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On Session Key Construction in Provably-Secure Key Establishment Protocols: Revisiting Chen & Kudla (2003) and McCullagh & Barreto (2005) ID-Based Protocols.

Kim‐Kwang Raymond Choo, Colin Boyd, Yvonne Hitchcock

Published Jan 1, 2005• 5 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We examine the role of session key construction in provablysecure key establishment protocols. We revisit an ID-based key establishment protocol due to Chen & Kudla (2003) and an ID-based protocol 2P-IDAKA due to McCullagh & Barreto (2005). Both protocols carry proofs of security in a weaker variant of the Bellare & Rogaway (1993) model where the adversary is not allowed to make any Reveal query. We advocate the importance of such a (Reveal) query as it captures the known-key security requirement. We then demonstrate that a small change to the way that session keys are constructed in both protocols results in these protocols being secure without restricting the adversary from asking the Reveal queries in most situations. We point out some errors in the existing proof for protocol 2P-IDAKA, and provide proof sketches for the improved Chen & Kudla’s protocol. We conclude with a brief discussion on ways to construct session keys in key establishment protocols.

Related papers

Revisit of McCullagh-Barreto Two-Party ID-Based Authenticated Key Agreement Protocols

Kim‐Kwang Raymond Choo

We revisit the two-party identity-based authenticated key agreement protocol (2P-IDAKA) and its variant resistant to key-compromise impersonation due to McCullagh & Barreto (2005). Protocol 2P-IDAKA carries a proof of security in the Bellare & Rogaway (1993) model. In this paper, we demonstrated why both the protocol and its variant are not secure if the adversary is allowed to send a Reveal query to reveal non-partner players who had accepted the same session key (i.e., termed key-replicating attack in recent work of Krawczyk (2005)). We also demonstrate that both protocols do not achieve the key integrity property, first discussed by Janson & Tsudik (1995).

International journal of network security•Nov 1, 2005•29 citations

Key establishment : proofs and refutations

Kim‐Kwang Raymond Choo

We study the problem of secure key establishment. We critically examine the security models of Bellare and Rogaway (1993) and Canetti and Krawczyk (2001) in the computational complexity approach, as these models are central in the understanding of the provable security paradigm. We show that the partnership definition used in the three-party key distribution (3PKD) protocol of Bellare and Rogaway (1995) is flawed, which invalidates the proof for the 3PKD protocol. We present an improved protocol with a new proof of security. We identify several variants of the key sharing requirement (i.e., two entities who have completed matching sessions, partners, are required to accept the same session key). We then present a brief discussion about the key sharing requirement. We identify several variants of the Bellare and Rogaway (1993) model. We present a comparative study of the relative strengths of security notions between the several variants of the Bellare-Rogaway model and the Canetti-Krawczyk model. In our comparative study, we reveal a drawback in the Bellare, Pointcheval, and Rogaway (2000) model with the protocol of Abdalla and Pointcheval (2005) as a case study. We prove a revised protocol of Boyd (1996) secure in the Bellare-Rogaway model. We then extend the model in order to allow more realistic adversary capabilities by incorporating the notion of resetting the long-term compromised key of some entity. This allows us to detect a known weakness of the protocol that cannot be captured in the original model. We also present an alternative protocol that is efficient in both messages and rounds. We prove the protocol secure in the extended model. We point out previously unknown flaws in several published protocols and a message authenticator of Bellare, Canetti, and Krawczyk (1998) by refuting claimed proofs of security. We also point out corresponding flaws in their existing proofs. We propose fixes to these protocols and their proofs. In some cases, we present new protocols with full proofs of security. We examine the role of session key construction in key establishment protocols, and demonstrate that a small change to the way that session keys are constructed can have significant benefits. Protocols that were proven secure in a restricted Bellare-Rogaway model can then be proven secure in the full model. We present a brief discussion on ways to construct session keys in key establishment protocols and also prove the protocol of Chen and Kudla (2003) secure in a less restrictive Bellare-Rogaway model. To complement the computational complexity approach, we provide a formal specification and machine analysis of the Bellare-Pointcheval-Rogaway model using an automated model checker, Simple Homomorphism Verification Tool (SHVT). We demonstrate that structural flaws in protocols can be revealed using our framework. We reveal previously unknown flaws in the unpublished preproceedings version of the protocol due to Jakobsson and Pointcheval (2001) and several published protocols with only heuristic security arguments. We conclude this thesis with a listing of some open problems that were encountered in the study.

