Authentication Methods and Techniques Research Paper

Authentication Methods and Techniques - Research Paper Example In the simplest form of authentication, a person was authenticated by merely his/her physical appearance and voice as the authenticating party knew the person by face. As the person’s social circle increased, the need to be authenticated arose in environments where the person was unknown to the authenticating party. So the authentication method evolved and pictures were used in the authentication documents (such as passports, etc.). With time, the personal records and private information of a person increased not only in amount (as it became a requirement in schools, universities, offices, banks, airports, hospitals, ) but also in value (credit cards, debit cards, etc.). Means of authentication evolved significantly thereafter as with the availability of this information on public or private networks (e-banking, e-health, e-ticketing, e-commerce), the access points to this information also increased tremendously (on a public network the information is accessible to millions of Internet users all over the world). It was necessary that only the authorized personnel could access the information and so the authentication techniques relevant to the scenario and information worth would have to be brewed up. As the authentication methods progressed, so did the attacks aimed at stealing the private information (Mallow, n.d.). When an authentication method was compromised, an alternative strategy would be looked into for adapting to. This paper gives an overview of the various authentication methods that have been proposed in various applications and literature and have successfully been used for allowing controlled access to private information. The paper also discusses the vulnerability issues associated with each authentication method and assesses it against some important assessment factors. The paper also discusses how to decide the best authentication strategy while living amidst the sophisticated hackers’ realm. 2. Authentication Techniques and Meth ods As mentioned earlier, authentication involves providing a proof to the authority of one’s identity. The various authentication techniques can be listed down into three broad categories; proof by knowledge techniques, proof by property techniques and proof by possession techniques (Jensen, 2003; Cranor & Garfinkel 2005). All authentication methods can be placed into one of these three techniques. The available authentication techniques and methods can be assessed keeping into consideration the major factors of cost, ease of installation, level of authentication and the usability. In this section the various authentication methods alongside their assessment based on these factors is discussed. A. Authentication by Knowledge This category of authentication is based on the fact that only the actual person himself can know some particular information. Examples include text based passwords or Personal Identification Number (PIN) and the response challenges. a. Passwords / PINs Benefits: This type of authentication is the least expensive of all methods as no specific software or hardware is required to set it up. Furthermore, the method is so easy that the users can easily set up or even change the passwords