Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Anooshiravan Saboori

Nelly L Porter

Octavian Tony Ureche

Alexander Thomas Weinert

Benjamin Richard Vincent

Vijay G Bharadwaj

Tarek Bahaa El-Din Mahmoud Kamel

Muhammad Umar Janjua

Haitao Li

Philip Joseph Hallin

Anthony Paul Penta

Xiaohong Su

Bryston Mitsuo Nitta

Kelvin Sjek Yiu

Vassil Dimitrov Bakalov

Himanshu Soni

Jonathan D Schwartz

Yogesh A Mehta

Magnus Nystrom

Dayi Zhou

Maarten Van Horenbeeck

Peter Dawoud

Jonathan David Schwartz

Vassil D Bakalov

A multi-factor user authentication framework using asymmetric key includes a host device, a user agent, a gesture system, and an authentication system. The multiple factors include a user credential as well as a user gesture that indicates that the user is present. The user interacts with the user agent via the host device in order to obtain access to something for which user authentication is needed. The authentication system maintains the user credentials, which are provided to authenticate the user in response to the authentication system determining that the user is present (which can be determined in different manners, such as using a personal identification number (PIN), biometric information regarding the user, geographic location of the gesture system, etc.). The user agent, gesture system, and authentication system can be implemented on the same device (e.g., the host device), or alternatively implemented across one or more different devices.

Multi-factor user authentication framework using asymmetric key

In many information security scenarios, a certificate issued by a certificate authority may be presented to a client in order to assert a trust level of a certificated item, such as a message or a web page. However, due to a decentralized structure and incomplete coordination among certificate authorities, the presence and exploitation of security vulnerabilities to issue untrustworthy certificates may be difficult to determine, particularly for an individual client. Presented herein are techniques for advising clients of the reputations of respective certificate authorities by evaluating the certificates issued by such certificate authorities, such as the number and types of domains certified by the certificate; the number and pattern of certificates issued for the domain; and the certification techniques used to issue the certificates. Such evaluation enables a determination of a certificate authority trust level that may be distributed to the clients in a certificate authority trust set.

Advising clients about certificate authority trust

A system for bootstrap provisioning of a device is provided. A vouching device is provisioned to access a bootstrap account of a bootstrap account provider and a secondary account of a secondary account provider. The bootstrap account provider stores an indication of the secondary account, and the secondary account provider stores verification data to verify a certification of the vouching device. A target device is provisioned to access the bootstrap account of the bootstrap account provider. The target device receives from the bootstrap account provider an indication that the target device is provisioned with the secondary account provider. The target device directs generation of a certification by the vouching device of target authentication data of the target device. The target device then sends the certification to the secondary account provider to effect the provisioning of the target device to access the secondary account.

Automatic provisioning of a device to access an account

In many information security scenarios, a certificate issued by a certificate authority on behalf of a domain is presented to a client in order to verify the identity of the domain. However, due to a decentralized structure and incomplete coordination among certificate authorities, the presence and exploitation of security vulnerabilities to issue untrustworthy certificates may be difficult for an individual client to determine. Presented herein are techniques for advising clients of the trustworthiness of respective certificate authorities by evaluating the certificates issued by such certificate authorities for suspicious indicators, such as hashcode collisions with other certificates and public key re-use. A trust level may be identified of respective certificate authorities according to the presence or absence of suspicious indicators in the certificates issued by the certificate authority, and a certificate authority trust set may be distributed to advise clients of the trustworthiness of certificates issued by the respective certificate authorities.

Certificate evaluation for certificate authority reputation advising

A computing device analyzes digital certificates received from various different sites (e.g., accessed via the Internet or other network) in order to automatically detect fraudulent digital certificates. The computing device maintains a record of the digital certificates it receives from these various different sites. A certificate screening service operating remotely from the computing device also accesses these various different sites and maintains a record of the digital certificates that the service receives from these sites. In response to a request to access a target site the computing device receives a current digital certificate from the target site. The computing device determines whether the current digital certificate is genuine or fraudulent based on one or more of previously received digital certificates for the target site, confirmation certificates received from the certificate screening service, and additional characteristics of the digital certificates and/or the target site.

Automatic fraudulent digital certificate detection

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Anooshiravan Saboori