Mobile User Authentication System for E-commerce Applications.

E-commerce applications provide on-line clients and merchants with a quick and convenient way to exchange goods and services. However, the deployment of these applications is still facing many problems such as security threats; and on-line attacks. These often cause users to be concerned about their own privacy and encourage them to stop using on-line methods. Thus, a number of on-line authentication technologies and methods have been developed in order to authenticate users and merchants, verify their identities, and therefore overcome e-commerce security threats. Although stand-alone authentication solutions have been successful in authenticating legitimate clients and in defeating on-line attacks, they are often weak in overcoming the Man-In-The-Browser (MITB) attack, which is a type of Internet threat that infects a web-browser in a concealed fashion, and is invisible to both client and host applications. This paper presents a Mobile User Authentication System (MUAS) that uses QR code technology to authenticate on-line users, through a challenge/response protocol. Based on this mechanism, the system integrates different authentication technologies and methods to provide an improved and secure on-line user and merchant authentication system that overcomes MITB attack, without compromising usability and ubiquity.