On the practical use of physical unclonable functions in oblivious transfer and bit commitment protocols

In recent years, PUF-based schemes have been suggested not only for the basic tasks of tamper-sensitive key storage or the identification of hardware systems, but also for more complex protocols like oblivious transfer (OT) or bit commitment (BC), both of which possess broad and diverse applications. In this paper, we continue this line of research. We first present an attack on two recent OT and BC protocols which have been introduced by Brzuska et al. (CRYPTO, LNCS 6841, pp 51–70, Springer 2011). The attack quadratically reduces the number of CRPs which malicious players must read out to cheat, and fully operates within the original communication model of Brzuska et al. (CRYPTO, LNCS 6841, pp 51–70, Springer 2011). In practice, this leads to insecure protocols when electrical PUFs with a medium challenge-length are used (e.g., 64 bits), or whenever optical PUFs are employed. These two PUF types are currently among the most popular designs of so-called Strong PUFs. Secondly, we show that the same attack applies to a recent OT protocol of Ostrovsky et al. (IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch. 2012:143, 2012), leading to exactly the same consequences. Finally, we discuss countermeasures. We present a new OT protocol with better security properties, which utilizes interactive hashing as a substep and is based on an earlier protocol by Rührmair (TRUST, LNCS 6101, pp 430–440, Springer 2010). We then closely analyze its properties, including its security, security amplification, and practicality

Physically Uncloneable Functions in the Stand-Alone and Universally Composable Framework

In this thesis, we investigate the possibility of basing cryptographic primitives on Physically Uncloneable Functions (PUF). A PUF is a piece of hardware that can be seen as a source of randomness. When a PUF is evaluated on a physical stimulus, it answers with a noisy output. PUFs are unpredictable such that even if a chosen stimulus is given, it should be infeasible to predict the corresponding output without physically evaluating the PUF. Furthermore, PUFs are uncloneable, which means that even if all components of the system are known, it is computational infeasible to model their behavior. In the course of this dissertation, we discuss PUFs in the context of their implementation, their mathematical description, as well as their usage as a cryptographic primitive and in cryptographic protocols. We first give an overview of the most prominent PUF constructions in order to derive subsequently an appropriate mathematical PUF model. It turns out that this is a non- trivial task, because it is not certain which common security properties are generally necessary and achievable due to the numerous PUF implementations. Next, we consider PUFs in security applications. Due to the properties of PUFs, these hardware tokens are good to build authentication protocols that rely on challenge/response pairs. If the number of potential PUF-based challenge/response pairs is large enough, an adversary cannot measure all PUF responses. Therefore, the at- tacker will most likely not be able to answer the challenge of the issuing party even if he had physical access to the PUF for a short time. However, we show that some of the previously suggested protocols are not fully secure in the attacker model where the adversary has physical control of the PUF and the corresponding reader during a short time. Finally, we analyze PUFs in the universally composable (UC) framework for the first time. Although hardware tokens have been considered before in the UC framework, designing PUF-based protocols is fundamentally different from other hardware token approaches. One reason is that the manufacturer of the PUF creates a physical object that outputs pseudorandom values, but where no specific code is running. In fact, the functional behavior of the PUF is unpredictable even for the PUF creator. Thus, only the party in possession of the PUF has full access to the secrets. After formalizing PUFs in the UC framework, we derive efficient UC-secure protocols for basic tasks like oblivious transfer, commitments, and key exchange

Physical Unclonable Functions in Cryptographic Protocols: Security Proofs and Impossibility Results

We investigate the power of physical unclonable functions (PUFs) as a new primitive in cryptographic protocols. Our contributions split into three parts. Firstly, we focus on the realizability of PUF-protocols in a special type of stand-alone setting (the “stand-alone, good PUF setting”) under minimal assumptions. We provide new PUF definitions that require only weak average security properties of the PUF, and prove that these definitions suffice to realize secure PUF-based oblivious transfer (OT), bit commitment (BC) and key exchange (KE) in said setting. Our protocols for OT, BC and KE are partly new, and have certain practicality and security advantages compared to existing schemes. In the second part of the paper, we formally prove that there are very sharp limits on the usability of PUFs for OT and KE {\em beyond} the above stand-alone, good PUF scenario. We introduce two new and realistic attack models, the so-called posterior access model (PAM) and the bad PUF model, and prove several impossibility results in these models. First, OT and KE protocols whose security is solely based on PUFs are generally impossible in the PAM. More precisely, one-time access of an adversary to the PUF after the end of a single protocol (sub-)session makes all previous (sub-)sessions provably insecure. Second, OT whose security is solely based on PUFs is impossible in the bad PUF model, even if only a stand alone execution of the protocol is considered (i.e., even if no adversarial PUF access after the protocol is allowed). Our impossibility proofs do not only hold for the weak PUF definition of the first part of the paper, but even apply if ideal randomness and unpredictability is assumed in the PUF, i.e., if the PUF is modeled as a random permutation oracle. In the third part, we investigate the feasibility of PUF-based bit commitment beyond the stand-alone, good PUF setting. For a number of reasons, this case is more complicated than OT and KE. We first prove that BC is impossible in the bad PUF model if players have got access to the PUF between the commit and the reveal phase. Again, this result holds even if the PUF is “ideal” and modeled as a random permutation oracle. Secondly, we sketch (without proof) two new BC-protocols, which can deal with bad PUFs or with adversarial access between the commit and reveal phase, but not with both. We hope that our results can contribute to a clarification of the usability of PUFs in cryptographic protocols. They show that new hardware properties such as offline certifiability and the erasure of PUF responses would be required in order to make PUFs a broadly applicable cryptographic tool. These features have not yet been realized in practical PUF-implementations and generally seem hard to achieve at low costs. Our findings also show that the question how PUFs can be modeled comprehensively in a UC-setting must be considered at least partly open

