring the validity of

all communication entities' identities [1]. In the

case of Cloud Computing, authentication is quite

complex. In Cloud Computing, a third party is in

charge of computing power, data storage space

and client application support among other

things. Every piece of information that a user

accesses is saved in a cloud database. Because

the Cloud database is maintained by a third-party

Cloud provider, users are hesitant to store their

data there. To use the Cloud's resources, the user

must provide proof of identity proving that they

are a legitimate person asking authorization to

use their resources. A user must first pass the

authentication phase before using or controlling

a remote server or processing financial

transactions [2].

The design and enhancement or implementation

of a multi-tier authentication mechanism in

Cloud are presented in this work. The second

section is devoted to a review of the literature.

The limitations of existing techniques are

discussed in Section III. Section IV describes the

proposed authentication scheme. Section V

discusses the results, and Sections VI discusses

conclusion and wrap up the study by discussing

future plans.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In most of the applications, user authentication is

accomplished simply through the use of a login

and password. Hackers can detect a user's

password in a matter of minutes using free

internet password cracking tools [3]. “NIST

(National Institute of Standards and Technology)

and FFIEC (Federal Financial Institutions

Examination Council)” provide details on

specifications to carry out sensitive financial

transactions to protect customers from this issue.

A single layer login password is insufficient. [4]

and [5] specified different authentication and

authorization models. For applying

authentication, the application must employ

many tiers. As a result, users are required to

input a secret code that is sent to their phone [5].

[6] contains certain risk management procedures

that are required to validate the identification of

retail and commercial consumers utilising

Internet-based financial services. Significant

legal and technological changes in computers

have occurred since 2001. The standards place a

higher premium on the protection of consumer

information [6]. These principles are aimed at

reducing fraud and identity theft. These

guidelines also include recommendations for

enhancing authentication technology. Financial

Institutions (FI) shall ensure the following

information on a regular basis, according to [6]

and [7].

Risk mitigation actions, such as proper

authentication strength, should be identified by

FI.

In light of any significant technological

advances, FI should adapt their information

security programme as needed. Customer

information, as well as internal and external

threats to information, should be protected by FI.

To provide a number of multifactor

authentication methods which including:

Shared Secrets: Client and third party user may

share Sensitive that are referred to as a shared

secrets.

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Tokens: Tokens are physical devices (that a

person possesses) that can be used for applying

multi-tier authentication method. Take, for

example, the mobile device connected to the

internet.

OTP (One-Time-Password) Scratch Card

(Non-Hardware-Based): The user is handed a

scratch card in this method. A one-time

password is provided by the scratch card. The

user is instructed to fill in specific numbers at

specific locations on the scratch card.

Biometrics: Biometric technologies use a

physiological or physical feature to identify or

authenticate a living person.

OOB Authentication: OutOfBond

Authentication, The user is authenticated twice

in this authentication system. The username and

password are entered first. Second, the user is

prompted to enter the code obtained on his or her

cell phone.

Geo Location: This approach verifies the user's

physical presence by determining his geographic

location. For example, if a user has completed

transactions in one country, his subsequent

transactions are presumed to be completed in

that same country.

SSO will handle any additional authentication

required by any other application once the user

has been authenticated. SSO (Single Sign-On) is

a method of gaining access to numerous

resources by authenticating only once. The

benefit of using SSO is that it reduces the

number of logins a user has to make for multiple

applications. SSO has the disadvantage that if the

SSO server is compromised, the entire Cloud

application is hacked as well.

[9] presents an approach that authenticates

Cloud access on various layers. It creates a

password and concatenates it at several levels.

To obtain access to each level, the user must

enter a password. This method has the advantage

of employing a multi-tiered strategy. When

compared to single-level security, multilayer

security is much more difficult to breach.

For the purpose of determining user authenticity,

the proposed approach relies on two-step

verification, which includes passwords,

smartcards, and out of band (strong two factors)

authentication[12]. The benefit of this method is

that it encourages clients to maintain specific

authentication controls in order to protect

themselves from assaults. The disadvantage of

this method is that it necessitates the use of

additional hardware and software to complete

the operations, which can be time consuming.

Other methods of authentication are presented in

[14] and [15], which use biometrics or other

physical traits. These techniques have the

advantage of using multi-tier authentication.

[16] discusses a framework for dealing with

security issues that takes advantage of the WS-*

security specifications to handle authentication

and related difficulties. [17-20] address

strategies for dealing with privacy, trust, and

policy-based access, but no multi-tiered

authentication is discussed. As a result, [17-20]

can use the suggested multi-tiered authentication

technique. [21], [22], and [23] discuss further

multi-tier authentication approaches. These

techniques have the disadvantage of requiring

additional hardware and software.

