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ISSN: 2278 – 1323
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET)
Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013
1398
www.ijarcet.org
PERVASIVE AUTHENTICATION AND
AUTHORIZATION
INFRASTRUCTURES FOR MOBILE
USERS USING PERVASIVE-PKI
Ms. Sneha R. Kaware Prof. Karuna G. Bagde
M.E First Year, Asst. Professor
computer science and Engineering, Dept of computer science and Engineering,
H.V.P.M college of Engg & Tech, H.V.P.M college of Engg & Tech,
Amravati, India. Amravati, India.
Abstract- In computer science distributed
systems could be more secured with a
distributed trust model based on PKI. PKI
provides a framework to verify the identities
of each entities of given domain. Network
and device heterogeneity, nomadic mobility,
intermittent connectivity and, more
generally, extremely dynamic operating
conditions, are major challenges in the
design of security infrastructures for
pervasive computing. Yet, in a ubiquitous
computing environment, limitations of
traditional solutions for authentication and
authorization can be overcome with a
pervasive public key infrastructure
(pervasive-PKI). This choice allows the
validation of credentials of users roaming
between heterogeneous networks, even when
global connectivity is lost and some services
are temporarily unreachable. Proof-of-
concept implementations and test bed
validation results demonstrate that strong
security can be achieved for users and
applications through the combination of
traditional PKI services with a number of
enhancements like dynamic and
collaborative trust model, use of attribute
certificates for privilege management, and
modular architecture enabling nomadic
mobility and enhanced with reconfiguration
capabilities.
Index Terms- Authentication, Authorization,
Security Architecture, Trust, Ubiquitous
Computing
I. INTRODUCTION
Advances in wireless technology and
portable computing along with demands for
higher user mobility have provided a major
impetus towards ubiquitous computing. The
promise of this new paradigm is the integration
of microprocessors into everyday objects, able
to communicate among themselves and with
users by means of ad-hoc and wireless
networking. Indeed, wireless networks provide
mobile users with ubiquitous communication
capabilities giving them access to information
regardless of their location. In order to support
business applications in ubiquitous networks,
trust relationships between users need to be
strengthened. Therefore, increasing confidence
requires pervasive security services based on
strong authentication and authorization
mechanisms. In ubiquitous computing, the main
security challenges arise from network
heterogeneity as well as from a dynamic
population of nomadic users with limited
devices.
In this paper, we present a pervasive
infrastructure for authentication and
authorization services in heterogeneous
networks, in the form of a pervasive public key
ISSN: 2278 – 1323
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET)
Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013
1399
www.ijarcet.org
infrastructure (pervasive-PKI). This
infrastructure, developed as part of the UBISEC
project, is able to provide authentication and
access control services for users roaming
between different heterogeneous networks. In
this sense, the pervasive-PKI fully supports
nomadic mobility, enabling secure services for
users connecting through many different
networking technologies (Wi-Fi, UMTS,
Bluetooth, etc.), and in multiple network
topologies, even when global connectivity is
lost and some services are temporarily
unreachable. We clearly differentiate between
two modes of operation: in connected mode,
on-line trusted servers are available and
traditional techniques are applicable for
validation of user credentials; however, in
disconnected mode, the information necessary
for this validation is not always available. To
support the disconnected mode, we combine
different solutions: an adapted privilege verifier
for authorization, a new trust model for
authentication, and a collaborative model to
obtain unavailable information. Some of the
functions traditionally performed by
authentication and authorization infrastructures
are integrated into user devices, providing
support for credential validation in situations
where central authorities are not available, like
in peer-to-peer mobile ad-hoc networks
(MANETs). Furthermore, the pervasive-PKI is
also endowed with reconfiguration capabilities.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows.
Section II presents the required background,
including authentication and authorization
infrastructures, evidence-based computational
trust management, and component-based
reconfigurable architectures. Section III points
out the operation scenario for the pervasive-
PKI. Then present the proposed architecture for
the pervasive-PKI in Section IV, highlighting
the components embedded in user devices.
Section V describes a proof-of-concept
implementation developed for the UBISEC
project. Finally, Section VI concludes the
paper.
II. AUTHENTICATION AND
AUTHORIZATION
INFRASTRUCURES
Authentication solutions like Microsoft
.NET Passport and Kerberos depend on user
selected passwords. However, from a security
point of view, it is more interesting to use
further advanced technologies like digital
certificates and PKIs, which combined with
some complementary techniques and tools, can
also be used as a starting-point to provide
authorization.
