On the Security of A Dynamic ID-based Authentication Scheme for Telecare Medical Information Systems

Abstract

Telecare medical information systems (TMISs) are increasingly popular technologies for healthcare applications. Using TMISs, physicians and caregivers can monitor the vital signs of patients remotely. Since the database of TMISs stores patients' electronic medical records (EMRs), only authorized users should be granted the access to this information for the privacy concern. To keep the user anonymity, recently, Chen et al. proposed a dynamic ID-based authentication scheme for telecare medical information system. They claimed that their scheme is more secure and robust for use in a TMIS. However, we will demonstrate that their scheme fails to satisfy the user anonymity due to the dictionary attacks. It is also possible to derive a user password in case of smart card loss attacks. Additionally, an improved scheme eliminating these weaknesses is also presented.

On the Security Flaws in ID-based Password Authentication Schemes for Telecare Medical Information Systems

“…In this study, we discuss the disadvantage of inefficient login and password change phases of some of the recently published schemes for TMIS [3,30,40,42]. We also demonstrate how inefficient password change phase leads to denial of service attack in [30,42] where an authorized user cannot login to the server using his valid smart card. Moreover, we point out how inefficient login phase can cause extra communication and computation overhead.…”

“…In 2013, Lin [30] proposed an improvement of Chen el al. 's dynamic ID-based authentication scheme for TMIS [4].…”

“…Their scheme protects anonymity and it is efficient as it requires the computation of only hash functions. Recently, the articles [3,23,30,42] have demonstrated the weaknesses of Chen et al's scheme to achieve security goals. In this regard, Cao and Zhai [3] demonstrated that Chen et al's scheme is vulnerable to an off-line identity guessing attack and undetectable on-line password guessing attack using stolen smart card.…”

“…Their scheme also protects anonymity, but it requires computation of exponential operations. Lin [30] pointed out that user identity is compromised under the dictionary attack and password can be derived with the stolen smart card in Chen et al's scheme. He also proposed an improved scheme which efficiently resists dictionary attack and protects anonymity, but requites the computation of exponential operations.…”

“…Our contribution Many of the schemes [29,30,38,[42][43][44] fails to present efficient password change phase, which causes denial of service scenario in case of incorrect input in password change phase. A single mistake in password change phase does not allow a user to login to the server using the same smart card.…”