Security Assurance by Efficient Password Based Authentication

At present, identity theft is one of the most prevalent security threats.Authentication is an inevitable process of verifying an individual's identity, whowants to access the resources of a system. Though, machine authentication (machinemachineauthentication) is to protect the machine through several secure protocolslike Secure Socket Layer (SSL) but it cannot stop all the illegal accesses. In order, user authentications come to rescue, and consequently we witness stringent policies toavoid identity theft. Every framework has different authentication arrangements toinclude different authentication techniques. The ultimate objective of authentication isto increase the security level of authorized users and to eliminate the unauthorizedaccesses, whatsoever authentication technique is employed.The classification of authentication techniques is based on three zones: Knowledge Based Authentication (KBA), Object Based Authentication (OBA), andCharacteristics Based Authentication (CBA). KBA includes user-id and password, passphrase, challenge questions, zero knowledge-based protocols, challenge responseprotocols etc. OBA is described by the physical belonging or utilization of anyhardware device used to verify the user for example smart cards, identity cards etc. Itis employed generally in banking, transport, parking and hotels (Levy & Ramim2009). The trouble of misplacing the device and allowing unauthorized access can beexplained by embedding other factors into it. CBA or Biometrics is characterized byunique property a user possesses, including fingerprint, audio or voice recognition, signature recognition and face recognition. Kaur and Mustafa (2016) also discussedvarious authentication mechanism and authentication methods. Their respectivestrengths and weaknesses are briefly listed in Table 1a.Despite security problems, password authentication has been having increasinginfluence on the internet for the last five decades. Several researchers have worked forstrengthening password based authentication, primarily to enhance effectiveness.However, a comprehensive literature review revealed a little attempt on improving theefficiency aspect of password based authentication- including changing the time2computations, increasing the security considerations etc. More work needs to be donefor determining the distinction with, which users act to specific authenticationtechniques in reference with authentication practices, that may enable attacks on thesystem. Consequently, the circumstances and prevailing context are pressing hard theneed for effective and efficient authentication means.