On the Security of PUF Protocols under Bad PUFs and PUFs-inside-PUFs Attacks

We continue investigations on the use of so-called Strong PUFs as a cryptographic primitive in realistic attack models, in particular in the “Bad/Malicious PUF Model”. We obtain the following results: – Bad PUFs and Simplification: As a minor contribution, we simplify a recent OT-protocol for malicious PUFs by Dachman-Soled et al. [4] from CRYPTO 2014. We can achieve the same security properties under the same assumptions, but use only one PUF instead of two. – PUFs-inside-PUFs, Part I: We propose the new, realistic adversarial models of PUF modifications and PUFs-inside-PUF attacks, and show that the earlier protocol of Dachman-Soled et al. [4] is vulnerable against PUFs-inside-PUFs attacks (which lie outside the original framework of [4]). – PUFs-inside-PUFs, Part II: We construct a new PUF-based OT-protocol, which is secure against PUFs-inside-PUFs attacks if the used bad PUFs are stateless. Our protocol introduces the technique of interleaved challenges. – PUFs-inside-PUFs, Part III: In this context, we illustrate why the use of interactive hashing in our new protocol appears necessary, and why a first protocol attempt without interactive hashing fails

The Limits of Composable Crypto with Transferable Setup Devices

UC security realized with setup devices imposes that single instances of these setups are used. In most cases, UC-realization relies further on other properties of the setups devices, like tamper-resistance. But what happens in stronger versions of the UC framework, like EUC or JUC, where multiple instances of these setups are allowed? Can we formalise what it is about setups like these which makes them sometimes hinder UC, JUC, EUC realizability? In this paper, we answer this question. As such, we formally introduce transferable setups, which can be viewed as setup devices that do not (publicly) disclose if they have been maliciously passed on. Further, we prove the general result that one cannot realize oblivious transfer (OT) or any "interesting" 2-party protocol using transferable setups in the EUC model. As a by-product, we show that physically unclonable functions (PUFs) themselves are transferable devices, which means that one cannot use PUFs as a global setups; this is interesting because non-transferability is a weaker requirement than locality, which until now was the property informally blamed for UC-impossibility results regarding PUFs as global setups. If setups are transferable (i.e., they can be passed on from one party to another without explicit disclosure of a malicious transfer), then they will not intrinsically leak if a relay attack takes place. Indeed, we further prove that if relay attacks are possible then oblivious transfer cannot be realized in the JUC model. Linked to the prevention of relaying, authenticated channels have historically been an essential building stone of the UC model. Related to this, we show how to strengthen some existing protocols UC-realized with PUFs, and render them not only UC-secure but also JUC-secure

PUF Modeling Attacks on Simulated and Silicon Data

We discuss numerical modeling attacks on several proposed strong physical unclonable functions (PUFs). Given a set of challenge-response pairs (CRPs) of a Strong PUF, the goal of our attacks is to construct a computer algorithm which behaves indistinguishably from the original PUF on almost all CRPs. If successful, this algorithm can subsequently impersonate the Strong PUF, and can be cloned and distributed arbitrarily. It breaks the security of any applications that rest on the Strong PUF's unpredictability and physical unclonability. Our method is less relevant for other PUF types such as Weak PUFs. The Strong PUFs that we could attack successfully include standard Arbiter PUFs of essentially arbitrary sizes, and XOR Arbiter PUFs, Lightweight Secure PUFs, and Feed-Forward Arbiter PUFs up to certain sizes and complexities. We also investigate the hardness of certain Ring Oscillator PUF architectures in typical Strong PUF applications. Our attacks are based upon various machine learning techniques, including a specially tailored variant of logistic regression and evolution strategies. Our results are mostly obtained on CRPs from numerical simulations that use established digital models of the respective PUFs. For a subset of the considered PUFs-namely standard Arbiter PUFs and XOR Arbiter PUFs-we also lead proofs of concept on silicon data from both FPGAs and ASICs. Over four million silicon CRPs are used in this process. The performance on silicon CRPs is very close to simulated CRPs, confirming a conjecture from earlier versions of this work. Our findings lead to new design requirements for secure electrical Strong PUFs, and will be useful to PUF designers and attackers alike.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CNS 0923313)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CNS 0964641

