International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering

Abstract

Authentication of mobile subscribers and network is a challenging issue to the researchers, since hacking and threats are increasing with the enhanced population of wireless traffic. Now mobile communication system (3-G or advanced) has been developed to speed up the data communication. 3-Gmobile communication uses two different switching techniques: circuit switching for voice and low speed data communications, and packet switching mainly for data communication, but can afford voice communication like VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), video telephony, multimedia service etc. Generally high speed data communication uses packet switching process through PDSN (Packet Data Serving Node) servers. In circuit switching (3-G network), authentication is mutual where both MS and network (MSC) authenticate each other, but in packet switching only network (servers in PDSN) examines the authenticity of MS. In this paper, we propose a mutual authentication technique that verifies the authenticity of the subscriber as well as the network (MSC or PDSN) by subscriber’s password, SIM and biometric property of the subscriber. Two biometric parameters are used in which one biometric parameter is stored in SIM and the other biometric parameter taken as frequency of Flipping or Clapping sound of the subscriber, called certified document (CD), is stored at server (MSC or PDSN). An algorithm is developed by these four entities to check this authentication process, termed biometric entity based mutual authentication technique for 3-G mobile communications.