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3 LIMITATIONS OF EXISTING

TECHNIQUES

In the literature review, various approaches were

discussed. As described in Section II, the

methodologies under consideration have some

advantages and disadvantages. The

disadvantages of various solutions can be

divided into four categories: security against

insider attacks, authentication control pointed at

the server or client, additional hardware and

software required, and the number of security

levels necessary. The comparison of several

strategies based on the above characteristics is

shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Various authentication techniques are compared

and contrasted.

An overview of the comparison is provided

below, in brief form:

Insider attack: The insider has access to first-

tier authentication credentials, which is

supported by the data. This is simply

unacceptable. As a result, a second level of

authentication is required.

Additional hardware and software are

required: Some of the techniques [10, [13], and

[14] necessitate the use of additional hardware

and software. This increases the amount of time

it takes to complete the techniques. Due to the

fact that the operation of such authentication

procedures is dependent on the operation of

additional hardware, the authentication

technique is rendered inoperable if the additional

hardware does not function properly.

Multi Tier Security : Multi-tier authentication

techniques are more secure than single-tier

authentication schemes, according to [6] and [7].

Insider attacks on single-tiered systems are a real

threat. As a result, it is preferable to have more

than one authentication tier in place.

The goal of this parameter was to provide

security even if the authentication credentials

were provided to a third party under pressure.

Security under pressure.

4 Proposed Authentication Scheme

The technique has been detailed in the proposed

work through the proposed architecture, which is

depicted in Figure 2. One-Time Password (OTP)

and Secure PIN authentication are used in

conjunction with DH (Diffie-Hellman) key

exchange is the one-time key generation. The

“Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC)”

is used for data integrity, and the “Advanced

Encryption Standard” (AES) for confidentiality

is used in conjunction with Hash Message

Authentication Code (HMAC). Following

username and password authentication, Diffie-

Hellman Key Exchange is used to create a shared

public secret key that is utilised throughout the

session to reduce the overall amount of time

spent in the session. In the same way that a Man-

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in-the-Middle attack to make the key vulnerable,

the Secure PIN concept makes the system safe

from assault. Finally, the server generates an

OTP and sends it to the user's registered email

address in order to complete the authentication

procedure for the user. After completing the

three-tier authentication process, the user can log

in and utilise the programme to do any actions as

shown in below Figure2,

Figure 2: Proposed Architecture

5 RESULTS

The proposed security solution makes use of

three-tiered levels of authentication. Users are

verified using their login and password in the

first stage; they are authorised using a Secure Pin

in the second stage; and they are authenticated

using a One-Time Password sent to them

through email in the third and final stage. To

illustrate the two possible outcomes of the

authentication phases in the proposed security

technique, consider the letters Success (S) and

Failure (F). As a result, the options for the three-

tier authentication stages are as follows: SSS,

FSS, SFS, SSF, FFS, SFF, FSF, FFF, and N (T)

= 8 for our suggested system, where T is the total

number of possible combinations. Consider the

probability of success in accessing the system at

each authentication layer, denoted by the letter p.

For example, failure to break the entire

authentication system, or SSS, is denoted by P

(E), where P (E) = p3 for three-tier

authentication and failure to break the system is

denoted by 1 - P (E) = 1 -p 3 for two-tier

authentication.

If p equals 0.5, then p 2 equals 0.25 and p 3

equals 0.125, which means the likelihood of

successfully cracking the entire system is

extremely low (almost zero) as compared to the

existing system's one-tier authentication or two-

tier authentication as shown in below figure 3,

Figure 3: Probability of Success for Breaking the

Authentication Tiers of the System.

Figure 4: Performance Analysis

The strength of the entire three-tier

authentication system is determined by the

password that the user chooses at registration, as

well as the secure pin and one-time password

produced by the Cloud server, among other

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factors. The likelihood of successfully breaking

the three-tier authentication system is also

indirectly proportional to the strength of the

system, which implies that the greater the

strength of the system, the lower the probability

of successfully breaching it is.

6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE

PLANS

This study focuses on the design and

implementation of a multi-tier authentication

technique that does not require any additional

hardware or software components. In the

proposed authentication strategy, there is still

work to be done in instances where the user

wishes to alter his or her username and password

for both the first tier and the second tier of

authentication. Other strategies, such as [21] and

[22], send the new password to the email address

that the user has registered with them. However,

this password creation process is incompatible

with the authentication scheme that we have

proposed. The fact that email is only one tier of

protection means that if a new password is

provided to the user's registered email address,

overall security will be reduced to the level of

single tier security once more. Consequently, in

multitier authentication schemes, the new

password should likewise be recovered in a

multitier manner, that is preferable if half of the

password is sent one way and the other half is

sent the other way., or in any combination of the

two. The various multi-tiered methods of

retrieving the password are within the purview

of this work's future development.

