Authentication: An overview, its types and integration with web and mobile applications

In the recent day´s web applications usage is increasing by banking, financial institutes and health or hospital management systems such as online or net banking and mobile banking, e-commerce applications, news feeds, inpatient and outpatient information etc. All these online applications require support for security properties like authentication, authorization, data confidentiality, and sensitive information leakage. The most widely accepted common method of authentication for an online application is to use a combination of alphanumeric with special characters usernames and passwords. Net or online applications should support a strong password (such as a combination of Alphanumeric with special characters). In the past recent studies reveal that the end users today have on an average approximately 10 to 15 passwords to protect their online accounts to do their actual transactions. In general, a common web (internet) user having one password may be easy to remember, but controlling many passwords for different web or internet applications is time-consuming task and a security threat. Usually passwords are not secured at all as they can be guessable or somebody (a malicious user) can be stolen. To overcome this, passwords need to be stronger authentication solutions.