Optical PUFs Reloaded

We revisit optical physical unclonable functions (PUFs), which were proposed by Pappu et al. in their seminal first publication on PUFs [40, 41]. The first part of the paper treats non-integrated optical PUFs. Their security against modeling attacks is analyzed, and we discuss new image transformations that maximize the PUF’s out- put entropy while possessing similar error correction capacities as previous approaches [40, 41]. Furthermore, the influence of us- ing more than one laser beam, varying laser diameters, and smaller scatterer sizes is systematically studied. Our findings enable the simple enhancement of an optical PUF’s security without addi- tional hardware costs. Next, we discuss the novel application of non-integrated optical PUFs as so-called “Certifiable PUFs”. The latter are useful to achieve practical security in advanced PUF-pro- tocols, as recently observed by Rührmair and van Dijk at Oakland 2013 [48]. Our technique is the first mechanism for Certifiable PUFs in the literature, answering an open problem posed in [48]. In the second part of the paper, we turn to integrated optical PUFs. We build the first prototype of an integrated optical PUF that functions without moving components and investigate its se- curity. We show that these PUFs can surprisingly be attacked by machine learning techniques if the employed scattering structure is linear, and if the raw interference images of the PUF are available to the adversary. Our result enforces the use of non-linear scattering structures within integrated PUFs. The quest for suitable materials is identified as a central, but currently open research problem. Our work makes intensive use of two prototypes of optical PUFs. The presented integratable optical PUF prototype is, to our knowledge, the first of its kind in the literature

Secret-free security: a survey and tutorial

Classical keys, i.e., secret keys stored permanently in digital form in nonvolatile memory, appear indispensable in modern computer security-but also constitute an obvious attack target in any hardware containing them. This contradiction has led to perpetual battle between key extractors and key protectors over the decades. It is long known that physical unclonable functions (PUFs) can at least partially overcome this issue, since they enable secure hardware without the above classical keys. Unfortunately, recent research revealed that many standard PUFs still contain other types of secrets deeper in their physical structure, whose disclosure to adversaries breaks security as well: Examples include the manufacturing variations in SRAM PUFs, the power-up states of SRAM PUFs, or the signal delays in Arbiter PUFs. Most of these secrets have already been extracted in viable attacks in the past, breaking PUF-security in practice. A second generation of physical security primitives now shows potential to resolve this remaining problem, however. In certain applications, so-called Complex PUFs, SIMPLs/PPUFs, and UNOs are able to realize not just hardware that is free of classical keys in the above sense, but completely secret-free instead. In the resulting hardware systems, adversaries could hypothetically be allowed to inspect every bit and every atom, and learn any information present in any form in the system, without being able to break security. Secret-free hardware would hence promise to be innately and permanently immune against any physical or malware-based key-extraction: There simply is no security-critical information to extract anymore. Our survey and tutorial paper takes the described situation as starting point, and categorizes, formalizes, and overviews the recently evolving area of secret-free security. We propose the attempt of making hardware completely secret-free as promising endeavor in future hardware designs, at least in those application scenarios where this is logically possible. In others, we suggest that secret-free techniques could be combined with standard PUFs and classical methods to construct hybrid systems with notably reduced attack surfaces

Combined Modeling and Side Channel Attacks on Strong PUFs

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) have established themselves in the scientific literature, and are also gaining ground in commercial applications. Recently, however, several attacks on PUF core properties have been reported. They concern their physical and digital unclonability, as well as their assumed resilience against invasive or side channel attacks. In this paper, we join some of these techniques in order to further improve their effectiveness. The combination of machine-learning based modeling techniques with side channel information allows us to attack so-called XOR Arbiter PUFs and Lightweight PUFs up to a size and complexity that was previously out of reach. For Lightweight PUFs, for example, we report successful attacks for bitlengths of 64, 128 and 256, and for up to nine single Arbiter PUFs whose output is XORed. Previous work at CCS 2010 and IEEE TIFS 2013, which provides the currently most efficient modeling results, had only been able to attack this structure for up to five XORs and bitlength 64. Our attack employs the first power side channel (PSC) for Strong PUFs in the literature. This PSC tells the attacker the number of single Arbiter PUF within an XOR Arbiter PUF or Lightweight PUF architecture that are zero or one. This PSC is of little value if taken by itself, but strongly improves an attacker’s capacity if suitably combined with modeling techniques. At the end of the paper, we discuss efficient and simple countermeasures against this PSC, which could be used to secure future PUF generations