Comparison of ZKP based Authentication Mechanisms for securing the web server

Abstract

Traditional authentication mechanisms aim at validating the authorized users to access the Information Systems such as web servers or services considering the various factors such as text based passwords, image based passwords, multi factors including password, biometric proofs. All these mechanisms store the authenticating factors in some form in a database or in a file system. There comes the thought that what will happen to the stored factors when they are exposed to the adversaries. This particular aspect insists the necessity to safeguard the Information Systems as well as the storage places. ZKP mechanisms eliminate the stored credentials to be validated. Instead, it allows one who wishes to prove his identity to the web server that he knows the authentication secret. The eligible user may be the group of administrators those who are maintaining the web server. We compared the variants of algorithms such as Feige-Fiat-Shamir identification scheme and The Guillou-Quisquater protocol in terms of their time efficiency to support authentication to secure the Web Server.