Speaker 1: Think about your day so far. You've probably logged into
Speaker 1: an app, maybe unlocked your phone, perhaps made a quick
Speaker 1: online purchase. What links all those things? It's this well complex,
Speaker 1: often invisible world working quietly behind the scenes. Authentication. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the deep dive. Today we're taking a well a
Speaker 1: deep dive into authentication and access control, sort of this
Speaker 1: silent guardian of our digital lives. We're pulling our insights
Speaker 1: from Syrah Pat boom Wrong's really extensive work authentication and
Speaker 1: access control, practical cryptography methods and tools. Our mission today
Speaker 1: basically cut through the jargon, understand the fundamental building blocks
Speaker 1: of digital trust, explore the frankly ingenious methods protecting your information,
Speaker 1: uncover the constant threats, and maybe even peek into the
Speaker 1: future of how we'll prove who we are online. Consider
Speaker 1: this your shortcut to really understanding the security behind your
Speaker 1: every click, every log in. You know, authentication It isn't
Speaker 1: just about a simple password anymore, is it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's certainly not. No. And what's truly fascinating here
Speaker 2: is how how deeply rooted the concepts we'll discuss are,
Speaker 2: from the very definition of digital security itself to the
Speaker 2: well the sophisticated methods we now use to establish trust
Speaker 2: and what can feel like a pretty unfrusted digital world.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start right at the beginning. Then, if
Speaker 1: I asked you just straight up define security in the
Speaker 1: digital realm, what would you say? I think many of
Speaker 1: us think of it as like a fixed state, you know,
Speaker 1: a locked door. But it's much more dynamic than that,
Speaker 1: isn't it exactly?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Our source makes is a really crucial point here.
Speaker 2: Security is not a goal, It is a process. It's
Speaker 2: this continuous effort really to be free from attacks, to
Speaker 2: prevent risk because the digital landscape is always shifting, always evolving.
Speaker 2: Think of it more like an ongoing defense system, always
Speaker 2: adapting to new threats.
Speaker 1: Right, a process and guiding that continuous process is a
Speaker 1: foundational framework, the CIA model, and no, not that CIA,
Speaker 1: but the standard pretty much for information security absolutely.
Speaker 2: CIA stands for confidentiality, integrity, and availability, basically the three
Speaker 2: pillars any secure digital environment must uphold.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's break those down. Confidentiality This seems pretty intuitive, right,
Speaker 1: keeping secret secret it is?
Speaker 2: Basically Confidentiality means preventing unauthorized eyes, unauthorized exposure of data.
Speaker 2: Imagine you're emailing sensitive info. If that email isn't encrypted, well,
Speaker 2: anyone sniffing the network could potentially read it. That's a
Speaker 2: confidentiality breach right there.
Speaker 1: Okay. And then there's integrity. This one's less about secrecy,
Speaker 1: more about accuracy, making sure things haven't.
Speaker 2: Been messed by excisely. Integrity ensures that data hasn't been changed, modified,
Speaker 2: or corrupted, whether that's by accident like electrical interference or
Speaker 2: you know, religiously. Think of a financial transaction, need to
Speaker 2: be certain the amount transferred is exactly the amount you authorized,
Speaker 2: and to detect even the tiniest alteration, we rely on
Speaker 2: cryptographic tools like one way hash functions. They create a
Speaker 2: unique digital fingerprint for the data. So if you've in
Speaker 2: a single bit changes bang, that fingerprint changes completely immediate
Speaker 2: at least signals a problem.
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the third pillar, availability, making sure
Speaker 1: authorized users can actually get to what they need when
Speaker 1: they need it. And this is where authentication, you know,
Speaker 1: our main topic today, really comes into its own.
Speaker 2: Indeed, availability means authorized parties have access to resources while
Speaker 2: unauthorized parties are well kept out. Consider your banking app.
Speaker 2: You need to be available when you want to check
Speaker 2: your balance right, and the bank needs to ensure only
Speaker 2: you can access your account. Authentication is the key mechanism
Speaker 2: verifying your right to access. It's the gatekeeper.
Speaker 1: Okay, so those are the foundational pillars confidentiality, integrity, availability,
Speaker 1: But how do we actually build this digital security? This
Speaker 1: is where cryptography comes in, right, the language of secrecy,
Speaker 1: as our source puts it, it's kind of the engine
Speaker 1: behind all these mechanisms.
