16,172 research outputs found
Very Low Cost Entropy Source Based on Chaotic Dynamics Retrofittable on Networked Devices to Prevent RNG Attacks
Good quality entropy sources are indispensable in most modern cryptographic
protocols. Unfortunately, many currently deployed networked devices do not
include them and may be vulnerable to Random Number Generator (RNG) attacks.
Since most of these systems allow firmware upgrades and have serial
communication facilities, the potential for retrofitting them with secure
hardware-based entropy sources exists. To this aim, very low-cost, robust, easy
to deploy solutions are required. Here, a retrofittable, sub 10$ entropy source
based on chaotic dynamics is illustrated, capable of a 32 kbit/s rate or more
and offering multiple serial communication options including USB, I2C, SPI or
USART. Operation is based on a loop built around the Analog to Digital
Converter (ADC) hosted on a standard microcontroller.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures. Pre-print from conference proceedings; IEEE 21th
International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems (ICECS 2014),
pp. 175-178, Dec. 201
ANCHOR: logically-centralized security for Software-Defined Networks
While the centralization of SDN brought advantages such as a faster pace of
innovation, it also disrupted some of the natural defenses of traditional
architectures against different threats. The literature on SDN has mostly been
concerned with the functional side, despite some specific works concerning
non-functional properties like 'security' or 'dependability'. Though addressing
the latter in an ad-hoc, piecemeal way, may work, it will most likely lead to
efficiency and effectiveness problems. We claim that the enforcement of
non-functional properties as a pillar of SDN robustness calls for a systemic
approach. As a general concept, we propose ANCHOR, a subsystem architecture
that promotes the logical centralization of non-functional properties. To show
the effectiveness of the concept, we focus on 'security' in this paper: we
identify the current security gaps in SDNs and we populate the architecture
middleware with the appropriate security mechanisms, in a global and consistent
manner. Essential security mechanisms provided by anchor include reliable
entropy and resilient pseudo-random generators, and protocols for secure
registration and association of SDN devices. We claim and justify in the paper
that centralizing such mechanisms is key for their effectiveness, by allowing
us to: define and enforce global policies for those properties; reduce the
complexity of controllers and forwarding devices; ensure higher levels of
robustness for critical services; foster interoperability of the non-functional
property enforcement mechanisms; and promote the security and resilience of the
architecture itself. We discuss design and implementation aspects, and we prove
and evaluate our algorithms and mechanisms, including the formalisation of the
main protocols and the verification of their core security properties using the
Tamarin prover.Comment: 42 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, 5 algorithms, 139 reference
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