A. Evidence-Based Computational Trust
Management
In a PKI, trust is fundamental to establish
“certification paths” among entities, either CAs
or end users. PKI configuration requires manual
intervention, and applying hierarchies through
cross-organizational boundaries on a large scale
basis could be difficult. This scheme is not
applicable to mobile users, because these often
require peer-to-peer trust relations. In this kind
of relationship, each user or domain can be a
trust anchor. Although a peer-to-peer trust
model is more flexible than traditional PKI, it
suffers from scalability and uncertainty
problems. For instance, PGP [1] is a well-
known example of this type of system. For
these reasons, evidence-based computational
trust management models have been proposed
such as PTM [3], Subjective Logic [4],
SECURE [2], ENTRAPPED Platform [5], TMF
[6], among others. These models consider risk
and uncertainty issues, and bring dynamism and
flexibility. However, open and peer-to-peer
systems are vulnerable to Sybil attacks [7], and
computational trust management models do not
have well-referenced trust metrics for assessing
and reasoning about attack-resistance [8].
Pervasive Trust Management (PTM) has been
designed for mobile users, by providing them
with autonomy to establish new peer-to-peer
trust relations, even with unknown users. PTM
models trust relations with continuous function
ranging from 0 to 1, where these values
represent the extreme cases of complete distrust
and complete trust, respectively.
B. Component-Based Reconfigurable
Architecture
The dynamicity and heterogeneity of
ubiquitous environments require security
management to be flexible enough to be easily
ISSN: 2278 – 1323
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET)
Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013
1400
www.ijarcet.org
tailored to different operating conditions such
as multiple authorization and authentication
policies, variable user preferences, or scarce
resources — when only key security services
should be included into a featherweight security
infrastructure. Component-based security
architectures are currently emerging as a
promising solution to reach such flexibility.
Components are usually defined as entities
encapsulating code and data which appear in
software systems as units of execution,
configuration, deployment, or administration.
The component paradigm enables the security
architect to master the complexity of
implementation of a software infrastructure:
since components can be composed to form
higher-level units of code, one can observe and
manipulate the infrastructure at the right level
of abstraction and granularity, both during
design and implementation phases. The
resulting infrastructure is thus very modular.
III. OPERATION SCENARIO FOR
PERVASIVE PKI
Let Peter and Alice be two mobile users that
have temporal connectivity to centralized PKI
services (for example, when they have a stable
Internet connection). During this period of
connectivity they work in connected mode, and
they have full access to all PKI services offered
by the infrastructure. Later, users move and lose
global connectivity. However, they can still
communicate among each other by forming a
peer-to-peer MANET but they cannot accede to
centralized PKI services. In this situation,
which we call disconnected mode, users should
be able to establish secure communications. In
particular they should be able to perform
authentication and access control decisions. The
main objective of this research is focused on
providing mechanisms that extend the PKI
functionalities to mobile users when they work
in the disconnected mode. To achieve this
objective, we propose a new architecture for the
pervasive-PKI, where functionality traditionally
performed by a centralized infrastructure is
moved to user devices, making certificate
validation also possible in the disconnected
mode.
Below, we state the main requirements
which lead to the design of the pervasive-PKI:
 Operation over heterogeneous
networks- Pervasive computing environments
include many different network topologies and
technologies (Wi-Fi, UMTS, Bluetooth, etc.).
This heterogeneity implies multiple
disconnected trust domains, where each domain
applies its own policies and mechanisms for
authentication and authorization.
 Support for the authorization service-
PKI-based mechanisms are suitable for
authentication in heterogeneous trust domains,
and also facilitate mobility over heterogeneous
networks and temporal disconnection of
services: users carry their credentials to
authenticate themselves anywhere at any time.
 Support for mobile users- A major
challenge to implement mobility is the free
roaming of users across different administrative
domains. In the past, users have been
demanding roaming in homogeneous GSM
networks. However, in the near future, users
will require context-aware computing involving
an increasing number of heterogeneous
networks and mobile devices.
 Single sing-on (SSO) - Using an AAI,
a user would register only once in his home
domain. When he requests a resource in a
visited network, he should always be
authenticated and authorized by using his home
domain credentials.
 Support for temporal disconnections-
When users move across different networks,
global connectivity may be lost and some PKI
services may be temporarily unreachable.
 A dynamic trust model for
disconnected modes- Several typical certificate
validation processes, such as path processing
and revocation status checking cannot be
guaranteed when working in disconnected
mode. Therefore, we require a new trust model
for situations where a certificate cannot be
verified or new trust relations cannot be
established by traditional PKI mechanisms.
 Operation into limited devices- Mobile
users typically used lightweight devices such as
PDAs or mobile phones. Although these
devices are easily portable they have much
more limited capabilities than PCs or laptops.
In particular these constrained devices have
limited computational, communication and
storage capabilities, and power consummation
ISSN: 2278 – 1323
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET)
Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013
1401
www.ijarcet.org
is also an important issue. We have to take
these limitations into account, providing
mechanisms that can be performed by very
constrained devices.
 Reconfigurability- The operating
environment is constantly changing due mainly
to: dynamic trust relationships between users
and devices; download of platform updates and
personalization of existing services. These
conditions require an adaptable security
infrastructure supporting both dynamic
configuration to change some security
parameters, and reconfiguration to introduce
new protection mechanisms.
