10,219 research outputs found
ZETA - Zero-Trust Authentication: Relying on Innate Human Ability, not Technology
Reliable authentication requires the devices and
channels involved in the process to be trustworthy; otherwise
authentication secrets can easily be compromised. Given the
unceasing efforts of attackers worldwide such trustworthiness
is increasingly not a given. A variety of technical solutions,
such as utilising multiple devices/channels and verification
protocols, has the potential to mitigate the threat of untrusted
communications to a certain extent. Yet such technical solutions
make two assumptions: (1) users have access to multiple
devices and (2) attackers will not resort to hacking the human,
using social engineering techniques. In this paper, we propose
and explore the potential of using human-based computation
instead of solely technical solutions to mitigate the threat of
untrusted devices and channels. ZeTA (Zero Trust Authentication
on untrusted channels) has the potential to allow people to
authenticate despite compromised channels or communications
and easily observed usage. Our contributions are threefold:
(1) We propose the ZeTA protocol with a formal definition
and security analysis that utilises semantics and human-based
computation to ameliorate the problem of untrusted devices
and channels. (2) We outline a security analysis to assess
the envisaged performance of the proposed authentication
protocol. (3) We report on a usability study that explores the
viability of relying on human computation in this context
GOTCHA Password Hackers!
We introduce GOTCHAs (Generating panOptic Turing Tests to Tell Computers and
Humans Apart) as a way of preventing automated offline dictionary attacks
against user selected passwords. A GOTCHA is a randomized puzzle generation
protocol, which involves interaction between a computer and a human.
Informally, a GOTCHA should satisfy two key properties: (1) The puzzles are
easy for the human to solve. (2) The puzzles are hard for a computer to solve
even if it has the random bits used by the computer to generate the final
puzzle --- unlike a CAPTCHA. Our main theorem demonstrates that GOTCHAs can be
used to mitigate the threat of offline dictionary attacks against passwords by
ensuring that a password cracker must receive constant feedback from a human
being while mounting an attack. Finally, we provide a candidate construction of
GOTCHAs based on Inkblot images. Our construction relies on the usability
assumption that users can recognize the phrases that they originally used to
describe each Inkblot image --- a much weaker usability assumption than
previous password systems based on Inkblots which required users to recall
their phrase exactly. We conduct a user study to evaluate the usability of our
GOTCHA construction. We also generate a GOTCHA challenge where we encourage
artificial intelligence and security researchers to try to crack several
passwords protected with our scheme.Comment: 2013 ACM Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Security (AISec
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Internet security for mobile computing
Mobile devices are now the most dominant computer platform. Every time a mobile web application accesses the internet, the end user’s data is susceptible to malicious attacks. For instance, when paying a bill at a store with NFC mobile payment, navigating through a city operating GPS on a smartphone, or dictating the temperature at a household with a home automation device. These activities seem routine, yet, when vulnerabilities are present they can leave holes for hackers to access bank accounts, pinpoint a user’s recent location, or tell when someone is not at home. The awareness of the end user cannot be trusted. Device vendors and developers must provide safeguards.
An ongoing issue is that the present security standards are outdated and were never envisioned with mobile devices in mind. It can be suggested that security is only idling the progress of mobile computing. Still, many application developers and IT professionals do not adopt security standards fast enough to keep up-to-date with known vulnerabilities.
The main goals of the next generation of security standards, TLS, will provide developers with greater security efficiency and improved mobile throughput. These proposed capabilities of the TLS protocol will streamline mobile computing into the forefront of security practices. The analysis of this report demonstrates concepts on the direction mobile security, usability, and performance from a development standpoint.Electrical and Computer Engineerin
A Trace Logic for Local Security Properties
We propose a new simple \emph{trace} logic that can be used to specify
\emph{local security properties}, i.e. security properties that refer to a
single participant of the protocol specification. Our technique allows a
protocol designer to provide a formal specification of the desired security
properties, and integrate it naturally into the design process of cryptographic
protocols. Furthermore, the logic can be used for formal verification. We
illustrate the utility of our technique by exposing new attacks on the well
studied protocol TMN.Comment: New versio
A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends
This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the
inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense
mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the
security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity,
confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive
overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in
view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats
are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing
security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless
network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term
evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in
physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open
communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer.
We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their
counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive
jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the
integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and
cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some
technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are
summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201
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