FIDO2 Authentication for Embedded System

The modern context of quick technological evolution has nowadays let computer science to reach people in both professional and private spheres. In a world where technologies are accessible to everyone, the gates to cyber-crimes are opened to any computer fan with some knowledge and skills. In this dangerous environment, individuals, companies, organisations, and institutions must protect themselves against criminals. The presence of a stable and reliable security system is now crucial in every technology ambience since crimes are increasing in number, types, and ease of execution. The security of a system can be reached building a shield which must cover all the different aspects of protection. Nevertheless, one of the most exposed security properties, the one the whole system is based on, is authentication; solution architects could plan the best possible project using the most sophisticated techniques and technologies, but if the authentication phase is neglected or not secure enough, attackers could violate the security system easily. This thesis focuses on the authentication phase, dealing with high critical contexts in which security is the principal issue to address. It is easy to find this kind of situations in the ambience of companies, from the smallest to the biggest: critical data of various type, from private data of employers to secrets of companies or customers, is often exchanged between high level workers. Given the large range of the target, it is mandatory to have a solution which must be user-friendly in the usage and in the installation; therefore, a possible option could be the usage of an embedded system, which is cheap and easy to install in the environment. In other words, the solution to strengthen the security of this kind of contexts could be the development of a dedicated authentication method based on an embedded system. This project regards the design and implementation of a strong authentication system which uses FIDO2 for an embedded system, an electronic card, representing the relying party, the server offering the web application which contains a resource or offers a service the final user wants to access.