Speaker 2: Cryptography is absolutely the bedrock. It's the art and science
Speaker 2: of securing communication, and at its heart is a really
Speaker 2: important idea, Kirkhoff's principle. The idea is that the security
Speaker 2: of a cryptographic system shouldn't depend on keeping the algorithm
Speaker 2: the method itself secret. Only the key needs to be secret.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating and kind of counterintuitive for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I think. So the method itself can be public knowledge,
Speaker 1: even to attackers, as long as the key stays hidden exactly.
Speaker 2: It's a cornerstone of modern crypto. Why because trying to
Speaker 2: keep an algorithm secret in the long run it's almost impossible.
Speaker 2: If the key is the only secret, the whole system
Speaker 2: is much much more robust. Now. We generally use two
Speaker 2: main types of cryptography, symmetric and asymmetric.
Speaker 1: Okay, symmetric cryptography, it sound like it uses the same
Speaker 1: key for everything it does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a single secret key is used for both encrypting
Speaker 2: the data and decrypting it. It's incredibly fast computationally speaking,
Speaker 2: which makes it ideal for encrypting large amounts of data
Speaker 2: ads the Advanced Encryption Standard. That's a very common example
Speaker 2: you see everywhere, and we have a message that's longer
Speaker 2: than one block. Symmetric ciphers use clever techniques like something
Speaker 2: called cipher block chaining or SE. This ensures each part
Speaker 2: of the message is uniquely encrypted, and it links it
Speaker 2: to the parts that came before it. It adds this dependency,
Speaker 2: so if even a tiny bit gets changed somewhere in
Speaker 2: the middle, it creates this cascade effect, immediately telling you
Speaker 2: that data's integrity has been compromised.
Speaker 1: Right, Symmetric cryptos fast. But then how do you share
Speaker 1: that single secret key securely with the other person in
Speaker 1: the first place. That sounds like the classic chicken and
Speaker 1: egg problem, which I guess leads us to asymmetric cryptography precisely.
Speaker 2: That's the challenge. Symmetric has asymmetric or public key cryptography
Speaker 2: solves that key distribution problem beautifully. Instead of one key,
Speaker 2: it uses a pair a public key, which, as the
Speaker 2: name suggests, anyone can know, and a private key, which
Speaker 2: only the owner keeps secret. It's mathematically linked. So if
Speaker 2: you want to send a secret message to me, you'd
Speaker 2: encrypt it with my public key, only I, with my
Speaker 2: corresponding private key, can decrypt it. It's computationally basically impossible
Speaker 2: to reverse without that private key.
Speaker 1: And RSA is the big name people I might recognize here, right,
Speaker 1: Ravis shmir Adleman, that's the one.
Speaker 2: RSA is a very widely used public key cryptosystem. Its
Speaker 2: security relies on the mathematical difficulty of factoring very large numbers. Essentially.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we have fast symmetric crypto for bulk data
Speaker 1: and slower but great for key exchange asymmetric crypto. How
Speaker 1: do these two powerful methods actually come together in say,
Speaker 1: my online banking session.
Speaker 2: They combine their strengths. It's what we call a hybrid cryptosystem.
Speaker 2: It's really elegant. Asymmetric cryptography is used for that crucial
Speaker 2: first step securely exchanging a temporary, one time symmetric key.
Speaker 2: Once that symmetric key is safely established between the two parties.
Speaker 2: That key is then used for the faster bulk encryption
Speaker 2: and decryption of the actual communication the data itself, so
Speaker 2: you get the best of both worlds. Efficient data transfer
Speaker 2: and secure.
Speaker 1: Key exchange makes sense now beyond encryption, we also touched
Speaker 1: on cryptographic hash functions earlier, the digital fingerprint idea. How
Speaker 1: do they differ from encryption?
Speaker 2: Fundamentally different? Yeah, hash functions are strictly one way streets.
Speaker 2: You can easily generate that fixed laying fingerprint the hash
Speaker 2: from any input data. But and this is critical, you
Speaker 2: absolutely cannot reverse it to get the original data back
Speaker 2: from the hash. It's designed to be impossible. This makes
Speaker 2: them perfect for verifying data integrity, you know, checking if
Speaker 2: a download file is corrupted, but also absolutely vital for
Speaker 2: password storage.
Speaker 1: Ah right, storing passwords securely, something we all need systems
Speaker 1: to do properly.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you should never ever store Plaintex's passwords ever. Instead,
Speaker 2: systems store their hash values, so if database gets breached,
Speaker 2: attackers only get the jumbled up hashes, not your actual passwords.
