Secure authentication with one-time passwords

Whispered Once

© Nikolay Okhitin, Fotolia

© Nikolay Okhitin, Fotolia

Article from Issue 96/2008
Author(s):

A one-time password won't compromise security if it falls in the wrong hands. OPIE and OTPW bring the safety of one-time password security to Linux.

Despite the biometrics boom, passwords are still the most popular means of authentication. In hostile environments, rogue users try to sniff or log password entries. You can foil these attempts by using one-time passwords. A one-time password becomes obsolete after it is used.

Even if an attacker were to sniff the password en route to the authentication server, the password would be useless.For a one-time password to work, the client must have some means for determining what password to use, and the server must know what password to expect.

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