A stand-alone and SMS-based approach for authentication using mobile phone

A secure network partially depends on user authentication and unfortunately authentication schemes used at present are not utterly secure. Most of the systems today rely on static passwords to verify the user's identity. This paper describes a method of implementing two factor authentication using mobile phones. The proposed system involves using a mobile phone as a software token for One Time Password generation. OTP algorithm powered with user's unique identifications like International Mobile Equipment Identification and Subscriber Identification Module; makes a finite alphanumeric token valid for a session and for a single use. The generated One Time Password is valid for only a short user defined period of time and is generated by factors that are unique to both, the user and the mobile device itself. Additionally, an SMS-based mechanism is implemented as both a backup mechanism for retrieving the password and as a possible mean of synchronization.