Cryptanalysis of Hu-Niu-Yang's Multi-server Password Authenticated Key Agreement Schemes Using Smart Card

Multi-server password authentication schemes enable remote users to obtain service from multiple servers with single password without separately registering to each server. In 2007, Hu-Niu-Yang proposed an improved efficient password authenticated key agreement scheme for multi-server architecture based on Chang-Lee's scheme proposed in 2004. This scheme is claimed to be more efficient and is able to overcome a few existing deficiencies in Chang-Lee's scheme. However, we find false claim of forward secrecy property and some potential threats such as offline dictionary attack, key-compromise attack, and poor reparability in their scheme. In this paper, we will discuss these issues in depth.