{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,30]],"date-time":"2026-04-30T04:06:51Z","timestamp":1777522011619,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":17,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,5]],"date-time":"2018-12-05T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1543968000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Cryptography"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Due to the prevalence and constantly increasing risk of cyber-attacks, new and evolving security mechanisms are required to protect information and networks and ensure the basic security principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability\u2014referred to as the CIA triad. While confidentiality and integrity can be achieved using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)\/Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates, these depend on the correct authentication of servers, which could be compromised due to man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. Many existing solutions have practical limitations due to their operational complexity, deployment costs, as well as adversaries. We propose a novel scheme to detect MITM attacks with minimal intervention and workload to the network and systems. Our proposed model applies a novel inferencing scheme for detecting true anomalies in transmission time at a trusted time server (TTS) using time-based verification of sent and received messages. The key contribution of this paper is the ability to automatically detect MITM attacks with trusted verification of the transmission time using a learning-based inferencing algorithm. When used in conjunction with existing systems, such as intrusion detection systems (IDS), which require comprehensive configuration and network resource costs, it can provide a robust solution that addresses these practical limitations while saving costs by providing assurance.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/cryptography2040038","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,5]],"date-time":"2018-12-05T12:22:00Z","timestamp":1544012520000},"page":"38","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Trusted Time-Based Verification Model for Automatic Man-in-the-Middle Attack Detection in Cybersecurity"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"2","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0242-4187","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"James Jin","family":"Kang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Melbourne Polytechnic, Preston 3181, Australia"},{"name":"School of Information Technology, Deakin University, Burwood 3125, Australia"}]},{"given":"Kiran","family":"Fahd","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Melbourne Polytechnic, Preston 3181, Australia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2772-133X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sitalakshmi","family":"Venkatraman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Melbourne Polytechnic, Preston 3181, Australia"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Bright, P. 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Available online: https:\/\/www.rfc-editor.org\/rfc\/rfc6238.txt."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Uymatiao, M.L.T., and Yu, W.E.S. (2014, January 26\u201328). Time-based OTP authentication via secure tunnel (TOAST): A mobile TOTP scheme using TLS seed exchange and encrypted offline keystore. Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Information Science and Technology (ICIST), Shenzhen, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICIST.2014.6920371"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hsieh, W.-B., and Leu, J.-S. (,  2011). Design of a time and location based One-Time Password authentication scheme. Proceedings of the 7th International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC), Istanbul, Turkey.","DOI":"10.1109\/IWCMC.2011.5982418"},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"Kemshall, A.C. (2016). Time-based authentication. (US9363077B2), U.S. Patent."},{"key":"ref_10","unstructured":"Oberheide, J., Goodman, A., Czub, C., and Garrity, P. (2018). System and method for converting one-time passcodes to app-based authentication. (US20160197914A1), U.S. Patent."},{"key":"ref_11","unstructured":"O\u2019Donoghue, K. A New Security Mechanism for the Network Time Protocol. IETF J. Internet Secur., Available online: https:\/\/www.ietfjournal.org\/a-new-security-mechanism-for-the-network-time-protocol\/."},{"key":"ref_12","unstructured":"NTP Working Group (2018, October 11). Network Time Security for the Network Time Protocol. Available online: https:\/\/tools.ietf.org\/id\/draft-ietf-ntp-using-nts-for-ntp-10.html."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bi, Y., Gaillardon, P., Hu, X.S., Niemier, M., Yuan, J., and Jin, Y. (2014, January 16\u201319). Leveraging Emerging Technology for Hardware Security\u2014Case Study on Silicon Nanowire FETs and Graphene SymFETs. Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE 23rd Asian Test Symposium, Hangzhou, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ATS.2014.69"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"53","DOI":"10.3233\/JCS-1998-61-204","article-title":"Casper: A compiler for the analysis of security protocols","volume":"6","author":"Lowe","year":"1998","journal-title":"J. Comput. Secur."},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Panday, K.K. (2018, October 11). Various SSL\/TLS Certificate File Types\/Extensions. Available online: https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/kaushal\/2010\/11\/04\/various-ssltls-certificate-file-typesextensions\/."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"35","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jda.2017.01.001","article-title":"Hybrid Bellman\u2013Ford\u2013Dijkstra algorithm","volume":"42","author":"Dinitz","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. Discret. Algorithms"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Waleed, S., Faizan, M., Iqbal, M., and Anis, M.I. (2017, January 5\u20137). Demonstration of single link failure recovery using Bellman Ford and Dijikstra algorithm in SDN. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Innovations in Electrical Engineering and Computational Technologies (ICIEECT), Karachi, Pakistan.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICIEECT.2017.7916533"}],"container-title":["Cryptography"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2410-387X\/2\/4\/38\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T15:31:24Z","timestamp":1760196684000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2410-387X\/2\/4\/38"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,5]]},"references-count":17,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,12]]}},"alternative-id":["cryptography2040038"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/cryptography2040038","relation":{},"ISSN":["2410-387X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2410-387X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,5]]}}}