Multi-factor authentication based on multimodal biometrics (MFA-MB) for Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing (CC) was introduced recently as a new paradigm to host and deliver Information Technology Services. Despite its advantages and maturity, security and privacy issues in CC remain an open challenge. Usually, cloud-based systems use login and password combination, PINs, smart cards, or unimodal biometrics for users authentication; Multimodal biometrics can be considered as an alternative solution and additional factor to increase CC authentication security level. First, the paper deals with the authentication security in CC and proposes a new approach to implement a multimodal biometric systems for authentication and identity management using user's physiological and/or behavioral traits. Second, combining the advantages of multi-factor and multimodal biometric techniques we develop a hybrid scheme called Multi-factor Authentication based on Multimodal Biometrics (MFA-MB) in order to authenticate and allow access for cloud consumers. Further, a classification of different practical multiple biometrics combinations is given for a wide number of MFA-MB real applications.