Speaker 2: It makes it much harder, though not impossible, for them
Speaker 2: to figure out the original SHA two thousand and six
Speaker 2: is a common hash function you see mentioned.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then the last piece of this crypto puzzle
Speaker 1: digital signatures. That sounds like signing a physical document, but online.
Speaker 2: It is analogous, yes, but with a critical cryptographic advantage.
Speaker 2: Digital signatures use your private care ke to sign a message,
Speaker 2: usual it signs the hash of the message for efficiency.
Speaker 2: Then anyone can use your corresponding public key to verify
Speaker 2: two things that the message definitely came from you, authenticity,
Speaker 2: and that it hasn't been altered since you signed it integrity.
Speaker 2: This leads to a really crucial property called non repudiation.
Speaker 1: Non repudiation meaning you can't deny sending something once it's
Speaker 1: digitally signed, like you can't say, oh, that wasn't me.
Speaker 2: Precisely, if I sign a digital contract with my private key,
Speaker 2: I cannot later credibly claim I didn't send it or
Speaker 2: didn't agree to it. It provides irrefutable, cryptographically verifiable proof
Speaker 2: of origin and integrity, much stronger than a physical signature, really,
Speaker 2: because it's mathematically provable by anyone with the public key.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so we've covered the deep underlying tech the
Speaker 1: crypto foundations. Now let's bring it up a level to
Speaker 1: the practical application proving who you are? What exactly is authentication?
Speaker 1: In simple terms?
Speaker 2: At its core, authentication is the process where you, the
Speaker 2: supplicant as the jargon, and goes prove your claimed identity
Speaker 2: to a system which we call the authenticator. It's basically
Speaker 2: the digital bouncer checking your id at the door of
Speaker 2: the club? Are you really who you say you are?
Speaker 1: Right? And when we talk about how we prove who
Speaker 1: we are, it usually boils down to three core concepts,
Speaker 1: the factors of authentication.
Speaker 2: That's right, the classic three pillars of authentication. Something you know,
Speaker 2: something you have, and something you are.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's start with something you know. For most of us,
Speaker 1: most of the time that means passwords or pinons.
Speaker 2: Right, passwords and pins exactly. They're still the most common
Speaker 2: method by far. When you create one, the system processes it,
Speaker 2: hopefully hashing and salting it, and stores that processed version.
Speaker 2: When you log in later, you enter your password, The
Speaker 2: system processes is the same way and compares the result
Speaker 2: to the stored version. If they match, you're in. But crucially,
Speaker 2: the quality of your password is paramount. Weak common passwords
Speaker 2: like one, two, three, four, five, six, or password they're
Speaker 2: incredibly easy to gas or crack. Pass phrases like I
Speaker 2: eight rainbow trout kite surfing badly becoming i r at TB,
Speaker 2: as mentioned in the source, are much much more secure
Speaker 2: and often easier for humans to remember than just random
Speaker 2: strings of characters.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and how those passwords are stored by the system
Speaker 1: is just as important, maybe even more important, than how
Speaker 1: strong they are, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely crucial storing passwords and plaintext, that's just a
Speaker 2: catastrophic security failure waiting to happen. Unthinkable. Really, encrypted passwords
Speaker 2: are a step up, but then managing the encryption key
Speaker 2: securely becomes its own challenge. Hash passwords are the standard
Speaker 2: good practice, but even just hashing isn't fool proof. If
Speaker 2: not done right, they can be vulnerable to something called
Speaker 2: rainbow tables. These are basically huge pre computed lists where
Speaker 2: attackers have already calculated the hashes for millions of common passwords.
Speaker 2: You mentioned an example earlier. Search online for the hash
Speaker 2: five F four DCC three P five ass seven sixty
Speaker 2: five D six one D eight three two seven two
Speaker 2: eight eighty two cf.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine, and it pops right up as password scary exactly.
Speaker 2: Shows how easily simple half passwords can be reversed if
Speaker 2: they're common words.
Speaker 1: So how do we make hashed passwords truly secure? That
Speaker 1: what's the fix for rainbow tables?
Speaker 2: The crucial improvement is using salted passwords. This means adding
Speaker 2: a unique random string of data called as salt to
Speaker 2: your password before it gets hashed. Each user gets a
Speaker 2: different random salt, usually stored alongside their hashed password in
Speaker 2: the database. So even if two users somehow choose the
Speaker 2: exact same password, say password one, two three, because their
Speaker 2: salts are unique, their sword hashes will be completely different.
