An adaptive and transient authentication protocol for mobile device

In the recent decade, the various mobile devices make our life better. The growth of the mobility technology makes the mobile device more powerful and cheaper. Through these mobile devices, people can do their works efficiently. However, ubiquitous mobile devices have potential security risks. The mobile devices may be used by an unauthorized user or stolen more easily than fixed computers when the owner does not stay nearby. In 2006, Nicholson et al. proposed a transient authentication mechanism which is convenient and friendly for the user to work on mobile devices. However, the mechanism does not provide the authentication protocol in details. This paper reviews their mechanism briefly and provides different authentication protocols for various scenarios. The proposed schemes provide mutual authentication, guarantee the confidentiality of the security-sensitive files within the mobile device against unauthorized access. The authentication protocols are efficient since only the pseudo random number generator and one-way hash function are involved for mutual authentication. At the same time, the present protocols are adaptively suitable for lightweight computation devices. In addition, the proposed protocols also meet forward secrecy.