Analysing and improving the crypto ecosystem of Rust

Context: Rust is an emerging systems programming language that suits security-critical applications because it guarantees memory safety without a garbage collector. Its growing ecosystem already encompasses several crypto libraries, though the competition is still open. Previous cryptography research found that vulnerabilities are often due to misunderstandings and misuse of cryptographic APIs rather than bugs in the libraries themselves. Aim: This thesis presents a holistic analysis of Rust's current crypto ecosystem and aims to improve its further development. A particular focus is on API design because all libraries are still open to change their APIs and it will become increasingly difficult to change them later. Method: All parts of the ecosystem are systematically analysed, guided by the general structure of a crypto ecosystem. Research methods include a systematic search for libraries, a survey among contributors, GitHub analyses as well as a self-experiment and a controlled experiment to test the usability. Results: The contributors are typical open source developers and they collaborate in typical ways on GitHub. Most libraries have a clear main developer and there is a general lack of contributors. While two of the major libraries focus on usability and are consequently easier to use and more resistant to misuse, the two most widespread libraries consciously neglect these topics and exhibit flaws known from crypto libraries in other languages. Conclusion: The misuse resistant Rust crypto libraries should be advertised more actively. In the medium term, an officially endorsed API could improve interoperability and foster competition. For such an API and for the improvement of existing APIs, the thesis discusses a number of design decisions and their usability implications.Kontext: Rust ist eine junge Systemprogrammiersprache, die sich für sicherheitskritische Anwendungen eignet, weil sie Speichersicherheit ohne einen Garbage Collector garantiert. Das wachsende Ökosystem umfasst bereits einige Krypto-Bibliotheken, wobei der Wettbewerb noch offen ist. Die bisherige Forschung hat gezeigt, dass Schwachstellen oft durch Missverständnisse und Missbrauch der kryptographischen APIs verursacht werden anstatt durch Fehler in den Bibliotheken selbst. Ziel: Diese Thesis enthält eine ganzheitliche Analyse des Krypto-Ökosystems von Rust mit dem Ziel, die zukünftige Entwicklung zu verbessern. Ein besonderer Fokus liegt auf dem API-Design, weil alle Bibliotheken noch offen für API-Änderungen sind und solche Änderungen später schwieriger werden. Vorgehen: Alle Bestandteile des Ökosystems werden anhand der allgemeinen Struktur eines Krypto-Ökosystems systematisch analysiert. Zu den eingesetzten Forschungsmethoden gehören eine systematische Suche nach Bibliotheken, eine Entwicklerumfrage, GitHub-Analysen sowie ein Selbstversuch und ein kontrolliertes Experiment um die Benutzbarkeit zu testen. Ergebnisse: Die Entwickler sind typische Open-Source-Entwickler und sie arbeiten auf typische Weise auf GitHub zusammen. Die meisten Bibliotheken haben einen eindeutigen Hauptentwickler und es gibt einen generellen Mangel an weiteren Entwicklern. Während zwei der größeren Bibliotheken sich auf Benutzbarkeit konzentrieren und dementsprechend einfacher zu verwenden und missbrauchsresistenter sind, vernachlässigen die beiden am weitesten verbreiteten Bibliotheken diese Themen bewusst und weisen Schwächen auf, die von Krypto-Bibliotheken anderer Sprachen her bekannt sind. Fazit: Die missbrauchsresistenten Krypto-Bibliotheken in Rust sollten aktiver beworben werden. Mittelfristig könnte eine offiziell unterstützte API die Interoperabilität und den Wettbewerb fördern. Für eine solche API und für die Verbesserung der existierenden APIs werden in der Thesis diverse Designentscheidungen und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Benutzbarkeit erörtert

The Prom Problem: Fair and Privacy-Enhanced Matchmaking with Identity Linked Wishes

In the Prom Problem (TPP), Alice wishes to attend a school dance with Bob and needs a risk-free, privacy preserving way to find out whether Bob shares that same wish. If not, no one should know that she inquired about it, not even Bob. TPP represents a special class of matchmaking challenges, augmenting the properties of privacy-enhanced matchmaking, further requiring fairness and support for identity linked wishes (ILW) – wishes involving specific identities that are only valid if all involved parties have those same wishes. The Horne-Nair (HN) protocol was proposed as a solution to TPP along with a sample pseudo-code embodiment leveraging an untrusted matchmaker. Neither identities nor pseudo-identities are included in any messages or stored in the matchmaker’s database. Privacy relevant data stay within user control. A security analysis and proof-of-concept implementation validated the approach, fairness was quantified, and a feasibility analysis demonstrated practicality in real-world networks and systems, thereby bounding risk prior to incurring the full costs of development. The SecretMatch™ Prom app leverages one embodiment of the patented HN protocol to achieve privacy-enhanced and fair matchmaking with ILW. The endeavor led to practical lessons learned and recommendations for privacy engineering in an era of rapidly evolving privacy legislation. Next steps include design of SecretMatch™ apps for contexts like voting negotiations in legislative bodies and executive recruiting. The roadmap toward a quantum resistant SecretMatch™ began with design of a Hybrid Post-Quantum Horne-Nair (HPQHN) protocol. Future directions include enhancements to HPQHN, a fully Post Quantum HN protocol, and more