IV. ARCHITECTURE
Authentication and authorization
services for Internet users can be based on
AAIs. In the connected mode, Public Key
Infrastructures and Privilege Management
Infrastructures (PMIs) can efficiently support
both services, respectively. However, in the
disconnected mode these infrastructures are not
reachable and we require new solutions. This
section proposes an architecture that extends
the functionality of several PKI services to the
disconnected mode. Fig 1 shows the proposed
architecture for the pervasive-PKI. Mobile
users obtain their credentials from a X.509 AAI
and they store the certificates in their devices or
smart cards. Further authentication and
authorization will imply the validation of these
credentials. In connected mode, part of the AAI
can be used to help credential validation,
whereas in disconnected mode the
infrastructure is not reachable and several
functionalities such as certificate path
processing and revocation status checking are
not available. Therefore, several cooperating
software components installed in the user
device have to be used to support credential
validation.
Fig 1. Proposed architecture for the pervasive-
PKI
Mobile users can form self-organizing
networks in isolation, in order to share services,
or to participate in peer-to-peer applications.
Thus, some devices have to behave as servers,
making certain decisions about access control,
establishment of new trust relationships, or
validation of credentials, etc. In this section, we
present the three software components that have
to be included in user devices that allow
implementing secure authentication and access
control, even in disconnected mode: the PTM
component, the Privilege Verifier (PV) and the
Access Control Engine (ACE).
4.1. PTM Component
PTM component manages trust
information about users, validates public key
certificates (PKCs), signs messages and verifies
digital signatures. These functionalities are
provided by three components:
(i) The Authentication Service manages PKC
validation, using the “trusted certificate list”
holds in the user device. In the disconnected
mode case, this component has been adapted by
implementing our own algorithm for
certification path validation. The algorithm uses
recommendation information, trusted certificate
list, and a revocation service if available.
(ii) The Trust Manager boots and manages trust
information about users. Trust information
includes trust values, and trustworthiness level
according to a threshold. This information
allows handling the trusted certificate list in a
semi-automatic way. Likewise, this component
maintains a black list of untrustworthy users.
ISSN: 2278 – 1323
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET)
Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013
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(iii) Finally, the Signature Manager can act in
two ways:
a. For message signing, using the user’s private
key that can be placed in tamper-proof storage
like a smart card.
b. For signature verification, this uses the public
keys bound to the certificates stored in the
trusted certificate list.
4.2. Privilege Verifier (PV)
This component manages the
validation of Attribute Certificates. The
Privilege Verifier (PV) is divided into three
components:
(i) The Authentication Manager manages PKC
validation. This component was adapted to
disconnected mode to work in connection with
the PTM component.
(ii) The Localizer component provides
information to other components of the PV.
(iii) The Attribute Certificate Verifier (AC
Verifier) component is in charge of validating
the user AC and to get the privileges or role
assigned to the user.
Therefore, this component supplies to
the rest of modules with the information
contained in the CA of the user. Attribute
Certificate validation is performed as follows:
- Firstly, the PV receives an AC supplied by the
user or by another way to the pervasive-PKI
system. The PKC linked to the AC can be
supplied in the same way as the AC. If the PKC
is not supplied, the AC Verifier can obtain it
from the Localizer. If the Localizer stores the
PKC into his local cache, send it to the AC
Verifier, if not, requests the PKC to the PTM
component.
- The validation of PKCs is then delegated to
the PTM component and is managed by the
Authentication Manager. If the PKCs are valid,
the authentication result is a Boolean value.
Otherwise, the outcome is a trust level
calculated by the PTM component.
- The AC Verifier component uses the
information supplied by the user and the PTM
component to validate the user privileges based
on policies and environment variables.
4.3. Access Control Engine (ACE)
This component is in charge of decision-
making when controlling access to resources. It
relies on the PTM to authenticate users
requesting access, and on the PV to validate the
credentials presented by the requester. Access is
then granted or not depending on the current
authorization policy. The ACE implementation
mostly follows the XACML access control
framework, clearly separating logic for policy
enforcement and decision.
4.4. Reconfigurability
A flexible authentication service should allow
adapting the authentication method to the
security context. This operation can range from
fine-tuning some configuration parameters to
changing the authentication algorithm. For
instance, the strength of authentication may be
tuned by selecting the threshold T for PTM
trust values above which user entities are
authenticated: T=1 for Boolean authentication if
a CA is available on-line as in a traditional PKI;
and T<1 for disconnected mode, where trust is
managed in a P2P manner between entities.
Independently from the network architecture,
the PKI is expected to provide a list of security
services which may need to be extended.
Further, for each security service such as
certificate validation, the interactions between
the components can be described with several
protocols [9].
V. CONCEPT IMPLEMENTATION
We considered the following scenario
to demonstrate the functionalities of the
pervasive-PKI in the UBISEC project. Let
Peter, Alice and Bob be three users that
previously do not know each other. Each user
device (PDA) has the following software
installed:
(i) A Photo Album Service (PAS) application,
which allows users to store, view and organize
their digital pictures.
