MTech Project: Hash Based Single Password Authentication Protocols

Abstract

Password authentication is one of the simplest and the most convenient authentication mechanisms to deal with secret data over insecure networks. It is more frequently required in areas such as computer networks, wireless networks, remote login systems,operation systems, and database management systems.

Most users have multiple accounts on the Internet where each account is protected by a password. To avoid the headache in remembering and managing a long list of different and unrelated passwords, most users simply use the same password for multiple accounts. Unfortunately, the predominant HTTP basic authentication protocol makes this common practice remarkably dangerous: an attacker can effectively steal users’ passwords for high-security servers by setting up a malicious server or breaking into a low-security server. We propose a protocol that allows a client to securely use a single password across multiple servers. Our protocol achieves client authentication without the client revealing his password to the server at any point. In this report, we propose a hash based single password authentication protocol using the concept of Merkle Tree authentication.

And complete SRS Download Doc file==