Authentication and Secure Communication Jeff Chase Duke University

Authentication and Secure Communication Jeff Chase Duke University

technology people Where are the boundaries of the “system” that you would like to secure? Where is the weakest link? What happens when the weakest link fails?

The First Axiom of Security • “Security is at least as much a social problem as it is a technical problem. ” – Translation: humans are the weak link. • We will focus on the technical elements, but do not lose sight of the social dimension. – Keys left in lock – Phishing – Executable attachments – Trojan software – Post-it passwords – Bribes, torture, etc. – Etc.

Exhibit A This is a picture of a $2. 5 B move in the value of Emulex Corporation, in response to a fraudulent press release by short-sellers through Internet. Wire in 2000. The release was widely disseminated by news media as a statement from Emulex management, but media failed to authenticate it. EMLX [reproduced from clearstation. com]

“Humans are incapable of securely storing high-quality cryptographic keys, and they have unacceptable speed and accuracy when performing cryptographic operations. (They are also large, expensive to maintain, difficult to manage, and they pollute the environment. ) It is astonishing that these devices continue to be manufactured and deployed. But they are sufficiently pervasive that we must design our protocols around their limitations. ” - Kaufman, Perlman, and Speciner As quoted in:

Trusted vs. Trustworthy (NSA) • Trusted – A component that can break the security policy if it fails. (“It has power. ”) – Integrity cannot be verified by external observation. (“You can’t tell if it breaks”. ) • Trustworthy – A component that is unlikely to fail. • Trusted Computing Base (TCB) – The minimal core of a computer system that is trusted, and so must be trustworthy if the system is to remain safe.

Questions and Answers #1 • Who is the sender? – Authentication • Is the sender allowed to do this? – Authorization • Is this really what the sender said? – Integrity • Could anyone else have intercepted it? – Privacy

Questions and Answers #2 • Authentication? – Challenge/response: passwords, certificates – A subject bound to a strong identity is a principal. • Authorization? – Access control lists or capabilities (ticket/token) • Integrity? – Message digests and digital signatures • Privacy – Encryption (provides integrity too) All of these require some form of a shared secret or shared trust in a third party, or both.

Security Cryptography algorithms Secret key (e. g. , DES) Public key (e. g. , RSA) Security services Message digest (e. g. , MD 5) Privacy Authentication Message integrity

Familiar names for the protagonists in security protocols Alice First participant Bob Second participant Carol Participant in three- and four-party protocols Dave Participant in four-party protocols Eve Eavesdropper Mallory Malicious attacker Sara A server

Cryptography for Busy People • Encrypt and Decrypt functions – M = Decrypt(Encrypt(M) – Standard and efficient enough to be practical. • Crypto functions are parameterized by keys. – Fixed-width “random” value (length matters) – M = Decrypt(Encrypt(M, K 1), K 2) • Two fundamental variants: – Public-key or asymmetric crypto (e. g. , RSA) – Secret-key, private-key, symmetric crypto (e. g. , DES) • Foundation of many/all protection systems.

Crypto Properties – Given Encrypt(K 1, M) • cannot compute M (without K 2). – Given M and Encrypt(K 1, M) • cannot compute K 1 or K 2 – Given M • cannot compute M 1 such that Decrypt(K 2, M 1) = M (without K 1) – “Cannot” means “it is believed to be computationally infeasible to”.

Using Crypto: the Basics • Privacy – Attacker cannot read encrypted data. • Integrity – Encrypt a hash/checksum/digest of the message. • Digital signature – Append signature to the message • Authentication – Force party to prove it possesses some key that only the “right” entity would/could/should know. – How to do that safely?

Simple shared-secret based cryptographic authentication shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Replay Attacks and Nonces • The “random” challenge is a nonce – “number used once” – Receiver encrypts the nonce and sends it back. • Why is the challenge “random” or “only used once”? – An attacker could replay a previous response – The replay could falsely authenticate the attacker as Alice • Nonces can be timestamps, serial numbers, etc. • Replay attacks are a common threat, and nonces are widely used in security protocols.