(ii) The pervasive-PKI providing access control
to both shared and private pictures. Peter
sometimes tries to break the security of all the
devices that he can find. He doesn’t have any
picture in his album yet. Alice has some private
pictures that she doesn’t want to share. But, she
has given permission to fans of the Pervasive
club to access some of them. Bob has several
pictures divided into two categories: private and
free access. He is a fan of the Pervasive club.
ISSN: 2278 – 1323
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET)
Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013
1403
www.ijarcet.org
The users form ad-hoc networks in order to
exchange pictures. The available pictures can
be viewed or stored into the local photo album
repository.
Fig 2. Test-bed scenario for the pervasive-PKI
We tested two cases. In the first one, Bob act as
client and Alice as server. Fig 2 shows the steps
performed for a successful access to photo:
1. Bob starts the PAS application and joins the
MANET.
2. Bob’s PAS application starts a service
discovery process to find other reachable PAS
in the network.
3. Bob's PAS application shows all other
available PAS. Alice’s PDA offers pictures
about the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
4. Bob asks for the picture of Beijing 2008
Olympics Jingjing Mascot, therefore, the
identification and authorization process starts.
Bob’s credentials (PKC and AC) are sent to
Alice to prove he has the rights to see the
picture.
5. This request is delivered to Alice’s
pervasive-PKI software. Thus, the ACE
component requests AC validation to the PV
and PKC validation to the PTM.
6. The PV requests to the PTM the AA (for
Pervasive fun club) PKC validation in order to
validate the AC signature.
a. If the AA PKC is valid and trusted, the PV
gets the attribute bound to Bob's AC.
b. The PV sends the response to the ACE
component.
7. The PTM sends the response to the ACE
concerning the user PKC validation.
8. The ACE sends the result to the PAS
application to start sending Beijing 2008
Olympics Jingjing Mascot picture to Bob.
9. The PTM monitors Bob’s behavior to update
his trust level.
In the second case, Bob acts as server
and Peter as client: Bob is also offering a few
pictures, and Peter tries to get a new picture
from Bob’s PDA. Bob’s PDA then performs the
same steps to validate Peter credentials.
However, Peter is an untrustworthy user.
Moreover, he doesn’t have enough privileges to
obtain that picture since Peter is not a member
of the Pervasive fun club. Then, the ACE
component denies access to Peter and his trust
level is updated. The PAS defines 28 different
error codes arising from the validation process,
i.e. output of the PV-PTM invocation. These
error codes besides some other general patterns
(like a DoS attack) are assigned weights by the
PAS and continuously traced by the “Action
Monitor” in the log files to recalculate the trust
values.
VI. CONCLUSION
In particular, we have been focusing on the
authentication and authorization in distributed
environments, the security of shared resources,
and the privacy of participants. In this paper,
we presented a ubiquitous authentication and
authorization infrastructure, which allows the
validation of user credentials in heterogeneous
networks where global connectivity can be lost
and some services can become temporarily
unreachable. Authentication and authorization
are provided to users and applications through
the combination of traditional PKI and new
PMI services, notably thanks to a new trust
model and the use of attribute certificates.
Several software components are proposed for
the users’ devices, in order to extend several
PKI functionalities to the disconnected mode.
This modular infrastructure supports free
roaming of users across different administrative
domains and network technologies, and it is
endowed with reconfiguration capabilities. We
also described a proof-of-concept
implementation of the pervasive-PKI developed
in the UBISEC project. In the validation test
bed we showed the functionality of the
pervasive-PKI in the disconnected mode,
ISSN: 2278 – 1323
International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET)
Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013
1404
www.ijarcet.org
computing the performance of our
implementation.
VII. REFERENCES
[1] The International PGP Home Page.
Available at http://www.pgpi.org/
[2] IST SECURE project.
http://www.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/dynamic/?category_id
=206
[3] F. Almenárez, A. Marín, D. Díaz and J.
Sanchez. Developing a Model for Trust
Management in Pervasive Devices. IEEE
Workshop on Pervasive Computing and
Communication Security, 2006.
[4] A. Josang, “An Algebra for Assessing Trust
in Certification Chains,” Proc.Network and
Distributed Systems Security Symposium
(NDSS), 1999.
[5] D. Ingram. An Evidence Based Architecture
for Efficient, Attack-Resistant
Computational Trust Dissemination in Peer-to-
Peer Networks. Third International Conference
on Trust Management (iTrust'05). 2005
[6] M. Waseen, R. McClatchey, I. Willers.
“Scalable Evidence Based Self-Managing
Framework for Trust Management”. Electronic
Notes in Theoretical Computer Science
(ENTCS). 179:59-73. 2007.
[7] J. Doucer. The Sybil Attack. First
International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer
Systems. Vol. 2429. Pages: 251 - 260. LNCS.
