A Survey on Authentication Techniques and User Recognition

Today Mobiles, Computer, Laptops, PDAs are becoming widely popular and largely used. The available authentication techniques are able to secure the device or the area by the use of Knowledge, Possession and Inherence factor. When the use of smart phones for authentication comes into consideration, it becomes a critical task because of complexity, security and the various fluctuations in the wireless medium. The various successful authentication systems in existence are dedicated fingerprint scanner, iris scanner and CCTV, etc. This paper provides the review for various existing authentication methods. Here we have listed authentication methods under the three main categories, first is an Integrated Windows Authentication, where the communication is done with the trusted Kerberos server to obtain a shared secret key. The second is a Basic Authentication system consisting of username/password and trust authentication. The third form of authentication system is a Multifactor Authentication method that is a process of computer access control in which combination of any two from possession, knowledge and Inherence is used to access the system or the area. The methods are discussed in detail throughout the paper.