Symmetric Crypto • “Secret key” or “private key” cryptography. – DES, 3 DES, DESX, IDEA, AES • Sender and receiver must possess a shared secret – Shared key K – K = K 1 = K 2 • Message M, Key K {M}K = Encrypt(M, K) M = Decrypt({M}K , K)

Asymmetric Crypto • Sometimes called “public key” cryptography. • Each subject/principal possesses a keypair: K-1 and K – Decrypt(K, Encrypt(K-1, M)) = M • Each principal keeps one key private. • The inverse key may be public. • Either key can be used to encrypt/decrypt. – Encrypt() = Decrypt() – K 1 = K and K 2 = K-1 OR K 2 = K and K 1 = K-1

Pros and Cons Symmetric crypto (DES, AES, …) – Pro: cheap and easily supported by hardware – Con: need a shared secret. • Shared secrets are harder to keep secret. • key distribution problem Asymmetric crypto (RSA, etc. ) – Con: expensive – Pro: no need for a shared secret • The recipient just needs to know sender’s public key. • Multicast or broadcast? Message storage? No problem. • Solves the private-key distribution problem – Con: introduces a new public-key distribution problem • How to bind public key to identity securely?

Figure 7. 3 Cryptography notations KA Alice’s secret key KB Bob’s secret key KAB Secret key shared between Alice and Bob KApriv Alice’s private key (known only to Alice) KApub Alice’s public key (published by Alice for all to read) {M}K Message. M encrypted with key. K [M]K Message. M signed with key. K

Performance of encryption and secure digest algorithms Key size/hash size Extrapolated. PRB optimized (bits) speed (kbytes/s) (kbytes/sec. ) TEA 128 700 - DES 56 350 7746 Triple-DES 112 120 2842 IDEA 128 700 4469 RSA 512 7 - RSA 2048 1 - MD 5 128 1740 62425 SHA 160 750 25162 Note: these numbers are OLD! Only the relative speeds are useful.

Secure Communication with an Untrusted Infrastructure Mallory ISP B ISP D Bob ISP C Alice ISP A

Better Together, Part 1 • Use asymmetric crypto just to “handshake” and establish a secret session key. • Converse with the efficiency of symmetric crypto. • Example: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport-Layer Security (TLS), used in HTTPS. • End-to-end security above TCP. “SYN, etc. ” “My public key is K. ” “Let’s establish a session key: {S}K. ” Client {M}S … Server

SSL is not so simple… • How do we know who we are talking to? – Do we care? Somebody does… • How do we prevent replays of encrypted content? • SSL/TLS uses this basic handshake protocol, but there are many other aspects: – Nonces, serial numbers, timestamps – Hashes and MACs – Certificates – First some background…

Authenticity on the Cheap • How can the sender/writer A of M allow any receiver B to verify or prove that A sent/stored M? – authenticity • Answer: encrypt the message, or just a digest. – A computes digest h(M) using a secure hash. – – A encrypts digest: {h(M)}K A appends encrypted digest to M B decrypts digest with matching key B computes h(M) and compares to digest. • Proves that sender of M was in possession of K.

Secure Hash / Message Digest • Well-known, standard, hash functions digest = h(M). – MD 5, SHA 1 (Secure Hash Algorithm) – Very efficient to compute. – M is arbitrary length – Digest is a small, fixed-width quantity: i. e. , it is a hash. • Often called a fingerprint or cryptographic checksum. • An encrypted digest can be thought of as a “signature”. – Unforgeable: need the right key to encrypt – Securely bound to a specific document! – Easy to check

Properties of Secure Hashing – Collision-resistant • There exist distinct M 1 and M 2 such that h(M 1) == h(M 2). • Such collisions are “hard” to find. – One way • Given digest, cannot generate an M with h(M) == digest. • Such collisions are “hard” to find. – Secure • The digest does not help to discover any part of M. Hasn’t SHA-1 been broken? Sort of…it turns out collisions are easier to find than thought, at least in some instances.

