SECURE SINGLE SIGN-ON (SSO) MECHANISM FOR ELLIPTIC CURVE CRYPTOGRAPHY (ECC) ON DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER NETWORKS

Abstract

This paper introduces a Single sign on (SSO) mechanism that uses Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) to avoid the communication overheads as well as the workload of both the users and the service providers in the network. Single sign on mechanism allow users to sign on using single credential and to enjoy the services provided by the multiple service providers in a distributed computer network. This mechanism includes, after obtaining a credential from a trusted authority, each legal user's authentication agent can use that credential to complete authentication on behalf of the user and can then access multiple service providers. A detailed up-to-date discussion and various techniques on Single Sign-On mechanism in distributed computer networks have been done. ECC is an alternative mechanism for implementing public-key cryptography. Public-key algorithms create a mechanism for sharing keys among large numbers of participants in a complex information system. Since ECC helps to establish equivalent security with smaller key size, lower computing power and battery resource usage, it can also be widely used for mobile applications. Unlike other popular algorithms such as RSA, ECC is based on discrete logarithms that are much more difficult to challenge.