Cross cloud single sign on (sso) using tokens

IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308
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Volume: 03 Issue: 02 | Feb-2014, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 308
CROSS CLOUD SINGLE SIGN ON (SSO) USING TOKENS
Priyanka Patil1
, Snehal S. Talokar2
, Vishakha Gonnade3
, Vaishali Bhagat4
1, 2, 3
Student, Computer Science and Engineering, SRMCEW, Maharashtra, India
4
Lecturer, Information Technology, SRMCEW, Maharashtra, India
Abstract
The cloud computing service provider ensures the security of their services by username/password schemes. Such type of scheme may
be suitable for small personalized services but not for the large scale organizations where employees may require to login for more
than one application related to various clouds. This paper identifies the issues of multiple logins and presents how multiple
applications of various clouds are accessed by single login process securely. Single Sign-On is the mechanism where a user only need
to authenticate him/her self once, then has the ability to access other protected resources without having to re-authenticate. Our
objective is to design the single sign on architecture for more than one cloud’s applications. Due to that client log in only one time at
time and automatically user login in remaining cloud applications and assess successful same process is for log out only user logout
once then user logout properly from the all of the cloud applications. The login audits are done for the security purpose and its
controlling by admin panel. Cloud service providers also neither need to support redundant registration process for new accounts of
applications nor dealing with enormous databases for same user of multiple applications and managing multiple authentication
credentials is annoying for users and as well as for authentication system. In other words, Single sign-on (SSO) is the mechanism
whereby a single action of user authentication and authorization can permit a user to access all computers and systems where that
user has access permission, without the need to enter multiple passwords.
Keywords: Cloud Computing, Password Synchronization, Refreshing Mechanism, Session ID, Tokens.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing is known as On-Demand computing and one
of the latest emerging topics in IT industry. The cloud
computing provide the services over the internet. The services
include applications, system hardware, collection of resources
on request etc.
Cloud classification is done on their usage mode, if cloud is
available for the general users on pay basis according to their
usage basis then it is called public cloud. If the customer
develops their own applications and run on their own
infrastructure then it is called private cloud. Integration of
these two clouds is called hybrid cloud.
Community cloud shares infrastructure between several
organizations from a specific community with common
concerns whether managed internally or by a third-party and
hosted internally or externally. The costs are spread over
fewer users than a public cloud but more than a private cloud.
The current scenario of web applications forces user to
remember the user credentials which make trouble to
remembering large number of identities and associated
password for the applications. In cloud computing the similar
problem faced by the user. This document gives the
information about the implementation of Single Sign On
(SSO) in cross cloud arrangement.
The following section contains the survey related to the
growth of cloud, security aspect, cloud is the first priority to
the vendors, revenue report, future and current usage, state of
cloud to the IT users and popularity survey of cloud
computing.
1.1 Cloud Growth
The survey conducted by International Data Corporation
(IDC) shows the strength of cloud computing to be
implemented in IT industry and gives the potential inspiration
to CSP. The Table 1 shows the cloud growth from year 2008
to 2012[1].
Table -1: Cloud Growth
Year 2008 2012 Growth
Cloud IT spending $ 16 B $42 B 27%
Total IT spending $383 B $ 494 B 7%
Total-cloud spend $367 B $ 452 B 4%

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1.2 Cloud Security Survey
The following figure indicates that security as first rank
according to IT executives. This information is also collected
from two hundred six three IT professional by asking different
question related to the cloud, and many of the executives are
worried about security perspective of cloud. The Fig. 2.1
shows the survey on security [2].
Fig -1: Cloud security survey
1.3 Objective
The aim of our research is to suggest a design of the single
sign on web application in cross cloud manner. Due to that
client log in only once, at the time of opening first application
and automatically user get login in remaining applications and
access successful without re-authentication process which
makes user free from remembering user credentials.
2. EXISTING SYSTEM
Currently most common authentication approached used by
the cloud service provider is user credentials (i.e. username
and password) which requires each cloud service provider host
its own and separate user management system. The main
problem with this system is that for accessing services of
various cloud service providers user have to register first and
secondly user have to authenticate for each services. Another
problem with the existing system is those users have to
manage individual username/password pair for each cloud
service provider which becomes impractical to expect from
user to remember different user credentials for each
applications.
3. PASSWORD SYNCRONIZATION
The password synchronization is the process of changing each
password for different applications to the same value, so that
the user always enters the same password. Once you
implement password synchronization technique, users will
enter the same password when they login to any of the
synchronized systems, such as to their network, finance
system, e-mail, calendar or the mainframe.
In other words the password synchronisation is the
implementation of same password for each and every
applications or system. But using the same password is the
weakest policy for the security of system [4] where in SSO
only one password is used as similar to password
synchronisation but we can ensure the security by using the
strong policy.
Another important point is that in password synchronisation
[5] user still have to login in each application or system. In
single sign on user needs to login once for the primary
authentication only then user become authorised to access the
all available applications.
Following is the comparative table of password
synchronization and single sign on.
Table -2: Comparison of Password Synchronisation and
Single Sign On
Parameters Password
Synchronization
Single Sign-on
Process It is very simple
process user change
all passwords of
application to the
same password.
User needs to sign in
only one application
using single username
and passwords. Specific
server does the process
of authentication for
remaining applications.
Login
Times
User needs to login
each and every
time, to get access
to applications.
User needs to login only
once.
Manage
Credential
Data
Only management
of password
required.
Specific mechanism is
required for the client
such as refreshing and
validation of tokens.
Password
Policy
For all applications
same password is
the weakest policy.
One strong password is
better than password
synchronization.

