Status quo and development on cross-domain authentication based on public key cryptosystems

Authentication is the most basic prerequisite for secure communications. Authentication theory and technology play a key role in the application of modern cryptography. Cross-domain authentication among entities of different management domains is an important subject. An in-depth study on this subject and related supporting theory has been made so far. This paper-outlines the status quo and trends of cross-domain authentication, including the study on the cross-domain authentication mechanism and the framework, the security models, the application protocols, key agreement protocols based on groups, key agreement protocols based on password, provable secure cross-domain signcryption and KEM/DEM key encapsulation. Furthermore, it points out problems which should be widely concerned in the future, and gives the view points for the trends of the research field.