Author: Eija Thiger

Name of the Thesis: User authentication in public broadband IP access networks

Date: 16.7.1999
Number of pages: 117

Department: Electrical and Communications Engineering

Professorship: Communications (S-72)

Supervisor: Professor Seppo J. Halme

Instructor: M.Sc. Pekka Laitinen

User authentication is one of the four basic security services within the security framework. The others are confidentiality, integrity and non-repudiation. User authentication provides the means to check if the user is allowed to access the services and if the user is the one he or she claims to be.

This thesis describes how user authentication in public broadband IP networks has been dealt with today and what the possible defects or problems might be. The short introduction to the Internet and broadband IP networks as well as the security framework and user authentication as defined in standards have been presented to make the reader familiar with all the details and problems related to user authentication. In addition, a considerable part of the thesis concentrates on describing the existing and forthcoming security solutions and protocols such as PKI, TLS, SSH and IPSEC.

Special attention and actions are needed to make the Internet a safer global market place to make business. Both the buyers' and sellers' interest is to be able to trust to the reliable authentication of each other. The buyer as a user can be confident that her or his confidential information is not misused nor captured. On the other hand, the seller can build parts of his information systems eg invoicing and service provisioning based on this reliable authenticated information.