Securing One Time Password (OTP) for Multi-Factor Out-of-Band Authentication through a 128-bit Blowfish Algorithm

Authentication and cryptography have been used to address security issues on various online services. However, researchers discovered that even the most commonly used multi-factor out-of-band authentication mechanism was vulnerable to attacks and traditional crypto-algorithms were characterized to have some drawbacks making it crucial to choose desirable algorithms for a particular purpose. This study introduces an innovative modification of the Blowfish algorithm designed to capitalize on its strengths but supports 128-bits block size text input using dynamic selection encryption method and reduction of cipher function execution through randomly determined rounds. Experimentation results on 128-bit input text revealed significant performance improvements with utmost 5.91 % in terms of avalanche effect, 38.97 % for integrity, and 41.02 % in terms of execution time. Results also showed that the modification introduced extra security layer, thus, displaying higher complexity and stronger diffusion at faster execution time making it more difficult and complex for an unauthorized individual to decipher the information and desirable to be used for applications with multiple users respectively. This is a good contribution to the continuous developments in the field of information security particularly in cryptography and towards providing a secure OTP for multifactor out-of-band authentication

An Adaptive FLV Steganography Approach Using Simulated Annealing

Steganography is not only the art of hiding secret messages in cover media but also a process of communication and secure data transfer. Secret messages can be sent over the Internet with security by using several steganography techniques, but all of them present challenges in steganalysis. This study proposes a new secure technique called flash video (FLV) file steganography that keeps the frame video quality and is difficult to detect. The technique can hide any type of secret message inside a given FLV file. The secret message is divided into packets of the same length, reordered packet, and encrypted bytes before being hidden at the end of a selected video tag. A simulated annealing (SA) approach to select tags for steganography is presented to reduce or avoid the challenge of steganalysis. The proposed method uses SA as supporting framework to deal with the FLV file as a host for different types of secret messages. The system determines the minimum path within the host FLV file by using SA and hides the message bits inside each pixel in the minimum computed path. Analysis of the host FLV file cannot be performed without proper knowledge on the transformation process. Thus, the existence of the secret message is difficult to detect by steganalysis. Knowledge is represented by the key of finding the minimum path in the host FLV file, key of secret message length, key of additional bytes, key of message packets reordering and key of message extension. Experimental results show that the proposed technique satisfies the main requirements of steganography with regard to visual appearance, capacity, undetectability, and robustness against extraction

Integrating and Securing Video, Audio and Text Using Quaternion Fourier Transform

The rapid growth of communication technology encouraged a rapidly rising demand for Internet connectivity. Accordingly, this led to an upsurge in research in the discipline of information security. cryptography plays a significant role in securing and verification of information exchanged via public communication channels.   The current paper introduces a novel approach for combining both video, audio and text signals into a single architecture and securing it prior to the process of transmission.  The idea behind this approach depends on embedding the color components of each pixel of the video signal in a quaternion number. The fourth component of the quaternion number is occupied with either an audio sample or a textual data.   The array of quaternion numbers corresponding to a video frame is converted to the frequency domain, using quaternion Fourier transform,  and then multiplied by the quaternion Fourier transform of a digital image. Herby, the selected digital image is used as a complicated secret. The yielded signal is transmitted and when received, both of video, audio and text signals are extracted using simple quaternion mathematics applied to the received signal and a copy of the digital image.    A second level of complexity can be added to this approach by applying one of the well-known cryptographic techniques (symmetric or asymmetric) to the samples of the transmitted signal.   The suggested approach is implemented using Matlab simulation software and the extracted signals are compared with the original ones using some performance metrics.  The obtained results show that the proposed approach is robust and more secure against cryptanalysis attacks without affecting the used bandwidth of the communication channel