Increasing security through user-centric identity management
One of the features of the global computing initiative is the decentralised control that makes current protection to information systems potentially insufficient. Urged by this, the project focused on identifying a computational model that enables entities to reason about the trustworthiness of other entities in order to make security related decisions. Just as is the case in the real world there is a multitude of authorities and jurisdictions, which control computing entities, thus making authentication very important in computer environment security. Yet, virtual identities are much more vulnerable to attacks unlike face-to-face settings rendering the authentication element untrustworthy. In parallel to human social networks, the notion of entity recognition was extensively investigated in order to provide trust-based authentication. The suggested approach relies on the use of virtual identities that are by default pseudonyms, recognised, but not linked to the real-world identities. Taking into consideration the possibility of attacking at the level of virtual identity, the process followed is built on the level of confidence in recognition rather than on a binary authentication outcome. This allows an end-to-end trust with the emphasis placed on the trust of the technical infrastructure. Trust transfer is also adopted offering self-recommendations without attacks by using a large number of virtual identities owned by the same real-world identity. Explicit links between virtual identities can be disclosed with the aid of a privacy-trust trade model introduced for real-world identities. For further information click at: http://www.identitygang.org/Reference(opens in new window)