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4. PROPOSED SYSTEM
In our proposed work the architecture of Single Sign On is
suggested in cross cloud manner. An admin cloud is used to
maintain the login sessions and generating the identifiers for
the each application’s accessing process. The user credentials
are used to form the tokens. The tokens are the encrypted form
of the user credentials and the physical address (machine key)
of the user machine.
The tokens are used under the supervision of admin who
checks the validation of the request send by the user. The
admin works as an access manager. Initially users have to send
the user credentials for the first time login process. Admin
gives token as authorization to get access for the remaining
applications.
The tokens generated by the admin clouds contain session
information about the authorised user. Session is a data
structure in the access manager memory that contains
information about an authorised user. The admin cloud is
responsible for the generation of session identifiers which are
responsible for time dependent behaviours of users.
Fig -2: Scenario of cross cloud single sign on
A security problem occurs in the above scenario is that if user
is not active at the application, another user tries to get access
for another application then admin generate a request to user
asking for the user credentials. The request generation is
refreshing mechanism.
To sign out user just only need to click on sign out logo which
make user to free from the sign out process of individual
applications and destroys all the tokens. The destruction of
tokens stops the use of history recalling from the user side and
inhibit the intruder to use the tokens [3].
5. WORKING
The working of single sign on is performed in the following
manner and illustrated in the figure 3.
1. The user first authenticate for the first application accessing
procedure
2. The authenticated user request another protected application
from another cloud.
3. As the request does not include an app-token, the
application server constructs a request-token which is
encrypted by a session key shared between the applications
cloud and the admin cloud. The user is redirected to the admin
cloud along with the request-token.
Fig -3: Working of single sign on

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4. The admin cloud decrypt the request-token using the
session key and detects the user has a valid token. It constructs
an id-token and then returns URL, which will contain the
response-token, as well as the requested-token.
5. The user is redirected to the original resource, along with
the id-token.
6. The application cloud checks the id-token, rewrites the id-
token into an app-token, and creates an app-token to be placed
into a cookie for future requests.
7. User’s browser saves the app-token cookie; the application
serves the original request to the user.
8. Logging out of an application involves deleting all the
session cookies associated with this application on the server.
6. BENEFITS
The implementation of cross cloud single sign on system
improves the productivity of employee with less time users
spend logging into so many applications and it also reduces
the workload of the helpdesks for recovering the forgotten
passwords. Employee productivity is dramatically improved,
with less time users spend logging into multiple applications
and recovering the forgotten passwords.
Another benefit of this system is that it increases the system
security potentially by the user to choose a single complex and
more secure password instead of using multiple simple and
insecure passwords. SSO effectively reduces the password-
related workload to the helpdesk and lowers the costs
associated with managing passwords across multiple
distributed applications.
7. CONCLUSIONS
In cloud computing, Software as a Service application uses the
username/password scheme for the authentication purpose.
The implementation of private admin cloud with common
database for multiple applications of various clouds can
improve the security and remove the password problem.
The proposed system can also be helpful for all cloud service
provider to get the benefits of secure cross cloud single sign
on and the e-government sector where data sensitivity is very
high, cross cloud SSO helps government employee and users
to handle data of various departments like health, finance,
payment etc.
It is possible to implement the SSO concept which increase
the security level of users who manages passwords manually.
It also enables the user to use more secure passwords
REFERENCES
[1]. Shuai Z; Shufen Z; Xuebin C; Xiuzhen H; “Cloud
Computing Research and Development Trend”, 2nd
International conference on Future Networks, 2010. ICFN '
10.pp 23, 22-24 Jan 2010.
[2]. Chang, L, Ti ; Chin L; Chang, A.Y.; Chun J, C;(2010), “
Information security issue of enterprises adopting the
application of cloud computing”, IEEE 2010 Sixth
International Conference on Networked Computing and
Advanced Information Management (NCM),pp 645, 16-18
Aug. 2010.
[3]. ”Kerberos: The Definitive Guide”, Jason Garman
[4]. Kessler "Passwords - Strengths and Weaknesses", Internet
and Networking Security, Auerbach, 1997.
[5]. M-tech Information Company, “Definition of Password
Synchronization”, 2005
http://mtechit.com/concepts/password_synchronization.html
BIOGRAPHIES
Priyanka Patil has received the Diploma in
the Computer Science And Engineering from
R.G.T.U., Bhopal [M.P.] in 2011 and is
pursuing B.E Degree in C.S.E. from
S.R.M.C.E.W,Nagpur, Maharashtra INDIA.
Her field of interest is Computer Networking & Security.
Snehal S. Talokar, is pursuing B.E Degree in
C.S.E. from S.R.M.C.E.W, Nagpur,
Maharashtra India. Her field of interest is
VB.Net.
Vishakha Gonnade, is pursuing B.E Degree
in C.S.E. from S.R.M.C.E.W, Nagpur,
Maharashtra India. Her field of interest is
Cloud Computing.
Vaishali Bhagat has received the BE Degree
in Information Technology from RTMNU,
Maharashtra, India in 2008 & pursuing M.
Tech in CSE from RTMNU. Since 2010, she
is working in the department of IT as a
lecturer in SRMCEW, Nagpur, and Maharashtra, India.

Cross cloud single sign on (sso) using tokens

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