Two Flavors of “Signature” • A digest encrypted with a private asymmetric key is called a digital signature – “Proves” that a particular identity sent the message. • “Unforgeable” – The sender cannot deny sending the message. • “non-repudiable” – Legally binding in the US (if using strong policies to protect and endorse keys). • A digest encrypted with a shared symmetric key is called a message authentication code (MAC). • faster, but… MACs not discussed in class: provided for completeness

Digital signatures with public keys

Low-cost signatures with a shared secret key Message authentication code (MAC) • Pro: fast • Con: repudiable • Con: shared secret MACs not discussed in class: provided for completeness

Certifying Public Keys • Digital signatures enable any entity to endorse the (public key, identity) binding of another entity. • A certificate is a special type of digitally signed document: – “I certify that the public key in this document belongs to the entity named in this document, signed X. ” – E. g. , certificate format standard X. 509 • Provides a “toehold” to address the crucial problem of public-key distribution. • Recipient must trust the issuer X, and must know the public key of X.

Figure 7. 13 X 509 Certificate format Subject Distinguished Name, Public Key Issuer Distinguished Name, Signature Period of validity Not Before Date, Not After Date Administrative information Version, Serial Number Extended Information Provided for completeness

Certifying Authorities and Trust Management • What (id)entities do you trust? – To do what? – I trust Amazon if I want to buy stuff, but I don’t give them the keys to my house. (? ) • In general, your trust in a public key depends on: – Security attributes of the identity bound to it. – Who endorsed it for me. • A certifying authority (CA) is an identity trusted by some community to issue/endorse certificates. – Public key of CA is widely available to community. – E. g. , the public key of Verisign is wired into every browser.

Approaches to Public Key Distribution • The “key” challenge today is public key distribution (and revocation). • Approach #1: trust e-mail/web (i. e. , assume DNS and IP really go where you want, and authenticate the source. ) – Example: PGP, GPG, “pretty good”…or do it in person. • Approach #2 : use a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) – Requires everyone to agree on a central point of trust (Certifying Authority or CA). – Difficult to understand deploy. – Hierarchy helps. • Approach #3: “web of trust” in which parties establish pairwise trust and endorse public keys of third parties. – Involves transitive trust. Provided for completeness

Certificate Hierarchy or Web of Trust • Chain of Trust – If X certifies that a certain public key belongs to Y, and Y certifies that another public key belongs to Z, then there exists a chain of certificates from X to Z – Someone that wants to verify Z’s public key has to know X’s public key and follow the chain – X forms the root of a tree (web? ) • Certificate Revocation List – What happens when a private key is compromised? [Vahdat] Provided for completeness

PKI • Public Key Infrastructure • Everyone trusts some root CAs. – Sure…. • Institutions/organizations set up their own CAs, and the root CAs endorse them to issue certificates for their members. – $$$ • And so on, recursively, to form a hierarchy like DNS. • Network applications will have access to the keypairs and certificates of their users, and will validate the certificates of servers. – Any day now…

What happens… https: //www. shop. com/shop. html • • How to authenticate shop. com? How to assure integrity/privacy of communications? How to prevent man-in-the-middle attack? How does shop. com authenticate you?

Secure HTTP • Uses SSL/TLS over TCP. • Browser always authenticates the server. – Server presents certificate signed by root CA. – Domain name must match the certificate, etc. – Browser has some set of public keys for root CAs wired into it, so it can check the signature. • Server optionally requests to authenticate the browser. – Browser presents certificate. – Password authentication is much more common. • Browser and server negotiate a bulk cipher and secret session key.

A Short Quiz 1. What is the most important advantage of symmetric crypto (DES) relative to asymmetric crypto (RSA)? 2. What is the most important advantage of asymmetric crypto relative to symmetric crypto? 3. What is the most important limitation/challenge for asymmetric crypto with respect to security? 4. Why does SSL “change ciphers” during the handshake? 5. How does SSL solve the key distribution problem for symmetric crypto? 6. Is SSL key exchange vulnerable to man-in-themiddle attacks?

