Context-aware multi-factor authentication

• Author(s): Miranda, Luís Henrique Fernandes Moura
• Date: 2009
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/4111
• Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
• Subject(s): Authentication; Context; Multi-modal; Multi-factor; SSO; Ubiquity
• Document Type: Master thesis
• Language: English
• Advisor(s): Domingos, Henrique
• Contributor(s): RUN

Description

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Authentication systems, as available today, are inappropriate for the requirements of ubiquitous, heterogeneous and large scale distributed systems. Some important limitations are: (i) the use of weak or rigid authentication factors as principal’s identity proofs, (ii) non flexibility to combine different authentication modes for dynamic and context-aware interaction criteria, (iii) not being extensible models to integrate new or emergent pervasive authentication factors and (iv) difficulty to manage the coexistence of multi-factor authentication proofs in a unified single sign-on solution. The objective of this dissertation is the design, implementation and experimental evaluation of a platform supporting multi-factor authentication services, as a contribution to overcome the above limitations. The devised platform will provide a uniform and flexible authentication base for multi-factor authentication requirements and context-aware authentication modes for ubiquitous applications and services. The main contribution is focused on the design and implementation of an extensible authentication framework model, integrating classic as well as new pervasive authentication factors that can be composed for different context-aware dynamic requirements. Flexibility criteria are addressed by the establishment of a unified authentication back-end, supporting authentication modes as defined processes and rules expressed in a SAML based declarative markup language. The authentication base supports an extended single sign-on system that can be dynamically tailored for multi-factor authentication policies, considering large scale distributed applications and according with ubiquitous interaction needs.