Springer-Verlag. 2002
[8] A. Twigg, N. Dimmock. Attack-Resistance
of Computational Trust Models. In
Proceedings of the 12th IEEE International
Workshops on Enabling Technologies:
Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises
(WETICE’03). 2003
[9] E. Bruneton, T. Coupaye, M. Leclerc, V.
Quéma, and J.-B. Stéfani. The Fractal
Component Model and its Support in Java.
Software - Practice and Experience (SP&E),
special issue on Experiences with Auto-
adaptive and Reconfigurable Systems, 36(11-
12): 1257-1284, 2006.
[10] J. Forné, J. L. Muñoz, F. Hinarejos, O.
Esparza. “Certificate Status Validation in
Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks”. IEEE Wireless
Communications, 16(1):55-62. 2009.

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Ijarcet vol-2-issue-4-1398-1404

  • 1. ISSN: 2278 – 1323 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET) Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013 1398 www.ijarcet.org PERVASIVE AUTHENTICATION AND AUTHORIZATION INFRASTRUCTURES FOR MOBILE USERS USING PERVASIVE-PKI Ms. Sneha R. Kaware Prof. Karuna G. Bagde M.E First Year, Asst. Professor computer science and Engineering, Dept of computer science and Engineering, H.V.P.M college of Engg & Tech, H.V.P.M college of Engg & Tech, Amravati, India. Amravati, India. Abstract- In computer science distributed systems could be more secured with a distributed trust model based on PKI. PKI provides a framework to verify the identities of each entities of given domain. Network and device heterogeneity, nomadic mobility, intermittent connectivity and, more generally, extremely dynamic operating conditions, are major challenges in the design of security infrastructures for pervasive computing. Yet, in a ubiquitous computing environment, limitations of traditional solutions for authentication and authorization can be overcome with a pervasive public key infrastructure (pervasive-PKI). This choice allows the validation of credentials of users roaming between heterogeneous networks, even when global connectivity is lost and some services are temporarily unreachable. Proof-of- concept implementations and test bed validation results demonstrate that strong security can be achieved for users and applications through the combination of traditional PKI services with a number of enhancements like dynamic and collaborative trust model, use of attribute certificates for privilege management, and modular architecture enabling nomadic mobility and enhanced with reconfiguration capabilities. Index Terms- Authentication, Authorization, Security Architecture, Trust, Ubiquitous Computing I. INTRODUCTION Advances in wireless technology and portable computing along with demands for higher user mobility have provided a major impetus towards ubiquitous computing. The promise of this new paradigm is the integration of microprocessors into everyday objects, able to communicate among themselves and with users by means of ad-hoc and wireless networking. Indeed, wireless networks provide mobile users with ubiquitous communication capabilities giving them access to information regardless of their location. In order to support business applications in ubiquitous networks, trust relationships between users need to be strengthened. Therefore, increasing confidence requires pervasive security services based on strong authentication and authorization mechanisms. In ubiquitous computing, the main security challenges arise from network heterogeneity as well as from a dynamic population of nomadic users with limited devices. In this paper, we present a pervasive infrastructure for authentication and authorization services in heterogeneous networks, in the form of a pervasive public key
  • 2. ISSN: 2278 – 1323 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET) Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013 1399 www.ijarcet.org infrastructure (pervasive-PKI). This infrastructure, developed as part of the UBISEC project, is able to provide authentication and access control services for users roaming between different heterogeneous networks. In this sense, the pervasive-PKI fully supports nomadic mobility, enabling secure services for users connecting through many different networking technologies (Wi-Fi, UMTS, Bluetooth, etc.), and in multiple network topologies, even when global connectivity is lost and some services are temporarily unreachable. We clearly differentiate between two modes of operation: in connected mode, on-line trusted servers are available and traditional techniques are applicable for validation of user credentials; however, in disconnected mode, the information necessary for this validation is not always available. To support the disconnected mode, we combine different solutions: an adapted privilege verifier for authorization, a new trust model for authentication, and a collaborative model to obtain unavailable information. Some of the functions traditionally performed by authentication and authorization infrastructures are integrated into user devices, providing support for credential validation in situations where central authorities are not available, like in peer-to-peer mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs). Furthermore, the pervasive-PKI is also endowed with reconfiguration capabilities. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the required background, including authentication and authorization infrastructures, evidence-based computational trust management, and component-based reconfigurable architectures. Section III points out the operation scenario for the pervasive- PKI. Then present the proposed architecture for the pervasive-PKI in Section IV, highlighting the components embedded in user devices. Section V describes a proof-of-concept implementation developed for the UBISEC project. Finally, Section VI concludes the paper. II. AUTHENTICATION AND AUTHORIZATION INFRASTRUCURES Authentication solutions like Microsoft .NET Passport and Kerberos depend on user selected passwords. However, from a security point of view, it is more interesting to use further advanced technologies like digital certificates and PKIs, which combined with some complementary techniques and tools, can also be used as a starting-point to provide authorization. A. Evidence-Based Computational Trust Management In a PKI, trust is fundamental to establish “certification paths” among entities, either CAs or end users. PKI configuration requires manual intervention, and applying hierarchies through cross-organizational boundaries on a large scale basis could be difficult. This scheme is not applicable to mobile