•Jan 1, 2006•18 citations

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Kim‐Kwang Raymond Choo

The recently proposed two-party ID-based authenticated key agreement protocols (with and without escrow) and its variant resistant to key-compromise impersonation by McCullagh & Barreto are revisited. The protocol carries a proof of security in the Bellare & Rogaway (1993) model. In this paper, it is demonstrated that the protocols and its variant are not secure if the adversary is allowed to send a Reveal query to reveal non-partner players who had accepted the same session key.

•Jan 1, 2004•3 citations

On Session Identifiers in Provably Secure Protocols

Raymond Choo, Colin Boyd, Yvonne Hitchcock +1 more

We examine the role of session identifiers (SIDs) in security proofs for key establishment protocols. After reviewing the practical importance of SIDs we use as a case study the three-party server-based key distribution (3PKD) protocol of Bellare and Rogaway, proven secure in 1995. We show incidentally that the partnership function used in the existing security proof is flawed. There seems to be no way to define a SID for the 3PKD protocol that will preserve the proof of security. A small change to the protocol allows a natural definition for a SID and we prove that the new protocol is secure using this SID to define partnering.

•Jan 1, 2004•14 citations

On Security Proof of McCullagh-Barreto's Key Agreement Protocol and its Variants.

Zhaohui Cheng, Liqun Chen

McCullagh and Barreto presented an identity-based authenticated key agreement protocol in CT-RSA 2005. Their protocol was found to be vulnerable to a key-compromise impersonation attack. In order to recover the weakness, McCullagh and Barreto, and Xie proposed two variants of the protocol respectively. In each of these works, a security proof of the proposed protocol was presented. In this paper, we revisit these three security proofs and show that all the reductions in these proofs are invalid, because the property of indistinguishability between their simulation and the real world was not held. As a replacement, we slightly modify the McCullagh and Barreto’s second protocol and then formally analyse the security of the modified scheme in the Bellare-Rogaway key agreement model.

•Jan 1, 2005•12 citations

Strongly-Secure Identity-based Key Agreement and Anonymous Extension.

Sherman S. M. Chow, Kim‐Kwang Raymond Choo

Abstract. We study the provable security of identity-based (ID-based) key agreement protocols. Although several published protocols have been proven secure in the random oracle model, only a weak adversarial model is considered – the adversary is not allowed to ask Session-Key Reveal queries that will allow the adversary to learn previously established session keys. Recent research efforts devoted to providing a stronger level of security require strong assumptions, such as assuming that the simulator has access to a non-existential computational or decisional oracle. In this work, we propose an ID-based key agreement protocol and prove its security in the widely accepted indistinguishability-based model of Canetti and Krawczyk. In our proof, the simulator does not require access to any non-existential computational or decisional oracle. We then extend our basic protocol to support ad-hoc anonymous key agreement with bilateral privacy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first protocol of its kind as previously published protocols are for fixed group and provide only unilateral privacy (i.e., only one of the protocol participants enjoy anonymity).

