Generic Related-key Attacks for HMAC

In this article we describe new generic distinguishing and forgery attacks in the related-key scenario (using only a single related-key) for the HMAC construction. When HMAC uses a k-bit key, outputs an n-bit MAC, and is instantiated with an l-bit inner iterative hash function processing m-bit message blocks where m=k, our distinguishing-R attack requires about 2^{n/2} queries which improves over the currently best known generic attack complexity 2^{l/2} as soon as l>n. This means that contrary to the general belief, using wide-pipe hash functions as internal primitive will not increase the overall security of HMAC in the related-key model when the key size is equal to the message block size. We also present generic related-key distinguishing-H, internal state recovery and forgery attacks. Our method is new and elegant, and uses a simple cycle-size detection criterion. The issue in the HMAC construction (not present in the NMAC construction) comes from the non-independence of the two inner hash layers and we provide a simple patch in order to avoid this generic attack. Our work finally shows that the choice of the opad and ipad constants value in HMAC is important

Authentication protocol for an IoT-enabled LTE networks

The Evolved Packet System-based Authentication and Key Agreement (EPS-AKA) protocol of the long-term evolution (LTE) network does not support Internet of Things (IoT) objects and has several security limitations, including transmission of the object’s (user/device) identity and key set identifier in plaintext over the network, synchronization, large overhead, limited identity privacy, and security attack vulnerabilities. In this article, we propose a new secure and efficient AKA protocol for the LTE network that supports secure and efficient communications among various IoT devices as well as among the users. Analysis shows that our protocol is secure, efficient, and privacy preserved, and reduces bandwidth consumption during authentication

LNCS

HMAC and its variant NMAC are the most popular approaches to deriving a MAC (and more generally, a PRF) from a cryptographic hash function. Despite nearly two decades of research, their exact security still remains far from understood in many different contexts. Indeed, recent works have re-surfaced interest for {\em generic} attacks, i.e., attacks that treat the compression function of the underlying hash function as a black box. Generic security can be proved in a model where the underlying compression function is modeled as a random function -- yet, to date, the question of proving tight, non-trivial bounds on the generic security of HMAC/NMAC even as a PRF remains a challenging open question. In this paper, we ask the question of whether a small modification to HMAC and NMAC can allow us to exactly characterize the security of the resulting constructions, while only incurring little penalty with respect to efficiency. To this end, we present simple variants of NMAC and HMAC, for which we prove tight bounds on the generic PRF security, expressed in terms of numbers of construction and compression function queries necessary to break the construction. All of our constructions are obtained via a (near) {\em black-box} modification of NMAC and HMAC, which can be interpreted as an initial step of key-dependent message pre-processing. While our focus is on PRF security, a further attractive feature of our new constructions is that they clearly defeat all recent generic attacks against properties such as state recovery and universal forgery. These exploit properties of the so-called ``functional graph'' which are not directly accessible in our new constructions

On the Provable Security of the Tweakable Even-Mansour Cipher Against Multi-Key and Related-Key Attacks

Cogliati et al. introduced the tweakable Even-Mansour cipher constructed from a single permutation and an almost-XOR-universal (AXU) family of hash functions with tweak and key schedule. Most of previous papers considered the security of the (iterated) tweakable Even-Mansour cipher in the single-key setting. In this paper, we focus on the security of the tweakable Even-Mansour cipher in the multi-key and related-key settings. We prove that the tweakable Even-Mansour cipher with related-key-AXU hash functions is secure against multi-key and related-key attacks, and derive a tight bound using H-coefficients technique, respectively. Our work is of high practical relevance because of rekey requirements and the inevitability of related keys in real-world implementations

LNCS

NMAC is a mode of operation which turns a fixed input-length keyed hash function f into a variable input-length function. A practical single-key variant of NMAC called HMAC is a very popular and widely deployed message authentication code (MAC). Security proofs and attacks for NMAC can typically be lifted to HMAC. NMAC was introduced by Bellare, Canetti and Krawczyk [Crypto'96], who proved it to be a secure pseudorandom function (PRF), and thus also a MAC, assuming that (1) f is a PRF and (2) the function we get when cascading f is weakly collision-resistant. Unfortunately, HMAC is typically instantiated with cryptographic hash functions like MD5 or SHA-1 for which (2) has been found to be wrong. To restore the provable guarantees for NMAC, Bellare [Crypto'06] showed its security based solely on the assumption that f is a PRF, albeit via a non-uniform reduction. - Our first contribution is a simpler and uniform proof for this fact: If f is an ε-secure PRF (against q queries) and a δ-non-adaptively secure PRF (against q queries), then NMAC f is an (ε+ℓqδ)-secure PRF against q queries of length at most ℓ blocks each. - We then show that this ε+ℓqδ bound is basically tight. For the most interesting case where ℓqδ ≥ ε we prove this by constructing an f for which an attack with advantage ℓqδ exists. This also violates the bound O(ℓε) on the PRF-security of NMAC recently claimed by Koblitz and Menezes. - Finally, we analyze the PRF-security of a modification of NMAC called NI [An and Bellare, Crypto'99] that differs mainly by using a compression function with an additional keying input. This avoids the constant rekeying on multi-block messages in NMAC and allows for a security proof starting by the standard switch from a PRF to a random function, followed by an information-theoretic analysis. We carry out such an analysis, obtaining a tight ℓq2/2 c bound for this step, improving over the trivial bound of ℓ2q2/2c. The proof borrows combinatorial techniques originally developed for proving the security of CBC-MAC [Bellare et al., Crypto'05]

