Conor P. Cahill

Client-based authentication technology: user-centric authentication using secure containers

Todays authentication suffers from unsolved problems in security and usability. Adversaries have multiple attack vectors with which to steal user credentials, including phishing, malware, and attacks on service providers. Current security practices such as password-complexity policies and idle timeouts often compromise usability. We propose our solution, Client-Based Authentication Technology (CBAT), to simultaneously improve security and usability in authentication. The main component of CBAT is our Trusted Identity Manager (TIM), which resides within a hardware-based secure container on the users system. The TIM asserts the users authentication to local and remote service providers without releasing the users credentials. In addition, the TIM non-intrusively monitors the users physical presence and locks the system if the user leaves. We provide architectural and implementation details of CBAT in hopes of improving current methods of authentication.