users, because these often require peer-to-peer trust relations. In this kind of relationship, each user or domain can be a trust anchor. Although a peer-to-peer trust model is more flexible than traditional PKI, it suffers from scalability and uncertainty problems. For instance, PGP [1] is a well- known example of this type of system. For these reasons, evidence-based computational trust management models have been proposed such as PTM [3], Subjective Logic [4], SECURE [2], ENTRAPPED Platform [5], TMF [6], among others. These models consider risk and uncertainty issues, and bring dynamism and flexibility. However, open and peer-to-peer systems are vulnerable to Sybil attacks [7], and computational trust management models do not have well-referenced trust metrics for assessing and reasoning about attack-resistance [8]. Pervasive Trust Management (PTM) has been designed for mobile users, by providing them with autonomy to establish new peer-to-peer trust relations, even with unknown users. PTM models trust relations with continuous function ranging from 0 to 1, where these values represent the extreme cases of complete distrust and complete trust, respectively. B. Component-Based Reconfigurable Architecture The dynamicity and heterogeneity of ubiquitous environments require security management to be flexible enough to be easily
  • 3. ISSN: 2278 – 1323 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET) Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013 1400 www.ijarcet.org tailored to different operating conditions such as multiple authorization and authentication policies, variable user preferences, or scarce resources — when only key security services should be included into a featherweight security infrastructure. Component-based security architectures are currently emerging as a promising solution to reach such flexibility. Components are usually defined as entities encapsulating code and data which appear in software systems as units of execution, configuration, deployment, or administration. The component paradigm enables the security architect to master the complexity of implementation of a software infrastructure: since components can be composed to form higher-level units of code, one can observe and manipulate the infrastructure at the right level of abstraction and granularity, both during design and implementation phases. The resulting infrastructure is thus very modular. III. OPERATION SCENARIO FOR PERVASIVE PKI Let Peter and Alice be two mobile users that have temporal connectivity to centralized PKI services (for example, when they have a stable Internet connection). During this period of connectivity they work in connected mode, and they have full access to all PKI services offered by the infrastructure. Later, users move and lose global connectivity. However, they can still communicate among each other by forming a peer-to-peer MANET but they cannot accede to centralized PKI services. In this situation, which we call disconnected mode, users should be able to establish secure communications. In particular they should be able to perform authentication and access control decisions. The main objective of this research is focused on providing mechanisms that extend the PKI functionalities to mobile users when they work in the disconnected mode. To achieve this objective, we propose a new architecture for the pervasive-PKI, where functionality traditionally performed by a centralized infrastructure is moved to user devices, making certificate validation also possible in the disconnected mode. Below, we state the main requirements which lead to the design of the pervasive-PKI:  Operation over heterogeneous networks- Pervasive computing environments include many different network topologies and technologies (Wi-Fi, UMTS, Bluetooth, etc.). This heterogeneity implies multiple disconnected trust domains, where each domain applies its own policies and mechanisms for authentication and authorization.  Support for the authorization service- PKI-based mechanisms are suitable for authentication in heterogeneous trust domains, and also facilitate mobility over heterogeneous networks and temporal disconnection of services: users carry their credentials to authenticate themselves anywhere at any time.  Support for mobile users- A major challenge to implement mobility is the free roaming of users across different administrative domains. In the past, users have been demanding roaming in homogeneous GSM networks. However, in the near future, users will require context-aware computing involving an increasing number of heterogeneous networks and mobile devices.  Single sing-on (SSO) - Using an AAI, a user would register only once in his home domain. When he requests a resource in a visited network, he should always be authenticated and authorized by using his home domain credentials.  Support for temporal disconnections- When users move across different networks, global connectivity may be lost and some PKI services may be temporarily unreachable.  A dynamic trust model for disconnected modes- Several typical certificate validation processes, such as path processing and revocation status checking cannot be guaranteed when working in disconnected mode. Therefore, we require a new trust model for situations where a certificate cannot be verified or new trust relations cannot be established by traditional PKI mechanisms.  Operation into limited devices- Mobile users typically used lightweight devices such as PDAs or mobile phones. Although these devices are easily portable they have much more limited capabilities than PCs or laptops. In particular these constrained devices have limited computational, communication and storage capabilities, and power consummation
