A Password-Based Grid Security Infrastructure

The globus security infrastructure (GSI) is one of the most famous security architecture. GSI is based on public key infrastructure (PKI), which performs mutual authentication via X.509 certificates. We present a password-based grid security infrastructure (PBGSI), which authenticates clients by authenticated key exchange (AuthA) methods and uses improved chaffing and winnowing protocol for secure data transfer. By using password-based methods in authentication, authorization and delegation, PBGSI provides convenient interface for the user. At the same time, encryption-less secure data transfer improves the performance; and mechanisms used in our scheme (time-stamp etc.) enhance the security of the whole grid.