"Using encryption on the Internet is the equivalent of arranging an armored car to deliver credit-card information from someone living in a cardboard box to someone living on a park bench" - Gene Spafford, CERIAS @ Purdue

More PKI • (Public key) infrastructures – Many organizations now have set up their own – Many have not (e. g. , Duke) • Public (key infrastructure) – Still elusive – Failure of Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) Provided for completeness

PGP • Pretty Good Privacy • Each user has an asymmetric keypair • Secure e-mail, possibly with multiple receivers – Digitally sign message with your private key. – Encrypt message and signature with random session key. – Append session key encrypted with public key of each intended recipient. • Users may sign/endorse each other’s public keys and endorsements. • Should this be illegal? – Zimmerman case, 1993 Provided for completeness

What happens… https: //www. library. duke. edu

Kerberos 101 • Secure end-to-end communication (like SSL) – But always authenticates both ends • Trusted authentication server (like SSL) – But requires synchronous interaction with AS • Symmetric crypto only – No RSA, no certificates, no PKI. – (Actually, webauth uses a certificate to authenticate the authentication server. ) • A form of single sign-on – Only have to type your password to the AS • Based on “Needham-Schroeder key distribution”

Simple shared-secret based cryptographic authentication shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Add mutual authentication shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Problems with this scheme • Generalizing the model for m users and n services, requires a priori distribution of m x n shared keys • Possible improvement: – Use trusted 3 rd party, with which each user and service shares a secret key: m + n keys – Also has important security advantages shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Mediated Authentication • A trusted third party mediates authentication • Called the Key Distribution Center (KDC) – aka Authentication Server • Each user and service shares a secret key with the KDC • KDC generates a session key, and securely distributes it to communicating parties • Communicating parties prove to each other that they know the session key shuque@isc. upenn. edu

shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Mediated Authentication shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Mediated Authentication shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Kerberos (almost) Provided for completeness shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Kerberos (roughly) Provided for completeness shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Kerberos (detailed) • Each user and service registers a secret key with the KDC • Everyone trusts the KDC – “Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket very carefully” - Anonymous Mark Twain • The user’s key is derived from a password, by applying a hash function • The service key is a large random number, and stored on the server shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Needham-Schroeder Protocol [Provided for completeness] shuque@isc. upenn. edu

Mediated Authentication • Nomenclature: – Ka = Master key for “alice”, shared by alice and the KDC – Kab = Session key shared by “alice” and “bob” – Tb = Ticket to use “bob” – K{data} = “data” encrypted with key “K” Provided for completeness shuque@isc. upenn. edu

How Federated Identity Works (e. g. , Shibboleth) 1. A user tries to access a protected application 2. The user tells the application where it’s from 3. The user logs in at home 4. Home tells the application about the user 5. The user is rejected or accepted 56 Provided for completeness Rick Summerhill: I 2 CTO

Shibboleth 1. I’d like access 2. What is your 4. I’d like to login for SP. Identity Provider Use r 5. Login 6. Here is data about you for SP. Send it. Directory home? 3. Please login at home. Service Provider 7. Here is my data. 8 a. See the page! 8 b. Access Denied Provided for completeness Database Rick Summerhill: I 2 CTO

Trust Management and Authorization Policy – X. 509 certificate is one form of key endorsement. • Signer certifies bearer’s key – The signer of an endorsement could include all sorts of other useful information. • Security assertions – Authorization based on general security assertions • Identity attributes (e. g. , in Shibboleth) • Delegation of rights (credentials) • Delegation of resource control – ORCA leases Provided for completeness

Don’t Forget 1. All of this relies on various fragile assumptions about people and communities. – Security technology only works if people use it. – Find the weakest link in the end-to-end chain. – Compromised key? All bets are off. – Beware false sense of security! (E. g. , WEP) 2. Design for easy, incremental, organic deployment. – What layer? IPSEC or VPN vs. TLS 3. Understand full range of potential attacks. – Man-in-middle, replays and nonces, challenge/response – Useful model to guide analysis: logic of “belief” (BAN)

Trusted Platform Module: TPM • New hardware support for secure environments • Will be everywhere soon – Intel TXT technology built into Nehalem • Key function: attested measurement • Measurement = hash contents of a byte array (VALUE) with a SHA-1 hash. • Can certify/attest a sequence of values presented as arguments to a sequence of extends. Provided for completeness