Speaker 2: This makes pre computer rainbow tables practically useless against salted passwords.
Speaker 2: It's a massive security improvement, and there are even more
Speaker 2: advanced techniques like dynamic salt generation and placement within the hash,
Speaker 2: making attacks exponentially harder.
Speaker 1: Still, okay, salting is key. What about those grid based
Speaker 1: passwords we sometimes see like drawing a pattern on Android phones?
Speaker 1: How effective are those really?
Speaker 2: Well? They look secure and theoretically there are hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of possible patterns, right, But the reality, according to research,
Speaker 2: is that users tend to choose very simple, predictable patterns,
Speaker 2: often shapes based on letters of the alphabet or their initials.
Speaker 2: This dramatically reduces the actual security. Plus they're highly susceptible
Speaker 2: to shoulder surfing someone just watching you unlock your phone.
Speaker 2: Studies mentioned in our source show these patterns can often
Speaker 2: be cracked in as few as five attempts with something
Speaker 2: like ninety five percent accuracy if the attacker gets a
Speaker 2: decent video recording, so not as strong as they might see.
Speaker 1: Hmm, okay, good to note. Let's move to the second factor,
Speaker 1: something you have. This usually implies a physical object, doesn't
Speaker 1: it correct?
Speaker 2: This category includes things like smart cards, USB security keys,
Speaker 2: or those physical authentication tokens the little key fobs or
Speaker 2: devices that display a constantly changing number. These tokens can
Speaker 2: be synchronous, meaning the code changes automatically every thirty or
Speaker 2: sixty seconds based on time. Rsay secured is a classic example,
Speaker 2: or they could be asynchronous where the system gives you
Speaker 2: a challenge number, you type it into the token, and
Speaker 2: it computes a unique response based on its secret key.
Speaker 1: And what about the software versions we often use on
Speaker 1: our phones now, like Google Authenticator or off e.
Speaker 2: Those are software authentication tokens, often using an algorithm called TOTP,
Speaker 2: which stands for time based one time password. The big
Speaker 2: advantage there is the code is generated right on your device,
Speaker 2: your own, and crucially, it never actually travels over the
Speaker 2: network during login, making it safer from interception than some
Speaker 2: other methods. Contrast that with SMS based OTPs, where you
Speaker 2: get a code send via text message. While very popular
Speaker 2: and convenient, Yeah I use this a lot, they are
Speaker 2: now generally considered less secure. Why because of vulnerabilities in
Speaker 2: the global mobile network like SS seven protocol hijacking, which
Speaker 2: can potentially allow determined attackers to intercept your text messages,
Speaker 2: including those OTP codes.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, that's concerning, So TOOTP apps are generally better
Speaker 1: than SMS. Good tip. Finally, the third pillar something you
Speaker 1: are biometrics. This is where our unique biological data comes
Speaker 1: into play.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Biometrics literally means life measurement. It uses unique human
Speaker 2: characteristics to verify identity. We can broadly categorize them into
Speaker 2: physiological based on your body parts, like fingerprints, face recognition,
Speaker 2: IRIS scans. These generally have high uniqueness and permanence. Think
Speaker 2: about Sir Francis Galton's early work on fingerprints, analyzing thousands
Speaker 2: and realizing just how individual they are.
Speaker 1: And the other category behavioral right.
Speaker 2: Behavioral biometrics are based on unique patterns and how you
Speaker 2: do things. Your voiceprint, the speed and pressure when you
Speaker 2: sign your name, your typing rhythm sometimes called keystroke dynamics,
Speaker 2: or even your walking pattern, your gait. These are often
Speaker 2: harder to measure precisely, but also potentially harder to spoof perfectly?
Speaker 2: How do you fake someone's exact typing rhythm? When you
Speaker 2: enroll in a biometric system, say setting up face ID,
Speaker 2: your data is captured, key features are extracted, and a
Speaker 2: unique digital representation a template, is created and stored securely.
Speaker 2: Then for authentication, new data is captured, your face is
Speaker 2: scanned again, compared to the stored template and checked against
Speaker 2: a pre defined biometric threshold.
