One Time Password (OTP) Life Cycle and Challenges: Case Study

Abstract

In today’s world of the internet, we give priority to secure many of our accounts over this. It could be our social media profile, our cloud storage account, or anything; everything can be accessed only via a login interface. Traditional login systems follow a simple procedure of asking for username and password to authenticate the user. But due to the exponential development in the field of technology, this login interface is vulnerable to many attacks and thus compromising the user’s privacy and data. One more level has been added to the login interface known as OTP or One Time Password. The concept of OTP is that a randomly generated fixed digit code is sent to the user’s physical device if the entered password is correct. This way, we can be surer that only the appropriate user is accessing the system. This whole system combined known as 2-Factor authentication system. OTP is sent directly to the user’s accessible physical device only. It has many other applications like bank transactions, deletion of a social media account or cloud account, and many others. It’s because of the dynamic nature of OTP. This paper discusses the lifecycle of the OTP and its issues and challenges in the current world. © 2021, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.