FFDA: A novel Four-Factor Distributed Authentication mechanism

This article presents a novel multi-factor authentication mechanism that makes the authentication process robust to several attacks. The mechanism is using several databases to store the user key and an external USB device that the user carries with him. The system is divided into several groups, each one storing a part of the fragmented user key, as an additional security measure. The proposed mechanism has four factors of authentication but one the same time is easy to use and apply to many modern systems that are used in maritime.