Speaker 1: Threshold sounds important? What's the trade off there? It's a
Speaker 1: critical balancing act. It determines how close the new scan
Speaker 1: needs to be to the stored template to be considered
Speaker 1: a match. Set the threshold too low, too lenient, and
Speaker 1: it's very easy for you to get in, which is convenient,
Speaker 1: But an impostor might also get accepted. Sometimes that's a
Speaker 1: false acceptance rate or fr high usability lower security. Set
Speaker 1: the threshold too high, too strict, and it's super secure,
Speaker 1: very unlikely an imposter gets in. But even you might
Speaker 1: get rejected. Sometimes the lighting is bad, or you have
Speaker 1: a cold that's a false rejection rate or ferr high security,
Speaker 1: lower usability, potentially very frustrating. Systems aim for a sweet spot,
Speaker 1: often looking at the equal error rate or eer where
Speaker 1: far and fr cross to find a reasonable balance. We
Speaker 1: see biometrics everywhere now right smartphones, building access control, border
Speaker 1: control with e passports, and increasingly in banking for things
Speaker 1: like EKYC electronic Know your Customer.
Speaker 2: Checks makes sense. It's always a trade off between security
Speaker 2: and convenience. We also briefly touched on a few other
Speaker 2: factors of authentication beyond the main three. Yes, just quickly,
Speaker 2: there's something you process which might involve solving a quick
Speaker 2: mental task or a math puzzle. It's cognitively demanding, so
Speaker 2: less common for general use. Then there's somewhere you are
Speaker 2: using location, like your IP address geolocating you, or your
Speaker 2: mobile phone's GPS proximity. This is often used quietly in
Speaker 2: the background, especially by banks for fraud detection, you know,
Speaker 2: flagging a log in from an unusual location as suspicious,
Speaker 2: and finally an interesting one somebody you know. This is
Speaker 2: more for social recovery, maybe where a trusted friend or
Speaker 2: family member could vouch for you if you get locked out,
Speaker 2: less common for primary authentication.
Speaker 1: Right, So we have all these ways to prove who
Speaker 1: we are, but of course where there's a lock, there's
Speaker 1: always someone trying to pick it or smash the door down.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the threats. This is where it gets
Speaker 1: really interesting, maybe a bit scary.
Speaker 2: It is, and it's vital to be clear on the terms. First,
Speaker 2: a vulnerability is a weakness in a SI. A threat
Speaker 2: is the potential danger that could exploit that weakness, and
Speaker 2: an attack is the actual malicious action that exploits it.
Speaker 2: They're related but distinct.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what are some of the most common threats
Speaker 1: we face when it comes to authentication.
Speaker 2: Well, sadly, many still stem from simple oversights like leaving
Speaker 2: default passwords ADMIN password unchanged on routers or other devices.
Speaker 2: It's amazing how often this happens. Then there's eavesdropping or sniffing.
Speaker 2: If you log into a site using unencrypted protocols like
Speaker 2: plain old HTTP or FTP, anyone on the same network
Speaker 2: could potentially intercept your username and password in plain text.
Speaker 2: Replay attacks are another classic. An attacker captures your legitimate
Speaker 2: authentication message, maybe your hash password, and just re sends
Speaker 2: it later to impersonate you. This is often countered by
Speaker 2: using unique one time random numbers called nonss or strict
Speaker 2: timestamps in the authentication protocol, and man in the middle
Speaker 2: mid M attacks. This is where an attacker secretly positioned
Speaker 2: themselves between you and the server that you're trying to
Speaker 2: connect to, intercepting and potentially altering communication in both directions.
Speaker 2: They impersonate the server to you and you to the server.
Speaker 2: Strong encryption like TLS used in HTTPS, is designed.
Speaker 1: To prevent this right and the age old problem of
Speaker 1: just guessing passwords.
Speaker 2: Yep, simple password guessing, brute force attacks trying every possible combination,
Speaker 2: or dictionary intax trying common words name states. These are
Speaker 2: still surprisingly effective against weak passwords, and a more modern,
Speaker 2: very widespread problem is credential stuffing. Attackers get huge lists
Speaker 2: of usernames and passwords leaked from one website breach.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you hear about those breaches all the time, exactly, and.
Speaker 2: Then they use automated tool to try those same username
Speaker 2: password combinations on hundreds of other popular websites, banks, email providers,
Speaker 2: social media. They're banking on the fact that people reuse
Speaker 2: the same password everywhere, and sadly many people do.
Speaker 1: That's a huge one. Password reuse is just asking for trouble.
Speaker 1: But perhaps the most well insidious and often effective attack
Speaker 1: factor doesn't rely on technical exploits at all. Social engineering absolutely.