  • 4. ISSN: 2278 – 1323 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET) Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013 1401 www.ijarcet.org is also an important issue. We have to take these limitations into account, providing mechanisms that can be performed by very constrained devices.  Reconfigurability- The operating environment is constantly changing due mainly to: dynamic trust relationships between users and devices; download of platform updates and personalization of existing services. These conditions require an adaptable security infrastructure supporting both dynamic configuration to change some security parameters, and reconfiguration to introduce new protection mechanisms. IV. ARCHITECTURE Authentication and authorization services for Internet users can be based on AAIs. In the connected mode, Public Key Infrastructures and Privilege Management Infrastructures (PMIs) can efficiently support both services, respectively. However, in the disconnected mode these infrastructures are not reachable and we require new solutions. This section proposes an architecture that extends the functionality of several PKI services to the disconnected mode. Fig 1 shows the proposed architecture for the pervasive-PKI. Mobile users obtain their credentials from a X.509 AAI and they store the certificates in their devices or smart cards. Further authentication and authorization will imply the validation of these credentials. In connected mode, part of the AAI can be used to help credential validation, whereas in disconnected mode the infrastructure is not reachable and several functionalities such as certificate path processing and revocation status checking are not available. Therefore, several cooperating software components installed in the user device have to be used to support credential validation. Fig 1. Proposed architecture for the pervasive- PKI Mobile users can form self-organizing networks in isolation, in order to share services, or to participate in peer-to-peer applications. Thus, some devices have to behave as servers, making certain decisions about access control, establishment of new trust relationships, or validation of credentials, etc. In this section, we present the three software components that have to be included in user devices that allow implementing secure authentication and access control, even in disconnected mode: the PTM component, the Privilege Verifier (PV) and the Access Control Engine (ACE). 4.1. PTM Component PTM component manages trust information about users, validates public key certificates (PKCs), signs messages and verifies digital signatures. These functionalities are provided by three components: (i) The Authentication Service manages PKC validation, using the “trusted certificate list” holds in the user device. In the disconnected mode case, this component has been adapted by implementing our own algorithm for certification path validation. The algorithm uses recommendation information, trusted certificate list, and a revocation service if available. (ii) The Trust Manager boots and manages trust information about users. Trust information includes trust values, and trustworthiness level according to a threshold. This information allows handling the trusted certificate list in a semi-automatic way. Likewise, this component maintains a black list of untrustworthy users.
  • 5. ISSN: 2278 – 1323 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET) Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013 1402 www.ijarcet.org (iii) Finally, the Signature Manager can act in two ways: a. For message signing, using the user’s private key that can be placed in tamper-proof storage like a smart card. b. For signature verification, this uses the public keys bound to the certificates stored in the trusted certificate list. 4.2. Privilege Verifier (PV) This component manages the validation of Attribute Certificates. The Privilege Verifier (PV) is divided into three components: (i) The Authentication Manager manages PKC validation. This component was adapted to disconnected mode to work in connection with the PTM component. (ii) The Localizer component provides information to other components of the PV. (iii) The Attribute Certificate Verifier (AC Verifier) component is in charge of validating the user AC and to get the privileges or role assigned to the user. Therefore, this component supplies to the rest of modules with the information contained in the CA of the user. Attribute Certificate validation is performed as follows: - Firstly, the PV receives an AC supplied by the user or by another way to the pervasive-PKI system. The PKC linked to the AC can be supplied in the same way as the AC. If the PKC is not supplied, the AC Verifier can obtain it from the Localizer. If the Localizer stores the PKC into his local cache, send it to the AC Verifier, if not, requests the PKC to the PTM component. - The validation of PKCs is then delegated to the PTM component and is managed by the Authentication Manager. If the PKCs are valid, the authentication result is a Boolean value. Otherwise, the outcome is a trust level calculated by the PTM component. - The AC Verifier component uses the information supplied by the user and the PTM component to validate the user privileges based on policies and environment variables. 4.3. Access Control Engine (ACE) This component is in charge of decision- making when controlling access to resources. It relies on the PTM to authenticate users requesting access, and on the PV to validate the credentials presented by the requester. Access is then granted or not depending on the current authorization policy. The ACE implementation mostly follows the XACML access control framework, clearly separating logic for policy enforcement and decision. 4.4. Reconfigurability A flexible authentication service should allow adapting the authentication method to the security context. This operation can range from fine-tuning some configuration parameters to changing the authentication algorithm. For instance, the strength of authentication may be tuned by selecting the threshold T for PTM trust values above which user entities are authenticated: T=1 for Boolean authentication if a CA is available on-line as in a traditional PKI; and T<1 for disconnected mode, where trust is managed in a P2P manner between entities. Independently from the network architecture, the PKI is expected to provide a list of security services which may need to be extended. Further, for each security service such as certificate validation, the interactions between the components can be described with several protocols [9]. V. CONCEPT IMPLEMENTATION We considered the following scenario to demonstrate the functionalities of the pervasive-PKI in the UBISEC project. Let Peter, Alice and Bob be three users that previously do not know each other. Each user device (PDA) has the following software installed: (i) A Photo Album Service (PAS) application, which allows users to store, view and organize their digital pictures. (ii) The pervasive-PKI providing access control to both shared and private pictures. Peter sometimes tries to break the security of all the devices that he can find. He doesn’t have any picture in his album yet. Alice has some private pictures that she doesn’t want to share. But, she has given permission to fans of the Pervasive club to access some of them. Bob has several pictures divided into two categories: private and free access. He is a fan of the Pervasive club.
