A STRONG TWO FACTOR MUTUAL AUTHENICATION SCHEME FOR CLOUD COMPUTING

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cloud computing is an emerging technology. Along with many benefits, it brings new challenges. Among many issues of cloud computing, security is one of them. Security issues in cloud computing evolves along with the technology and considered as most critical one. Security issues, such as identity management, virtualization security, application security, access control and authentication, are considered as one of the major cause of hindrance in widespread adoption of cloud computing. Security mechanisms being followed are insufficient to ensure confidentiality, integrity, availability and non-repudiation etc. A strong mutual authentication scheme is the vital requirement of cloud computing. This research work proposes a strong two factor mutual authentication scheme. The proposed scheme makes use of factors from two categories i.e. knowledge factor and possession factor. Use of multiple factors i.e. alphanumeric password, Stego-image, one time password and digital signature from two categories makes the scheme stronger. The proposed protocol provides identity management, mutual authentication and session key agreement between user and service provider. The scheme provides facilities for changing credentials such as password, Stego-image file etc. The scheme also provides facility to get new credentials if the user looses/forgets any credential. Security analysis illustrates that our scheme resists common security attacks. Our scheme is well suited for cloud computing environment because of its strong security features.