Generic Universal Forgery Attack on Iterative Hash-based MACs

In this article, we study the security of iterative hash-based MACs, such as HMAC or NMAC, with regards to universal forgery attacks. Leveraging recent advances in the analysis of functional graphs built from the iteration of HMAC or NMAC, we exhibit the very first generic universal forgery attack against hash-based MACs. In particular, our work implies that the universal forgery resistance of an n-bit output HMAC construction is not 2^n queries as long believed by the community. The techniques we introduce extend the previous functional graphs-based attacks that only took in account the cycle structure or the collision probability: we show that one can extract much more meaningful secret information by also analyzing the distance of a node from the cycle of its component in the functional graph

Related-Key Almost Universal Hash Functions: Definitions, Constructions and Applications

Universal hash functions (UHFs) have been extensively used in the design of cryptographic schemes. If we consider the related-key attack (RKA) against these UHF-based schemes, some of them may not be secure, especially those using the key of UHF as a part of the whole key of scheme, due to the weakness of UHF in the RKA setting. In order to solve the issue, we propose a new concept of related-key almost universal hash function, which is a natural extension to almost universal hash function in the RKA setting. We define related-key almost universal (RKA-AU) hash function and related-key almost XOR universal (RKA-AXU) hash function. However almost all the existing UHFs do not satisfy the new definitions. We construct one fixed-input-length universal hash functions named RH1 and two variable-input-length universal hash functions named RH2, RH3. We show that RH1 and RH2 are both RKA-AXU, and RH3 is RKA-AU for the RKD set $\Phi^\oplus$. Furthermore, RH1, RH2 and RH3 are nearly as efficient as previous similar constructions. RKA-AU (RKA-AXU) hash functions can be used as components in the related-key secure cryptographic schemes. If we replace the universal hash functions in the schemes with our corresponding constructions, the problems about related-key attack can be solved for some RKD sets. More specifically, we give four concrete applications of RKA-AU and RKA-AXU in related-key secure message authentication codes and tweakable block ciphers

The IEC 61850 sampled measured values protocol: Analysis, threat identification, and feasibility of using NN forecasters to detect spoofed packets \u3csup\u3e†\u3c/sup\u3e

The operation of the smart grid is anticipated to rely profoundly on distributed microprocessor-based control. Therefore, interoperability standards are needed to address the heterogeneous nature of the smart grid data. Since the IEC 61850 emerged as a wide-spread interoperability standard widely accepted by the industry, the Sampled Measured Values method has been used to communicate digitized voltage and current measurements. Realizing that current and voltage measurements (i.e., feedback measurements) are necessary for reliable and secure noperation of the power grid, firstly, this manuscript provides a detailed analysis of the Sampled Measured Values protocol emphasizing its advantages, then, it identifies vulnerabilities in this protocol and explains the cyber threats associated to these vulnerabilities. Secondly, current efforts to mitigate these vulnerabilities are outlined and the feasibility of using neural network forecasters to detect spoofed sampled values is investigated. It was shown that although such forecasters have high spoofed data detection accuracy, they are prone to the accumulation of forecasting error. Accordingly, this paper also proposes an algorithm to detect the accumulation of the forecasting error based on lightweight statistical indicators. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is experimentally verified in a laboratory-scale smart grid testbed

Equivalent Key Recovery Attacks against HMAC and NMAC with Whirlpool Reduced to 7 Rounds

A main contribution of this paper is an improved analysis against HMAC instantiating with reduced Whirlpool. It recovers equivalent keys, which are often denoted as Kin and Kout, of HMAC with 7-round Whirlpool, while the previous best attack can work only for 6 rounds. Our approach is applying the meet-in-the-middle (MITM) attack on AES to recover MAC keys of Whirlpool. Several techniques are proposed to bypass different attack scenarios between a block cipher and a MAC, e.g., the chosen plaintext model of the MITM attacks on AES cannot be used for HMAC-Whirlpool. Besides, a larger state size and different key schedule designs of Whirlpool leave us a lot of room to study. As a result, equivalent keys of HMAC with 7-round Whirlpool are recovered with a complexity of (Data, Time, Memory) = (2^481.7, 2^482.3, 2^481)

Functional Graph Revisited: Updates on (Second) Preimage Attacks on Hash Combiners

This paper studies functional-graph-based (second) preimage attacks against hash combiners. By exploiting more properties of cyclic nodes of functional graph, we find an improved preimage attack against the XOR combiner with a complexity of $2^{5n/8}$, while the previous best-known complexity is $2^{2n/3}$. Moreover, we find the first generic second-preimage attack on Zipper hash with an optimal complexity of $2^{3n/5}$