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With the rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, there is an increasing concern about the security risks associated with these interconnected systems. One of the most significant threats in the IoT landscape is botnet-based attacks, where a large number of compromised devices are orchestrated to launch coordinated attacks. Traditional security measures often struggle to detect and mitigate such attacks effectively. However, deep learning methodologies have shown promising results in various domains, and their application to IoT botnet attack detection holds significant potential. The design considerations for developing a novel deep learning methodology for IoT botnet-based attack detection are crucial to ensure robust and efficient detection capabilities. This involves addressing challenges such as data collection, model architecture design, training and optimization, real-time implementation, robustness and security, performance evaluation, scalability, generalization, and ethical considerations. Firstly, the collection and preprocessing of appropriate datasets play a vital role in training an effective deep learning model. These datasets should encompass diverse and realistic IoT botnet attack scenarios, enabling the model to learn representative patterns and features. Proper preprocessing techniques, including data cleaning, normalization, and feature extraction, are essential to enhance the quality and relevance of the data. The design of the model architecture is another critical consideration. Selection of an appropriate deep learning architecture, such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, or Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), should be based on the specific requirements of IoT botnet attack detection. The architecture should be capable of capturing temporal and spatial

Exploring Quantum Algorithms for Cluster Efficiency

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Apr 2024

Cluster computing plays a pivotal role in various fields, such as data analysis, scientific simulations, and artificial intelligence. By harnessing the power of multiple interconnected computers, clusters enable the processing of large-scale computational tasks efficiently. However, traditional cluster computing approaches have inherent limitations that can hinder their performance and scalability. In recent years, quantum computing has emerged as a promising paradigm that has the potential to revolutionize computational capabilities. Quantum computers leverage the principles of quantum mechanics to perform complex calculations faster than classical computers. Quantum algorithms, specifically designed for quantum computers, have shown remarkable capabilities in solving problems that are computationally challenging for classical systems. This exploration focuses on the application of quantum algorithms for improving cluster efficiency. By harnessing the unique properties of quantum computing, such as superposition and entanglement, quantum algorithms offer the possibility of enhancing the performance and scalability of cluster computing systems. The objective of this exploration is to delve into the potential benefits, challenges, and future prospects of utilizing quantum algorithms in cluster computing environments. By examining existing quantum algorithms designed for cluster efficiency and analyzing real-world case studies, we aim to gain insights into the practical implications of this emerging field. Through this exploration, we seek to shed light on the opportunities and limitations of integrating quantum algorithms into cluster computing, as well as identify potential avenues for further research and development. By harnessing the power of

A Privacy, Trust and Policy based Authorization Framework for Services in Distributed Environments

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2007

Distributed Environments are touching new heights, becoming more useful, popular and more complex with the emergence of service oriented architecture and computing technologies like peer-to-peer, autonomic, pervasive and grid etc. These technologies aim to enable large scale resource sharing. Security is a big and challenging issue in these environments as it involves the federation of multiple heterogeneous, geographically distributed autonomous administrative domains. The dynamic and multi- institutional nature of service oriented environments like grid and web introduces several challenging security issues that require new technical approaches. This paper proposes a privacy, trust and policy based authorization framework for grid and web services, but, in fact can be amended for any distributed, service oriented computing environment as most of the elements defined in the framework are general and adaptable in other computing environments. The framework is intended to provide a simple, powerful, flexible and scalable authorization infrastructure for services exposed in a large scale distributed environment. The paper also discusses a prototype implementation of the proposed framework. For implementation, we are making use of web services security specifications supported by WSE 3.0. Sample implementation has shown that the architecture is capable of meeting the identified security requirements and the approach is workable.

A Strong User Authentication Framework for Cloud Computing

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Dec 2011

Cloud computing is combination of various computing entities, globally separated, but electronically connected. As the geography of computation is moving towards corporate server rooms, it bring more issues including security, such as virtualization security, distributed computing, application security, identity management, access control and authentication. However, strong user authentication is the paramount requirement for cloud computing that restrict illegal access of cloud server. In this regard, this paper proposes a strong user authentication framework for cloud computing, where user legitimacy is strongly verified before enter into the cloud. The proposed framework provides identity management, mutual authentication, session key establishment between the users and the cloud server. A user can change his/her password, whenever demanded. Furthermore, security analysis realizes the feasibility of the proposed framework for cloud computing and achieves efficiency.

