A Hybrid Dynamic Encryption Scheme for Multi-Factor Verification: A Novel Paradigm for Remote Authentication.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Cybersecurity
• Network Security

Background:

• Current security research often fails adoption due to complexity, increased user/operator duties, and data risks.
• Existing username/password systems are vulnerable to poor practices, interception, and masquerades.
• Secure authentication schemes frequently overlook man-in-the-middle (MiTM) and replay attacks, or introduce new vulnerabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a more secure authentication method that preserves existing paradigms.
• To minimize vulnerabilities inherent in current authentication processes.
• To avoid increasing responsibilities for users and server operators.

Main Methods:

• A hybrid, layered encryption technique is employed.
• A two-part verification process is implemented.
• Dynamic protection against interception-based cyber-attacks is provided.

Main Results:

• The proposed scheme effectively protects against replay and MiTM attacks.
• It does not introduce new vulnerabilities for other attack types, such as brute-forcing.
• The mechanism outperforms standardized methods and other schemes in deployability, exploit resilience, and speed.

Conclusions:

• The novel authentication method offers enhanced security without compromising usability or system structure.
• It presents a viable, more secure alternative to current authentication practices.
• The approach addresses critical security gaps in existing client-server authentication paradigms.