SPP: An anti-phishing single password protocol

  • Authors:

  • Mohamed G. Gouda;Alex X. Liu;Lok M. Leung;Mohamed A. Alam

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-0233, USA;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1266, USA;Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-0233, USA;Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-0233, USA

  • Venue:
  • Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking
  • Year:
  • 2007

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

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 (even over SSL) makes this common practice remarkably dangerous: an attacker can effectively steal users' passwords for high-security servers (such as an online banking website) by setting up a malicious server or breaking into a low-security server (such as a high-school alumni website). Furthermore, the HTTP basic authentication protocol is vulnerable to phishing attacks because a client needs to reveal his password to the server that the client wants to login. In this paper, we propose a protocol that allows a client to securely use a single password across multiple servers, and also prevents phishing attacks. Our protocol achieves client authentication without the client revealing his password to the server at any point. Therefore, a compromised server cannot steal a client's password and replay it to another server. Our protocol is simple, secure, efficient and user-friendly. In terms of simplicity, it only involves three messages. In terms of security, the protocol is secure against the attacks that have been discovered so far including the ones that are difficult to defend, such as the malicious server attacks described above and the recent phishing attacks. Essentially our protocol is an anti-phishing password protocol. In terms of efficiency, each run of our protocol only involves a total of four computations of a one-way hash function. In terms of usability, the protocol requires a user to remember only one password consisting of eight (or more) random characters, and this password can be used for all of his accounts.