AUTHENTICATION AND KEY DISTRIBUTION PROTOCOL FOR DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER ENVIRONMENT

An authentication and key distribution protocol for network and distributed environment is presented by using hybrids of asymmetric cryptosystem and symmetric cryptosystem. The intra domain authentication and key distribution is based on symmetric cryptosystem, and inter domain authentication is designed by using asymmetric cryptosystem, this can simplifies key management of the system. A hierarchical certificate authority (CA) structure for distributed environment is proposed for certifying the validity of public keys. In the protocol, login based on password is replaced by initial registering based on asymmetric cryptosystem, then guessing password attack can be against effectively.