A Privacy Policy Framework for Grid and Web Services

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Full-text available

Jun 2007

Privacy is becoming an important concern in service oriented environments like grid and web. Service providers and service requesters, both have complex set of privacy policies to better protect their interests. Both the parties need surety that the facts/information they reveal about themselves will not be used inappropriately by the other. Most of the past models available to address privacy requirements are adhoc, application specific or partially implemented. Some models address privacy concerns of either the requester or the provider. This study proposes a generalized privacy model to handle the privacy requirements of both, the service providers and the service requesters. The model provides a uniform, integrated and platform neutral way to express, store, evaluate, enforce and manage privacy policies. The research also discusses a prototype implementation of the proposed privacy based authorization framework. The implementation has been done in NET environment with the support of WSE 3.0. The prototype implementation has shown that the model is able to meet the identified privacy requirements which suggest that the approach is workable and can be used to provide privacy based access to grid and web services.

The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing ( Draft ) Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology

Article

Jan 2011

Securing user authentication using single sign-on in Cloud Computing

Article

Dec 2011

In past three decades, the world of computation has changed from centralized (client-server not web-based) to distributed systems and now we are getting back to the virtual centralization (Cloud Computing). This paper aims to design and implement an optimized infrastructure for secure authentication and authorization in Cloud Environment. SSO (Single Sign-On) is a process of authenticate once and gain access of multiple resources. Aim of SSO is to reduce number of login and password in heterogeneous environment and to gain balance in Security, Efficiency and Usability. This paper leads to implementation of Cloud for Storage and Virtual Machines Images to run the SSO on the top layer of Cloud. This has entailed a review and comparison of existing single sign-on architectures and solutions, the development of a new architecture for single sign-on, an analysis of single sign-on threats within a Cloud context, a derivation of single sign-on objectives in Cloud, leading up to the security requirements for single sign-on in Cloud. Security and functionality are the main driving factors in the design. Others factors include performance, reliability, and the feasibility of integration.

Distributed Authentication Systems Enhanced by Quantum Protocols

Conference Paper

May 2008

In the article problem of securing distributed biometric authentication system was discussed. After introduction to biometric domain, the key issues connected with secure communication in distributed authentication environments were briefly described. In this work a concept of enhancement of biometric authentication system by application of quantum protocols was formulated. Two quantum protocols were analyzed. Obtained experimental results enable further development of research work in chosen area.

A Physiological Authentication Scheme in Secure Healthcare Sensor Networks

Conference Paper

Jul 2010

In this paper, we propose a novel two-tier authentication scheme based on physiology. Our sensors are fused with a patient, where a physiological key is generated in a decentralized fashion. Secure aggregation and secure routing are deployed in the authentication procedure. This scheme lies on our unique secure architecture for Healthcare WSN that explores the characteristics of Healthcare WSN, departing from general purpose WSN. We conduct extensive analysis to study the effectiveness and efficiency of our scheme.

Multi-Tier Security Feature Modeling for Service-Oriented Application Integration

Conference Paper

Jan 2009

In service oriented architecture (SOA) environment, the communication and infrastructure security is crucial. The most important specification addressing Web services security is WS-Security, which collaborates with the SOAP message specifications, providing integrity, confidentiality and authentication for Web services. However, WS-Security focuses SOAP message security between trusted partners. In SOA applications, there are other vulnerabilities which can be exploited to attack by anonymous customer or even trusted partners, and these vulnerabilities do not gain enough attention as WS-Security. Among them, denial-of-service (DoS) is one attack cluster, which exhausts computer and network resources and reduces the availability of Web services. Another one is sensitive data leakage in a specific application domain. In this paper, the security of SOA applications is viewed as the security domain and a three-tier domain was divided based on security domain analysis. For each security sub-domain, security requirement scenario and requirements are presented. The security domain models were given which can be used to build up security services for sub-domain. Based on security model and security service assets, which can evolve along with understanding on security domain, the developers can establish the security implementation for SOA application integration.

Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data

Article

Jun 2008

Bigtable is a distributed storage system for managing structured data that is designed to scale to a very large size: petabytes of data across thousands of commodity servers. Many projects at Google store data in Bigtable, including web indexing, Google Earth, and Google Finance. These applications place very different demands on Bigtable, both in terms of data size (from URLs to web pages to satellite imagery) and latency requirements (from backend bulk processing to real-time data serving). Despite these varied demands, Bigtable has successfully provided a flexible, high-performance solution for all of these Google products. In this paper we describe the simple data model provided by Bigtable, which gives clients dynamic control over data layout and format, and we describe the design and implementation of Bigtable.

Design of a Framework for Handling Security Issues in Grids

Conference Paper

Jan 2007

Grid Computing has emerged as core computing technology in many distributed applications initiated by different organizations all over the world. It aims to enable large scale resource sharing. Security is a big and challenging issue as a grid service may impact number of other services/resources distributed over wide area networks. The dynamic and multi- institutional nature of grid applications introduces challenging security issues that require new technical approaches. This paper proposes, at an abstract level, a framework for handling security issues in grids. The framework is capable of addressing both, generic as well as application specific security issues of grid services.