Robust elliptic curve cryptography-based three factor user authentication providing privacy of biometric data

Recently, to achieve privacy protection using biometrics, Fan and Lin proposed a three-factor authentication scheme based on password, smart card and biometrics. However, the authors have found that Fan and Lin's proposed scheme (i) has flaws in the design of biometrics privacy, (ii) fails to maintain a verification table, making it vulnerable to stolen-verifier attack and modification attack, and (iii) is vulnerable to insider attacks. Thus, the authors propose an elliptic curve cryptography-based authentication scheme that is improved with regard to security requirements. The authors’ proposed scheme overcomes the flaws of Fan and Lin's scheme and is secured from attacks. Furthermore, the authors have presented a security analysis of their scheme to show that their scheme is suitable for the biometric systems.