Computer Security:
Principles and Practice
Chapter 3 – User Authentication
First Edition
by William Stallings and Lawrie Brown
Lecture slides by Lawrie Brown
User Authentication
fundamental security building block
basis of access control & user accountability
is the process of verifying an identity
claimed by or for a system entity
has two steps:
identification - specify identifier
verification - bind entity (person) and identifier
distinct from message authentication
Means of User Authentication
four means of authenticating user's identity
based one something the individual
knows - e.g. password, PIN
possesses - e.g. key, token, smartcard
is (static biometrics) - e.g. fingerprint, retina
does (dynamic biometrics) - e.g. voice, sign
can use alone or combined
all can provide user authentication
all have issues
Password Authentication
widely used user authentication method
user provides name/login and password
system compares password with that saved
for specified login
authenticates ID of user logging and
that the user is authorized to access system
determines the user’s privileges
is used in discretionary access control
Password Vulnerabilities
offline dictionary attack
specific account attack
popular password attack
password guessing against single user
workstation hijacking
exploiting user mistakes
exploiting multiple password use
electronic monitoring
Countermeasures
stop unauthorized access to password file
intrusion detection measures
account lockout mechanisms
policies against using common passwords but
rather hard to guess passwords
training & enforcement of policies
automatic workstation logout
encrypted network links
Use of
Hashed
Passwords
UNIX Implementation
original scheme
8 character password form 56-bit key
12-bit salt used to modify DES encryption into
a one-way hash function
0 value repeatedly encrypted 25 times
output translated to 11 character sequence
now regarded as woefully insecure
e.g. supercomputer, 50 million tests, 80 min
sometimes still used for compatibility
Improved Implementations
have other, stronger, hash/salt variants
many systems now use MD5
with 48-bit salt
password length is unlimited
is hashed with 1000 times inner loop
produces 128-bit hash
OpenBSD uses Blowfish block cipher
based hash algorithm called Bcrypt
uses 128-bit salt to create 192-bit hash value
Password Cracking
dictionary attacks
try each word then obvious variants in large
dictionary against hash in password file
rainbow table attacks
precompute tables of hash values for all salts
a mammoth table of hash values
e.g. 1.4GB table cracks 99.9% of alphanumeric
Windows passwords in 13.8 secs
not feasible if larger salt values used
Password Choices
users may pick short passwords
e.g. 3% were 3 chars or less, easily guessed
system can reject choices that are too short
users may pick guessable passwords
so crackers use lists of likely passwords
e.g. one study of 14000 encrypted passwords
guessed nearly 1/4 of them
would take about 1 hour on fastest systems to
compute all variants, and only need 1 break!
Password File Access Control
can block offline guessing attacks by
denying access to encrypted passwords
make available only to privileged users
often using a separate shadow password file
still have vulnerabilities
exploit O/S bug
accident with permissions making it readable
users with same password on other systems
access from unprotected backup media
sniff passwords in unprotected network traffic
Using Better Passwords
clearly have problems with passwords
goal to eliminate guessable passwords
whilst still easy for user to remember
techniques:
user education
computer-generated passwords
reactive password checking
proactive password checking
Proactive Password Checking
rule enforcement plus user advice, e.g.
8+ chars, upper/lower/numeric/punctuation
may not suffice
password cracker
time and space issues
Markov Model
generates guessable passwords
hence reject any password it might generate
Bloom Filter
use to build table based on dictionary using hashes
check desired password against this table
Token Authentication
object user possesses to authenticate, e.g.
embossed card
magnetic stripe card
memory card
smartcard
Memory Card
store but do not process data
magnetic stripe card, e.g. bank card
electronic memory card
used alone for physical access
with password/PIN for computer use
drawbacks of memory cards include:
need special reader
loss of token issues
user dissatisfaction
Smartcard
credit-card like
has own processor, memory, I/O ports
wired or wireless access by reader
may have crypto co-processor
ROM, EEPROM, RAM memory
executes protocol to authenticate with
reader/computer
also have USB dongles
Biometric Authentication
authenticate user based on one of their
physical characteristics
Operation of
a Biometric
System
Biometric Accuracy
never get identical templates
problems of false match / false non-match
Biometric Accuracy
can plot characteristic curve
pick threshold balancing error rates
Remote User Authentication
authentication over network more complex
problems of eavesdropping, replay
generally use challenge-response
user sends identity
host responds with random number
user computes f(r,h(P)) and sends back
host compares value from user with own
computed value, if match user authenticated
protects against a number of attacks
Authentication Security
Issues
client attacks
host attacks
eavesdropping
replay
trojan horse
denial-of-service
Practical Application
Case Study: ATM Security
Summary
introduced user authentication
using passwords
using tokens
using biometrics
remote user authentication issues
example application and case study