Speaker 2: Social engineering is the art of psychological manipulation, tricking users
Speaker 2: into revealing confidential information or performing actions they shouldn't, like
Speaker 2: clicking a malicious link or installing malware. It preys on
Speaker 2: human trust, urgency, or fear. It can happen in person,
Speaker 2: think of a con artist building rapport or using subtle
Speaker 2: psychological techniques. Can happen over the phone. Maybe someone calls
Speaker 2: claiming to be from tech support, creating panic about a
Speaker 2: non existent virus to get remote access, or using phishing
Speaker 2: automated voice messages asking for credit card details to fix
Speaker 2: a supposed problem, and most commonly today, it's digital social engineering.
Speaker 2: This includes pretexting, like sending fake emails that look like
Speaker 2: they're from your bank or IT department, broad based phishing
Speaker 2: emails sent to millions hoping a few will bite, and
Speaker 2: highly targeted spear phishing attacks carefully crafted for a specific
Speaker 2: individual or organization, often information gleaned from social media to
Speaker 2: seem incredibly legitimate, scary.
Speaker 1: Stuff, and it really highlights why traditional single factor authentication
Speaker 1: like just a password, even a strong one, often isn't
Speaker 1: enough anymore given all these threats, especially social engineering and
Speaker 1: credential stuffing, which brings us squarely to multi factor authentication MFA.
Speaker 1: That's basically the new standard.
Speaker 2: Right it really should be wherever possible. Yes, MFA requires
Speaker 2: you to provide two or more pieces of evidence or
Speaker 2: factors to prove your identity, and critically, these factors must
Speaker 2: come from different categories of authentication, so it's not just
Speaker 2: two passwords. It's typically password something you know, plus a
Speaker 2: code from an authenticator app or hardware tope in something
Speaker 2: you app or maybe a password plus a fingerprint scan
Speaker 2: something you are. The combination exponentially increases security. Why because
Speaker 2: even if an attacker manages to steal or guess your
Speaker 2: password one factor, they still need to get hold of
Speaker 2: your physical token or bypass your biometric scan the second
Speaker 2: different factor to get in. It makes their job much much.
Speaker 1: Harder so it's layering different types of proof.
Speaker 2: It's exactly. While no security is ever absolutely under percent foolproof,
Speaker 2: determined attackers can still try to trick users into giving
Speaker 2: up both factors via sophisticated fishing. For example, MFA significantly
Speaker 2: raises the barrier to unauthorized access. It's now standard practice
Speaker 2: thankfully in sensitive areas like finance, healthcare, and education, and
Speaker 2: you see it widely offered often required on major social
Speaker 2: media platforms too. If you're not using MFA on important accounts,
Speaker 2: you really should enable it.
Speaker 1: Definitely good advice. Okay, so if we zoom out a bit,
Speaker 1: how does all this authentication stuff work in the background
Speaker 1: to actually set up a secure connection, like when my
Speaker 1: browser shows that little padlock icon for HTTPS, or when
Speaker 1: I log into my company network.
Speaker 2: Good question. That involves specific authentication and key establishment protocols.
Speaker 2: They handle both proving identity and setting up the secure
Speaker 2: channel for communication, often using the crypto concepts we discussed earlier.
Speaker 2: Think about ssltls, the protocol that secures HTTPS web traffic.
Speaker 2: When you connect to a secure website, like for online shopping,
Speaker 2: you're a browser and the server a form a complex handshake.
Speaker 2: During this handshake, They use asymmetric cryptography, often involving digital
Speaker 2: certificates issued by a Trusted Certificate Authority CIA for the
Speaker 2: server to prove its identity to your browser. They also
Speaker 2: securely negotiate a symmetric session key that will be used
Speaker 2: to encrypt all the subsequent traffic between you, so the
Speaker 2: server authenticates itself before you send any sensitive data like
Speaker 2: credit card numbers. For internal enterprise networks, you often see
Speaker 2: systems like Carbaros. It uses symmetric cryptography and a trusted
Speaker 2: central server called a key Distribution Center KDC. When you
Speaker 2: log into your work computer, Carberos gives you cryptographic tickets
Speaker 2: that prove your identity to various network services like file
Speaker 2: servers or printers, without you having to re enter your
Speaker 2: password constantly. It enables single sign on sso within the organization.
Speaker 1: Right, So different protocols for different scenarios, and how do
Speaker 1: organizations decide what level of authentications do security is needed?
