A Secure and Efficient Multi-Factor Authentication Algorithm for Mobile Money Applications
Loading...
Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Future Internet
Abstract
With the expansion of smartphone and financial technologies (FinTech), mobile money
emerged to improve financial inclusion in many developing nations. The majority of the mobile
money schemes used in these nations implement two-factor authentication (2FA) as the only means
of verifying mobile money users. These 2FA schemes are vulnerable to numerous security attacks
because they only use a personal identification number (PIN) and subscriber identity module (SIM).
This study aims to develop a secure and efficient multi-factor authentication algorithm for mobile
money applications. It uses a novel approach combining PIN, a one-time password (OTP), and a
biometric fingerprint to enforce extra security during mobile money authentication. It also uses
a biometric fingerprint and quick response (QR) code to confirm mobile money withdrawal. The
security of the PIN and OTP is enforced by using secure hashing algorithm-256 (SHA-256), a biometric
fingerprint by Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) that uses a standard public key cryptography technique
(RSA), and Fernet encryption to secure a QR code and the records in the databases. The evolutionary
prototyping model was adopted when developing the native mobile money application prototypes
to prove that the algorithm is feasible and provides a higher degree of security. The developed
applications were tested, and a detailed security analysis was conducted. The results show that the
proposed algorithm is secure, efficient, and highly effective against the various threat models. It also
offers secure and efficient authentication and ensures data confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation,
user anonymity, and privacy. The performance analysis indicates that it achieves better overall
performance compared with the existing mobile money systems.
Description
Keywords
Mobile money systems, 2FA, Multi-factor authentication, PIN, OTP, Biometric fingerprint, Twilio SMS, Fernet encryption, Mobile money
Citation
Ali, G.; Dida, M.A.; Elikana Sam, A. A Secure and Efficient Multi-Factor Authentication Algorithm for Mobile Money Applications. Future Internet 2021, 13, 299. https://doi.org/10.3390/ fi13120299