Electronic system for securing electronic services
A method of accessing an internet based service, involves using a cellular telephony device to obtain a token from the provider of the internet based service, and within the cellular telephony device, using the token to calculate a time-limited password. The time-limited password is used in combination with at least one further user identification parameter to obtain access to the internet based service.
1. A method of providing access to an internet based service, the method comprising:
generating a token in a server of a provider of the service and providing the token to a cellular telephony device of a user seeking access to the service;
calculating within the cellular telephony device a time-limited password for the specific user using the token;
receiving a time-limited password from the user calculated using the token; and
verifying the time-limited password to grant access to the internet based service,
wherein the token has time limited validity,
and wherein during the validity of the token, access to the internet based service is enabled without requiring communication with the server used to generate the token.
2. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein at least one further user identification parameter is received with the time-limited password, and wherein verifying the time-limited password and the at least one further user identification parameter is verified with the time-limited password to grant access to the internet based service.
3. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the calculation of the time-limited password takes into account the current time.
4. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the calculation of the time-limited password takes into account an identity parameter of the cellular telephony device.
5. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the calculation of the time-limited password uses the function:
Password=f(IP XOR NT XOR t), where t is a measurement of the current time, IP is an identity parameter of the cellular telephony device and NT is the numeric token.
6. A method as claimed in claim 5 , wherein the function f comprises:
f(x)=RightTrunc(Decimal(SHA(x))), wherein RightTrunc is a function to extract a lowest number of bits, Decimal is a function to convert a byte array to an integer value, and SHA is a secure hash algorithm.
7. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the at least one further user identification parameter comprises a username.
8. A method as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the at least one further user identification parameter comprises a user password or personal identification number.
9. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the token comprises a numeric token in the form of a salt value.
10. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the validity is limited to a value between 1 hour and 1 week.
11. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the validity of the token is defined as a time window, with time windows for sequential tokens overlapping.
12. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the provision of the token to the cellular telephony device is dependent on authentication of the cellular telephony device.
13. A method as claimed in claim 12 , wherein the authentication comprises verifying the at least one further user identification parameter as being associated with the specific cellular telephony device using a registered user database.
14. A method as claimed in claim 13 , wherein the specific cellular telephony device is identified using the MSISDN.
15. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein when providing the token, clock synchronisation between the cellular telephone device and the provider of the internet based service is also implemented.
16. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein access to the internet based service is implemented over an internet connected device.
17. A method as claimed in claim 16 , wherein the internet connected device comprises one of a personal computer, a PDA, a TV set top box and a games console.
18. A computer program comprising code for implementing the method of claim 1 when run on a computer.
19. A computer program product comprising a computer program as claimed in claim 18 embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium.
20. A system for providing access to an internet based service from a cellular telephony device, the system comprising:
a computer server of a provider of the internet based service, and comprising a computer processor configured to generate a token;
a communication network adapted to provide the token to a cellular telephony device of a user seeking access to the service; and
a software application for installation on the cellular telephony device, the software application enabling calculation, within the cellular telephony device, of a time-limited password from the token,
wherein the computer server further comprises a computer processor configured to receive the time-limited password from the user and verify the time-limited password to enable or prohibit access to the internet based service,
wherein the token has time limited validity, and
wherein during the validity of the token, access to the internet based service is enabled without requiring communication with the computer server used to generate the token.
21. A system as claimed in claim 20 , wherein the computer server further comprises means for verifying at least one further user identification parameter.
22. A system as claimed in claim 20 , wherein the calculation of the time-limited limited password uses the function:
Password=f(IP XOR NT XOR t), where t is a measurement of the current time, IP is an identity parameter of the cellular telephony device and NT is the numeric token.
23. A system as claimed in claim 22 , wherein the function f comprises:
f(x)=RightTrunc(Decimal(SHA(x))), wherein RightTrunc is a function to extract a lowest number of bits, Decimal is a function to convert a byte array to an integer value, and SHA is a secure hash algorithm.