Speaker 1: Surely logging into a high security government system needs more
Speaker 1: proof than logging into a public forum.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, not all authentication needs are equal. That's where frameworks
Speaker 2: like the one from NIS, the US National Institute of
Speaker 2: Standards and Technology come in specifically, there's special publication eight
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty three B defines authentication assurance levels or ALS.
Speaker 2: It provides guidance on matching the strength of the authentication
Speaker 2: process to the level of risk. AL one is the
Speaker 2: lowest level, typically requiring just single factor authentication like a
Speaker 2: password transmitted over a secure channel. It offers medium insurance,
Speaker 2: maybe requires reauthentication every thirty days or so. AL two
Speaker 2: steps it up significantly, requiring two distinct factors multi factor authentication.
Speaker 2: This provides higher assurance. Examples could be password plus an
Speaker 2: OTP from an app, or maybe password plus a biometric.
Speaker 2: It usually has stricter rules, like requiring reauthentication every twelve
Speaker 2: hours and maybe after just thirty minutes of inactivity. AL
Speaker 2: three is the highest level, providing the strongest assurance. Usually
Speaker 2: requires MFA using hardware based cryptographic devices like smart cards
Speaker 2: or USB keys that are resistant to tampering and protect
Speaker 2: the private key. Reauthentication might be required every twelve hours,
Speaker 2: regardless of user activity. This AL framework helps organizations choose
Speaker 2: the right level of security muscle for the job, balancing risk,
Speaker 2: cost and usability.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense tailoring the security to
Speaker 1: the need. Okay We've covered a lot of ground. Let's
Speaker 1: shift gears and look towards the horizon. What does all
Speaker 1: this mean for tomorrow? What's coming next? In the world
Speaker 1: of proving who you are?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the future of authentication is largely about
Speaker 2: making it both stronger and more seamless, almost invisible to
Speaker 2: the user where possible. A major trend driving this is
Speaker 2: continuous authentication.
Speaker 1: Continuous authentication that sounds potentially exhausting, like having to constantly
Speaker 1: prove who I am every few minutes. That doesn't sound
Speaker 1: very user friendly.
Speaker 2: That's the core challenge it aims to solve. The idea
Speaker 2: isn't to constantly interrupt you. Instead of just authenticating you
Speaker 2: once at the initial log in, the system aims to
Speaker 2: continuously verify in the background that the person using the
Speaker 2: session is still the legitimate user. Think about taking a
Speaker 2: long online exam or a sensitive remote work session. The
Speaker 2: system needs some way to ensure it's still you sitting
Speaker 2: there and not someone else who might have slipped into
Speaker 2: your chair while you stepped away. The goal is to
Speaker 2: achieve this verification transparently, implicitly, and non intrusively, making the
Speaker 2: ongoing authentication almost invisible.
Speaker 1: Okay, invisible sounds better, but how would that even work
Speaker 1: without constantly popping up prompts or asking for fingerprints.
Speaker 2: It primarily relies on analyzing behavioral biometrics passively in the background,
Speaker 2: instead of explicitly asking you for a password. Again. The
Speaker 2: system might continuously monitor things like your keystroke dynamics, the
Speaker 2: unique rhythm, speed and pressure patterns as you type, or
Speaker 2: perhaps analyze your gaze patterns using the device's front camera
Speaker 2: to track subtle eye movements characteristic to you. Some research
Speaker 2: even looks into using walking patterns or gate recognition, leveraging
Speaker 2: the motion sensors already in your smartphone or wearable device
Speaker 2: to identify you by how you walk. The aspiration here
Speaker 2: is really high security combined with high usability, making authentication
Speaker 2: feel less like an event and more like a continuous
Speaker 2: background state of trust verification.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty huge leap from typing passwords or tapping tokens.
Speaker 1: And there was one other future looking concept you mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that really intrigued me, cancellable biometric authentication, Because let's
Speaker 1: face it, the biggest single problem with traditional biometrics fingerprints,
Speaker 1: face scans, iris scans is that if your biometric data
Speaker 1: is compromised, stolen from a database, Well, it's compromised forever.
Speaker 1: You can't exactly change your fingerprint like you change a
Speaker 1: password precisely.
Speaker 2: That is the fundamental weakness cancelable biometrics aims to address.
