Client Credential Session Authentication for Wireless Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing secure session authentication methods in client-server environments are either computationally intensive or lack data integrity, making them unsuitable for devices with limited cryptographic capabilities, such as wireless devices, and are vulnerable to data modification or injection attacks.
Innovation Solution
A secure session authentication method using client credentials, where a shared secret known to both the client and server is utilized to create a key for message authentication codes (MACs), ensuring data integrity by appending MACs to messages, and employing pseudo-random number generators and sequence numbers to prevent replay attacks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If strong cryptographic capabilities such as public/private key systems are used for authentication, then security and data integrity are improved, but computational overhead and device complexity increase making them unsuitable for simple clients like wireless devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces expensive, complex public/private key cryptographic systems with a much simpler shared secret authentication mechanism. Instead of requiring full-strength cryptography on every device, the system uses a lightweight shared secret that can be implemented on simple wireless devices without significant computational resources, while still providing adequate security for the authentication purpose.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts only the essential authentication function from the full cryptographic suite, separating the shared secret-based authentication mechanism from the more complex SSL/TLS protocol stack. This allows wireless devices to perform authentication without needing to implement the entire complex cryptographic infrastructure required by traditional SSL/TLS.
2Device complexity
If simple authentication methods like basic authentication or HTTP Post-based authentication are used, then device complexity is reduced, but data integrity protection is lost making communications vulnerable to modification and injection attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a message authentication code (MAC) as an intermediary mechanism that provides data integrity protection without requiring full cryptographic suites. The MAC serves as a lightweight mediator that verifies message authenticity and integrity using the shared secret, protecting against data modification and injection attacks while keeping device complexity low.
3Reliability
If SSL/TLS authentication is implemented on wireless devices, then security is improved, but network bandwidth consumption, battery life, and data transmission costs increase due to numerous information exchanges required
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs authentication preliminarily using a simple shared secret verification before establishing any encrypted session. This preliminary authentication step requires minimal communication exchanges compared to full SSL/TLS handshakes, reducing network bandwidth consumption and energy expenditure while still ensuring secure authentication. The shared secret is established once and reused, avoiding repeated expensive cryptographic operations.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and apparatus for client credential based authentication of messages between a client and a server, the client and server both knowing the client credential, the method comprising the steps of: utilizing the client credential to create a key; and using the key to authenticate messages between the client and the server.