A secure and adaptive authentication framework using DNA-based cryptography for cloud computing

Abstract

As cloud computing has rapidly grown in popularity, traditional authentication tools have been unable to cope with more advanced security threats. Username-password systems, whose design was much less advanced in earlier times, have strikingly vulnerable defenses against replay attacks, brute-force campaigns, and credential stuffing. This study presents an authentication system designed to suit cloud computing, which is based on DNA-based cryptographic methods to strengthen the management of user authentication, credential protection, and secure session establishment. The proposed approach integrates binary-to-DNA encoding, DNA transformation, SHA-256 hashing, dynamic user credentials, timestamp-based replay protection, and session key generation through four phases: registration, login, authentication, and session key establishment. The system uses dynamic user credentials, coded with user attributes in the form of DNA sequences, and produces a session-specific token that varies each time a user logs in. Multi-factor verification and a strong key-exchange protocol are also part of the framework to negate the most common vectors of cloud attacks. The findings indicate that the proposed framework provides an additional structural transformation layer for credential processing and supports secure dynamic authentication and session management; however, DNA encoding itself should not be interpreted as providing additional computational security beyond the underlying cryptographic primitives. Comparative studies illustrate a practical gain of 98% in authentication accuracy, higher security strength, an average authentication time of 160 ms, and an encryption processing time of 88 ms compared with traditional authentication methods.