Establishing secure mutual trust using an insecure password

• US 7,836,306 B2
• Filed: 06/29/2005
• Issued: 11/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Simon, Daniel R., Pyle, Harry S., Lieberman, Bruce Louis, Dollar, William, Simonnet, Guillaume
• Primary Examiner(s): Korzuch; William R
• Assistant Examiner(s): Su; Sarah
• Application Number:
  US11/170,523
• Publication Number:
  US 20070005955A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,966 Days
• Field of Search: 713/169, 713/155, 713/156, 713/168, 380/278
• US Class Current: 713/169
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3228 One-time or temporary data, i.e. information which is sent for every authentication or authorization, e.g. one-time-password, one-time-token or one-time-key
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3273 for mutual authentication network architectures or network communication protocols for achieving mutual authentication in a packet data network H04L63/0869

Abstract

A process for establishing secure mutual trust includes generating a one-time-password. The one-time-password is transferred between the devices in a communication occurring off of the network. Each device generates a set of authenticators by hashing a plurality of sub-strings of the password and the device'"'"'s authentication certificate with a respective set of nonces. The devices exchange the respective sets of authenticators. Each device then alternates revealing its respective set of nonces and its authentication certificate in a multi-stage process. The devices re-calculate the authenticators based upon the respective set of nonces and authentication certificate revealed by the other device along with the one-time-password sub-strings that it posses. If each device determines that the authenticators re-calculated by the given device matches the authenticators previously received from the other device, secure mutual trust is established.

Claims

1. A method of establishing secure mutual trust between a first device and a second device, comprising:

receiving, by the second device, a one-time-password known to the first device;

receiving a first device identifier, a first device certificate, and a first authenticator, wherein the first authenticator is a cryptographic encoding comprising;

a first nonce,

the first device certificate,

the first device identifier, and

a password sub-string of a first plurality of password sub-strings generated from the one-time-password by the first device;

receiving the first nonce;

calculating a corresponding authenticator by applying the cryptographic encoding to the first nonce, the first device certificate, the first device identifier, and a corresponding password sub-string of a second plurality of password sub-strings generated from the one-time-password by the second device; and

verifying that the received first authenticator and the calculated corresponding authenticator are the same.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first plurality of password sub-strings is generated by decomposing the one-time-password into a definite number, n, of password sub-strings.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the second plurality of password sub-strings is generated by decomposing the one-time-password into the definite number, n, of password sub-strings.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein an authenticator is received for each password sub-string of the first plurality of password sub-strings.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein an authenticator corresponding to each received authenticator is calculated using a corresponding password sub-string of the second plurality of password sub-strings.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein after receiving the first authenticator, the second device sends a second device identifier, a second device certificate, and a second authenticator to the first device, wherein the second authenticator is a cryptographic encoding comprising:

a second nonce;

the second device certificate;

the second device identifier; and

the corresponding password sub-string of the second plurality of password sub-strings generated from the one-time-password by the second device.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

sending the second nonce to the first device.

8. A computer-readable medium not consisting of propagating data signals having computer-readable instructions that when executed by one or more processors configure the one or more processors to perform a method of establishing secure mutual trust, the method comprising:

receiving, by a second device, a one-time-password known to a first device;

receiving a first device identifier, a first device certificate, and a first authenticator, wherein the first authenticator is a cryptographic encoding comprising;

a first nonce,

the first device certificate,

the first device identifier, and

a password sub-string of a first plurality of password sub-strings generated from the one-time-password by the first device;

receiving the first nonce;

calculating a corresponding authenticator by applying the cryptographic encoding to the first nonce, the first device certificate, the first device identifier, and a corresponding password sub-string of a second plurality of password sub-strings generated from the one-time-password by the second device; and

verifying that the received first authenticator and the calculated corresponding authenticator are the same.

9. The computer-readable medium not consisting of propagating data signals of claim 8, wherein the first plurality of password sub-strings is generated by decomposing the one-time-password into a definite number, n, of password sub-strings.

10. The computer-readable medium not consisting of propagating data signals of claim 9, wherein the second plurality of password sub-strings is generated by decomposing the one-time-password into the definite number, n, of password sub-strings.

11. The computer-readable medium not consisting of propagating data signals of claim 8, wherein an authenticator is received for each password sub-string of the first plurality of password sub-strings.

12. The computer-readable medium not consisting of propagating data signals of claim 11, wherein an authenticator corresponding to each received authenticator is calculated using a corresponding password sub-string of the second plurality of password sub-strings.

13. The computer-readable medium not consisting of propagating data signals of claim 8, wherein after receiving the first authenticator, the second device sends a second device identifier, a second device certificate, and a second authenticator to the first device, wherein the second authenticator is a cryptographic encoding comprising:

a second nonce;

the second device certificate;

the second device identifier; and

the corresponding password sub-string of the second plurality of password sub-strings generated from the one-time-password by the second device.

14. The computer-readable medium not consisting of propagating data signals of claim 13, further comprising:

sending the second nonce to the first device.

15. The computer-readable medium not consisting of propagating data signals of claim 14, wherein the first device calculates a second corresponding authenticator by applying the cryptographic encoding to the second nonce, the second device certificate, the second device identifier, and the password sub-string of the first plurality of password sub-strings generated by the first device;

and wherein the first device verifies that the received second authenticator and the calculated second corresponding authenticator are the same.