Protecting Cloud Service Providers Based on an Efficient Password-based Authentication System

Abstract

Password-based authentication systems are one of the most popular authentication systems. They are an essential way to protect many online applications and accounts. Cloud computing services also use this type of protection. Text passwords are employed in cloud computing for the authentication and authorization of access to cloud services or for the preservation of private and sensitive data kept in the cloud. For this reason, a robust password is needed, which must be safe from possible attacks. That requires the password to be as complex as possible; on the other hand, complex passwords will produce the problem of forgetting them. For these types of problems, this paper proposes a new password generator algorithm based on the 4D hyperchaotic system and a genetic algorithm. The proposed algorithm helps generate the same complex password if the same input is entered into the system. On the other hand, a genetic algorithm is also used to enhance the generated password if it loses one of the determined conditions to be considered a robust password. Then the generated password will be used to protect user data stored with any cloud provider. Testing results gave a 79.8 value of bit entropy for the generated passwords, and 93% of the generated passwords were classified as "very strong passwords.