INTELLIGENT HOSPITAL: PATIENT SMART CARD

The purpose of introducing smart card application in our lifestyle is to improve and develop the way of life to a more convenient style. This approach can be applied to various areas such like mobile communication, public transportation, finance, public sector, and even health care system. In this project, the main target is to design an application and basic system of interfacing between patient and medical institution, which is the Patient Smart Card. It will act as a synergy between clients or patients' personal information with the server or medical centre that complies with the system. Patient Smart Card application development involves several stages. Defining the methodology, there will be four phases, which are analyzing, designing, coding and testing. The cores of the project are the database development, smart card application and its interface program. Data structure of the system is obtained through research and detailed assessment. Entirely, the back end of the system is concerning the source code and interface design. To achieve those with fine results, there are tools required during the whole process. Thus, the result will be concluded based on the objectives set. Besides smart card and its reader, the system comprises of several forms which will act as the interface between database and client. The forms encompass the main menu, registration process, administration purpose, PIN number security system, patient particular information and related data regarding to mass patient medical records. All of them have the same focal purpose which is to ease and create simplicity for the current medical information record system applied at most of the health centers. Suggested works for further enhancement and realization are also stated

Towards Practical Access Control and Usage Control on the Cloud using Trusted Hardware

Cloud-based platforms have become the principle way to store, share, and synchronize files online. For individuals and organizations alike, cloud storage not only provides resource scalability and on-demand access at a low cost, but also eliminates the necessity of provisioning and maintaining complex hardware installations. Unfortunately, because cloud-based platforms are frequent victims of data breaches and unauthorized disclosures, data protection obliges both access control and usage control to manage user authorization and regulate future data use. Encryption can ensure data security against unauthorized parties, but complicates file sharing which now requires distributing keys to authorized users, and a mechanism that prevents revoked users from accessing or modifying sensitive content. Further, as user data is stored and processed on remote ma- chines, usage control in a distributed setting requires incorporating the local environmental context at policy evaluation, as well as tamper-proof and non-bypassable enforcement. Existing cryptographic solutions either require server-side coordination, offer limited flexibility in data sharing, or incur significant re-encryption overheads on user revocation. This combination of issues are ill-suited within large-scale distributed environments where there are a large number of users, dynamic changes in user membership and access privileges, and resources are shared across organizational domains. Thus, developing a robust security and privacy solution for the cloud requires: fine-grained access control to associate the largest set of users and resources with variable granularity, scalable administration costs when managing policies and access rights, and cross-domain policy enforcement. To address the above challenges, this dissertation proposes a practical security solution that relies solely on commodity trusted hardware to ensure confidentiality and integrity throughout the data lifecycle. The aim is to maintain complete user ownership against external hackers and malicious service providers, without losing the scalability or availability benefits of cloud storage. Furthermore, we develop a principled approach that is: (i) portable across storage platforms without requiring any server-side support or modifications, (ii) flexible in allowing users to selectively share their data using fine-grained access control, and (iii) performant by imposing modest overheads on standard user workloads. Essentially, our system must be client-side, provide end-to-end data protection and secure sharing, without significant degradation in performance or user experience. We introduce NeXUS, a privacy-preserving filesystem that enables cryptographic protection and secure file sharing on existing network-based storage services. NeXUS protects the confidentiality and integrity of file content, as well as file and directory names, while mitigating against rollback attacks of the filesystem hierarchy. We also introduce Joplin, a secure access control and usage control system that provides practical attribute-based sharing with decentralized policy administration, including efficient revocation, multi-domain policies, secure user delegation, and mandatory audit logging. Both systems leverage trusted hardware to prevent the leakage of sensitive material such as encryption keys and access control policies; they are completely client-side, easy to install and use, and can be readily deployed across remote storage platforms without requiring any server-side changes or trusted intermediary. We developed prototypes for NeXUS and Joplin, and evaluated their respective overheads in isolation and within a real-world environment. Results show that both prototypes introduce modest overheads on interactive workloads, and achieve portability across storage platforms, including Dropbox and AFS. Together, NeXUS and Joplin demonstrate that a client-side solution employing trusted hardware such as Intel SGX can effectively protect remotely stored data on existing file sharing services

A generic framework for process execution and secure multi-party transaction authorization

Process execution engines are not only an integral part of workflow and business process management systems but are increasingly used to build process-driven applications. In other words, they are potentially used in all kinds of software across all application domains. However, contemporary process engines and workflow systems are unsuitable for use in such diverse application scenarios for several reasons. The main shortcomings can be observed in the areas of interoperability, versatility, and programmability. Therefore, this thesis makes a step away from domain specific, monolithic workflow engines towards generic and versatile process runtime frameworks, which enable integration of process technology into all kinds of software. To achieve this, the idea and corresponding architecture of a generic and embeddable process virtual machine (ePVM), which supports defining process flows along the theoretical foundation of communicating extended finite state machines, are presented. The architecture focuses on the core process functionality such as control flow and state management, monitoring, persistence, and communication, while using JavaScript as a process definition language. This approach leads to a very generic yet easily programmable process framework. A fully functional prototype implementation of the proposed framework is provided along with multiple example applications. Despite the fact that business processes are increasingly automated and controlled by information systems, humans are still involved, directly or indirectly, in many of them. Thus, for process flows involving sensitive transactions, a highly secure authorization scheme supporting asynchronous multi-party transaction authorization must be available within process management systems. Therefore, along with the ePVM framework, this thesis presents a novel approach for secure remote multi-party transaction authentication - the zone trusted information channel (ZTIC). The ZTIC approach uniquely combines multiple desirable properties such as the highest level of security, ease-of-use, mobility, remote administration, and smooth integration with existing infrastructures into one device and method. Extensively evaluating both, the ePVM framework and the ZTIC, this thesis shows that ePVM in combination with the ZTIC approach represents a unique and very powerful framework for building workflow systems and process-driven applications including support for secure multi-party transaction authorization