•Jan 1, 2007•0 citations
We examine the role of session key construction in provablysecure key establishment protocols. We revisit an ID-based key establishment protocol due to Chen & Kudla (2003) and an ID-based protocol 2P-IDAKA due to McCullagh & Barreto (2005). Both protocols carry proofs of security in a weaker variant of the Bellare & Rogaway (1993) model where the adversary is not allowed to make any Reveal query. We advocate the importance of such a (Reveal) query as it captures the known-key security requirement. We then demonstrate that a small change to the way that session keys are constructed in both protocols results in these protocols being secure without restricting the adversary from asking the Reveal queries in most situations. We point out some errors in the existing proof for protocol 2P-IDAKA, and provide proof sketches for the improved Chen & Kudla’s protocol. We conclude with a brief discussion on ways to construct session keys in key establishment protocols.
We revisit the two-party identity-based authenticated key agreement protocol (2P-IDAKA) and its variant resistant to key-compromise impersonation due to McCullagh & Barreto (2005). Protocol 2P-IDAKA carries a proof of security in the Bellare & Rogaway (1993) model. In this paper, we demonstrated why both the protocol and its variant are not secure if the adversary is allowed to send a Reveal query to reveal non-partner players who had accepted the same session key (i.e., termed key-replicating attack in recent work of Krawczyk (2005)). We also demonstrate that both protocols do not achieve the key integrity property, first discussed by Janson & Tsudik (1995).
We study the problem of secure key establishment. We critically examine the security models of Bellare and Rogaway (1993) and Canetti and Krawczyk (2001) in the computational complexity approach, as these models are central in the understanding of the provable security paradigm. We show that the partnership definition used in the three-party key distribution (3PKD) protocol of Bellare and Rogaway (1995) is flawed, which invalidates the proof for the 3PKD protocol. We present an improved protocol with a new proof of security. We identify several variants of the key sharing requirement (i.e., two entities who have completed matching sessions, partners, are required to accept the same session key). We then present a brief discussion about the key sharing requirement. We identify several variants of the Bellare and Rogaway (1993) model. We present a comparative study of the relative strengths of security notions between the several variants of the Bellare-Rogaway model and the Canetti-Krawczyk model. In our comparative study, we reveal a drawback in the Bellare, Pointcheval, and Rogaway (2000) model with the protocol of Abdalla and Pointcheval (2005) as a case study. We prove a revised protocol of Boyd (1996) secure in the Bellare-Rogaway model. We then extend the model in order to allow more realistic adversary capabilities by incorporating the notion of resetting the long-term compromised key of some entity. This allows us to detect a known weakness of the protocol that cannot be captured in the original model. We also present an alternative protocol that is efficient in both messages and rounds. We prove the protocol secure in the extended model. We point out previously unknown flaws in several published protocols and a message authenticator of Bellare, Canetti, and Krawczyk (1998) by refuting claimed proofs of security. We also point out corresponding flaws in their existing proofs. We propose fixes to these protocols and their proofs. In some cases, we present new protocols with full proofs of security. We examine the role of session key construction in key establishment protocols, and demonstrate that a small change to the way that session keys are constructed can have significant benefits. Protocols that were proven secure in a restricted Bellare-Rogaway model can then be proven secure in the full model. We present a brief discussion on ways to construct session keys in key establishment protocols and also prove the protocol of Chen and Kudla (2003) secure in a less restrictive Bellare-Rogaway model. To complement the computational complexity approach, we provide a formal specification and machine analysis of the Bellare-Pointcheval-Rogaway model using an automated model checker, Simple Homomorphism Verification Tool (SHVT). We demonstrate that structural flaws in protocols can be revealed using our framework. We reveal previously unknown flaws in the unpublished preproceedings version of the protocol due to Jakobsson and Pointcheval (2001) and several published protocols with only heuristic security arguments. We conclude this thesis with a listing of some open problems that were encountered in the study.
We examine the role of session identifiers (SIDs) in security proofs for key establishment protocols. After reviewing the practical importance of SIDs we use as a case study the three-party server-based key distribution (3PKD) protocol of Bellare and Rogaway, proven secure in 1995. We show incidentally that the partnership function used in the existing security proof is flawed. There seems to be no way to define a SID for the 3PKD protocol that will preserve the proof of security. A small change to the protocol allows a natural definition for a SID and we prove that the new protocol is secure using this SID to define partnering.
McCullagh and Barreto presented an identity-based authenticated key agreement protocol in CT-RSA 2005. Their protocol was found to be vulnerable to a key-compromise impersonation attack. In order to recover the weakness, McCullagh and Barreto, and Xie proposed two variants of the protocol respectively. In each of these works, a security proof of the proposed protocol was presented. In this paper, we revisit these three security proofs and show that all the reductions in these proofs are invalid, because the property of indistinguishability between their simulation and the real world was not held. As a replacement, we slightly modify the McCullagh and Barreto’s second protocol and then formally analyse the security of the modified scheme in the Bellare-Rogaway key agreement model.
Abstract. We study the provable security of identity-based (ID-based) key agreement protocols. Although several published protocols have been proven secure in the random oracle model, only a weak adversarial model is considered – the adversary is not allowed to ask Session-Key Reveal queries that will allow the adversary to learn previously established session keys. Recent research efforts devoted to providing a stronger level of security require strong assumptions, such as assuming that the simulator has access to a non-existential computational or decisional oracle. In this work, we propose an ID-based key agreement protocol and prove its security in the widely accepted indistinguishability-based model of Canetti and Krawczyk. In our proof, the simulator does not require access to any non-existential computational or decisional oracle. We then extend our basic protocol to support ad-hoc anonymous key agreement with bilateral privacy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first protocol of its kind as previously published protocols are for fixed group and provide only unilateral privacy (i.e., only one of the protocol participants enjoy anonymity).