A Three-Factor Authentication Model for Improved Security

Abstract

Cloud computing has not only emerged as an accepted computing paradigm, but is fast penetrating into major sectors of human endeavor. These include banking, human resources management, justice administration, investigation, academia/research, commerce, health administration etc. Based on the public and experts concerns about cloud applications in the mentioned sectors, preliminary investigations were carried out and it was found that security, and in particular, authenticating cloud users is the biggest challenge to cloud computing. Technologies employed by experts to resolve this challenge include the one, two, or three-factor authentications. Studies showed that the first two technologies are in vogue, but little use has been made of the three-factor model. This work therefore investigates the use of three-factor authentication model, developed an option of it and developed a Mat Lab code for it based on a pseudo code; adding more options to cloud security and providing a benchmark to assure the effectiveness of the option. The investigation also discovered and collated more knowledge for further research in the subject matter. Results of this research showed through probability analyses, that the three-factor model will appreciably reduce the chance (probability) of guessing the parameters to access a cloud system (and any network indeed) and greatly increase the randomness (entropy) of such attempts.