  • 6. ISSN: 2278 – 1323 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET) Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013 1403 www.ijarcet.org The users form ad-hoc networks in order to exchange pictures. The available pictures can be viewed or stored into the local photo album repository. Fig 2. Test-bed scenario for the pervasive-PKI We tested two cases. In the first one, Bob act as client and Alice as server. Fig 2 shows the steps performed for a successful access to photo: 1. Bob starts the PAS application and joins the MANET. 2. Bob’s PAS application starts a service discovery process to find other reachable PAS in the network. 3. Bob's PAS application shows all other available PAS. Alice’s PDA offers pictures about the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. 4. Bob asks for the picture of Beijing 2008 Olympics Jingjing Mascot, therefore, the identification and authorization process starts. Bob’s credentials (PKC and AC) are sent to Alice to prove he has the rights to see the picture. 5. This request is delivered to Alice’s pervasive-PKI software. Thus, the ACE component requests AC validation to the PV and PKC validation to the PTM. 6. The PV requests to the PTM the AA (for Pervasive fun club) PKC validation in order to validate the AC signature. a. If the AA PKC is valid and trusted, the PV gets the attribute bound to Bob's AC. b. The PV sends the response to the ACE component. 7. The PTM sends the response to the ACE concerning the user PKC validation. 8. The ACE sends the result to the PAS application to start sending Beijing 2008 Olympics Jingjing Mascot picture to Bob. 9. The PTM monitors Bob’s behavior to update his trust level. In the second case, Bob acts as server and Peter as client: Bob is also offering a few pictures, and Peter tries to get a new picture from Bob’s PDA. Bob’s PDA then performs the same steps to validate Peter credentials. However, Peter is an untrustworthy user. Moreover, he doesn’t have enough privileges to obtain that picture since Peter is not a member of the Pervasive fun club. Then, the ACE component denies access to Peter and his trust level is updated. The PAS defines 28 different error codes arising from the validation process, i.e. output of the PV-PTM invocation. These error codes besides some other general patterns (like a DoS attack) are assigned weights by the PAS and continuously traced by the “Action Monitor” in the log files to recalculate the trust values. VI. CONCLUSION In particular, we have been focusing on the authentication and authorization in distributed environments, the security of shared resources, and the privacy of participants. In this paper, we presented a ubiquitous authentication and authorization infrastructure, which allows the validation of user credentials in heterogeneous networks where global connectivity can be lost and some services can become temporarily unreachable. Authentication and authorization are provided to users and applications through the combination of traditional PKI and new PMI services, notably thanks to a new trust model and the use of attribute certificates. Several software components are proposed for the users’ devices, in order to extend several PKI functionalities to the disconnected mode. This modular infrastructure supports free roaming of users across different administrative domains and network technologies, and it is endowed with reconfiguration capabilities. We also described a proof-of-concept implementation of the pervasive-PKI developed in the UBISEC project. In the validation test bed we showed the functionality of the pervasive-PKI in the disconnected mode,
  • 7. ISSN: 2278 – 1323 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET) Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2013 1404 www.ijarcet.org computing the performance of our implementation. VII. REFERENCES [1] The International PGP Home Page. Available at http://www.pgpi.org/ [2] IST SECURE project. http://www.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/dynamic/?category_id =206 [3] F. Almenárez, A. Marín, D. Díaz and J. Sanchez. Developing a Model for Trust Management in Pervasive Devices. IEEE Workshop on Pervasive Computing and Communication Security, 2006. [4] A. Josang, “An Algebra for Assessing Trust in Certification Chains,” Proc.Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium (NDSS), 1999. [5] D. Ingram. An Evidence Based Architecture for Efficient, Attack-Resistant Computational Trust Dissemination in Peer-to- Peer Networks. Third International Conference on Trust Management (iTrust'05). 2005 [6] M. Waseen, R. McClatchey, I. Willers. “Scalable Evidence Based Self-Managing Framework for Trust Management”. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ENTCS). 179:59-73. 2007. [7] J. Doucer. The Sybil Attack. First International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems. Vol. 2429. Pages: 251 - 260. LNCS. Springer-Verlag. 2002 [8] A. Twigg, N. Dimmock. Attack-Resistance of Computational Trust Models. In Proceedings of the 12th IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE’03). 2003 [9] E. Bruneton, T. Coupaye, M. Leclerc, V. Quéma, and J.-B. Stéfani. The Fractal Component Model and its Support in Java. Software - Practice and Experience (SP&E), special issue on Experiences with Auto- adaptive and Reconfigurable Systems, 36(11- 12): 1257-1284, 2006. [10] J. Forné, J. L. Muñoz, F. Hinarejos, O. Esparza. “Certificate Status Validation in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks”. IEEE Wireless Communications, 16(1):55-62. 2009.