Mobile cloud computing (MCC) is just cloud computing in which at least some of the devices like mobiles, PDA etc are involved. This paper drives over several authentication techniques and methods for mobile cloud computing. An analysis of the existing works are carried out. This Paper also analyses the attacks and Issues that occur during authentication in the mobile cloud environment. Security is the main issue that obstructs cloud from being widely adopted. A framework called the Mobile Cloud Authenticator (MCA) is proposed for authenticating the mobile users in the mobile cloud environment. The overall framework of MCA consists of three major entities namely, Cloud users, Mobile network and Cloud. There is a system called Unified Cloud Authenticator (UCA) which is placed in between the mobile network and Cloud Service Provider (CSP). It authenticates both users and CSP. The UCA contains Authentication Server (AS), hashing machine, connection manager, user manager and service manager. The operational procedure of UCA has three phases namely registration phase, authentication phase and verification phase. This paper explains the overall framework of MCA and the functions of UCA in detail.

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Mobile Cloud Mobile Cloud Authenticator (mca) Unified Cloud Authenticator (uca) Authentication