Speaker 2: It's a newer approach designed specifically to protect the biometric
Speaker 2: templates themselves and crucially make them revocable or cancelable if
Speaker 2: they're ever compromised. How does it work? Well, what approach
Speaker 2: involves biometric solving Conceptually similar to password salting. Your raw
Speaker 2: biometric data, like fingerprint features, is combined with some other
Speaker 2: piece of arbitrary data. Maybe it's linked to your password,
Speaker 2: or it's just a unique random string assigned to you
Speaker 2: for that specific service before the final template is created
Speaker 2: and stored. The key idea, though, goes further, often involving
Speaker 2: applying a non invertible biometric transformation. This means using a
Speaker 2: special mathematical function, a one way function, on the original
Speaker 2: biometric data, perhaps combined with the salt or other data,
Speaker 2: to create the stored template. The transformation is designed so
Speaker 2: that it's computationally impossible to reverse it. You can't reconstruct
Speaker 2: the original fingerprint data from the transformed template stored in
Speaker 2: the database. Think of it like hashing, but for biometrics.
Speaker 2: There are various proposed methods like Cartesian or polar transformations
Speaker 2: described in the source.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if a database containing these transformed cancelable templates
Speaker 1: is breached, the attackers don't get my actual fingerprint data
Speaker 1: and I can revoke that template somehow.
Speaker 2: That's the goal exactly, Yeah, Because the stored template isn't
Speaker 2: your raw biometric it's less sensitive, and if it is compromised,
Speaker 2: you can effectively revoke it by changing the associated arbitrary
Speaker 2: data the salt or key, or perhaps by applying a
Speaker 2: different transformation function. This generates a completely new, unique template
Speaker 2: for future authentications, rendering the stolen one useless. This offers
Speaker 2: two huge advantages revocability, just like changing a password, and
Speaker 2: it also prevents cross matching between different services, since each
Speaker 2: service would use a different transformation or different salt. A
Speaker 2: template stolen from one service is useless for trying to
Speaker 2: impersonate you on another service. The main challenges right now
Speaker 2: are ensuring these transformation processes don't significantly decrease the accuracy,
Speaker 2: increase sofar or the speed of the biometric matching process.
Speaker 2: It's an active area of research, but the potential to
Speaker 2: make biometrics truly renewable is immense.
Speaker 1: Wow, what an incredible journey we've taken today, seriously, from
Speaker 1: the foundational pillars of digital security, confidentiality, integrity, availability, and
Speaker 1: that powerful language.
Speaker 2: Of cryptography, yeah, symmetric asymmetric hashes, digital signatures, the whole toolkit,
Speaker 2: through all.
Speaker 1: The different ways we prove who we are, something you
Speaker 1: have and are we dug into passwords, salts, tokens, the
Speaker 1: nuances of biometrics and the threats.
Speaker 2: Can't forget those eavesdropping MIT, nem credential stuffing, and especially
Speaker 2: that tricky social engineering.
Speaker 1: Absolutely which led us to the crucial importance of multi
Speaker 1: factor authentication MFA as really the baseline standard now and
Speaker 1: even protocols like TLS and Curbero's working behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: And finally peering into that fascinating future of continuous, almost
Speaker 2: invisible authentication and the potential for cancelable, renewable biometrics, We've truly.
Speaker 1: Seen how far we've come from just relying on simple,
Speaker 1: easily guessable passwords, and hopefully understanding all these layers of
Speaker 1: protection helps you, our listener, make more informed decisions about
Speaker 1: your own digital security.
Speaker 2: Definitely, you are now hopefully better equipped understand the digital
Speaker 2: locks and keys, both simple and complex, that protect your information,
Speaker 2: your identity, your world every single day online.
Speaker 1: So here's a final thought to leave you with. As
Speaker 1: our digital lives become ever more deeply intertwined with our
Speaker 1: physical reality, will those lines between who you are, what
Speaker 1: you know, and what you have eventually just blur completely?
Speaker 1: Could we reach a point where authentication is this seamless, continuous,
Speaker 1: maybe even cancelable background process, making the very act of
Speaker 1: consciously logging in feel like a quaint relic of the past.
Speaker 2: Hmmm. That's a fascinating question for the future.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we definitely encourage you to think about
Speaker 1: the authentication methods you use daily. Take a look at
Speaker 1: your important accounts, email, banking, social media, and please enable
Speaker 1: multi factor options wherever they're available. It really does make
Speaker 1: a difference.
Speaker 2: Stay safe out there.
Speaker 1: Until next time on the deep dives, Stay digitally safe.