AUTHENTICATION TECHNIQUES IN COMPUTER NETWORKS

Abstract: The Internet has emerged as one of the most convenient and widely used media for exchanging information. The Internet of today is faced with many challenges. One of the most intimidating challenges is to ensure security. Pursuing authentication through applicable mechanisms becomes a complex issue. Like other network applications, security issues have become the core issues to be settled. Among other security issues, authentication and access control are the two main fields of security issues, which must be resolved to protect information and computing systems against unauthorized access. This paper explores three authentication techniques, i.e. (i) Private key Cryptosystems (ii) public key cryptosystems (iii) Biometric based authentication and suggest/propose which technique will protect the privacy to authenticate users in an appropriate manner. Finally, the paper presents the comparison of various authentication techniques. The paper will help the readers in better understanding of different techniques and explore the field.

Keywords: Access control, Authentication, Cryptography, Biometric identification