Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Lightweight Formal Approach for Analyzing Security of Web Protocols

  • Conference paper
Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 8688))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Existing model checking tools for cryptographic protocol analysis have two drawbacks, when applied to present day web based protocols. Firstly, they require expertise in specialized formalisms which limits their use to a small fragment of scientific community. Secondly, they do not support common web constructs and attacks making the analysis both cumbersome as well as error-prone. In this paper, we propose a novel security analysis technique specialized for web protocols. We provide explicit support for common web mechanisms and an adversary capable of exploiting browser-based interaction. Our approach has two unique aspects. It represents the only tool built using a general purpose first-order logic based modeling language – Alloy – that can be used to analyze security of industrial strength web protocols. The other unique aspect is our use of an inference system that analyzes beliefs at honest participants to simplify the protocol model. Despite its simplicity, we demonstrate effectiveness of our approach through a case-study of SAML, where we identify a previously unknown vulnerability in its identity federation workflow.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Abadi, M., Blanchet, B.: Analyzing security protocols with secrecy types and logic programs. Journal of the ACM (JACM) 52(1), 102–146 (2005)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  2. Abadi, M., Fournet, C.: Mobile values, new names, and secure communication. In: Proceedings of the 28th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, pp. 104–115. ACM (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Abadi, M., Tuttle, M.: A semantics for a logic of authentication. In: Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, pp. 201–216. ACM (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Akhawe, D., Barth, A., Lam, P., Mitchell, J., Song, D.: Towards a formal foundation of web security. In: Proceedings of 23rd IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium, pp. 290–304. IEEE (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Armando, A., Carbone, R., Compagna, L., Cuellar, J., Tobarra, L.: Formal analysis of SAML 2.0 web browser single sign-on: Breaking the SAML-based single sign-on for Google Apps. In: Proceedings of the 6th ACM Workshop on Formal Methods in Security Engineering, pp. 1–10. ACM (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Armando, A., Compagna, L.: SATMC: A SAT-based model checker for security protocols. In: Alferes, J.J., Leite, J. (eds.) JELIA 2004. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3229, pp. 730–733. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Bansal, C., Bhargavan, K., Maffeis, S.: Discovering concrete attacks on website authorization by formal analysis. In: 2012 IEEE 25th Computer Security Foundations Symposium (CSF), pp. 247–262. IEEE (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Blanchet, B.: Automatic verification of correspondences for security protocols. Journal of Computer Security 17(4), 363–434 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Blanchet, B.: Using Horn clauses for analyzing security protocols. Formal Models and Techniques for Analyzing Security Protocols 5, 86–111 (2011)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. Blanchet, B., Abadi, M., Fournet, C.: Automated verification of selected equivalences for security protocols. Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming 75(1), 3–51 (2008)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. Blanchet, B., et al.: An efficient cryptographic protocol verifier based on Prolog rules. In: Proceedings of the 14th IEEE workshop on Computer Security Foundations, pp. 82–96 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Burrows, M., Abadi, M., Needham, R.: A logic of authentication. ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 8(1), 18–36 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Cantor, S., Kemp, I., Philpott, N., Maler, E.: Assertions and protocols for the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language V2.0. OASIS Standard (March 2005)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Cervesato, I., Durgin, N.A., Lincoln, P., Mitchell, J.C., Scedrov, A.: A meta-notation for protocol analysis. In: Proceedings of the 12th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop, pp. 55–69. IEEE (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Craigen, D., Saaltink, M.: Using EVES to analyze authentication protocols. Technical Report TR-96-5508-05, pp. 6–55 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Cremers, C.: Unbounded verification, falsification, and characterization of security protocols by pattern refinement. In: Proceedings of the 15th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pp. 119–128. ACM (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Cremers, C.J.F., Lafourcade, P., Nadeau, P.: Comparing state spaces in automatic security protocol analysis. In: Cortier, V., Kirchner, C., Okada, M., Sakurada, H. (eds.) Formal to Practical Security. LNCS, vol. 5458, pp. 70–94. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Dolev, D., Yao, A.: On the security of public key protocols. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 29(2), 198–208 (1983)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. Durgin, N., Lincoln, P., Mitchell, J., Scedrov, A.: Undecidability of bounded security protocols. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Formal Methods and Security Protocols (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Fábrega, F., Herzog, J., Guttman, J.: Strand spaces: Why is a security protocol correct? In: Proceedings of 1998 IEEE Symposium on Research in Security and Privacy, pp. 160–171. IEEE (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Hammer-Lahav, E., Recordon, D., Hardt, D.: The OAuth 2.0 authorization protocol. tools.ietf.org/html/ietf-oauth-v2-31, 8 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Jackson, D.: Alloy: A lightweight object modelling notation. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) 11(2), 256–290 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Kindred, D., Wing, J.: Fast, automatic checking of security protocols. In: Proceedings of 2nd Workshop on Electronic Commerce, pp. 41–52. USENIX (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Kumar, A.: Model driven security analysis of IDaaS protocols. In: Kappel, G., Maamar, Z., Motahari-Nezhad, H.R. (eds.) ICSOC 2011. LNCS, vol. 7084, pp. 312–327. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Kumar, A.: Using automated model analysis for reasoning about security of web protocols. In: Proceedings of 28th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, ACSAC 2012, pp. 289–298 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Nessett, D.: A critique of the Burrows, Abadi and Needham logic. ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review 24(2), 35–38 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Recordon, D., Reed, D.: OpenID 2.0: A platform for user-centric identity management. In: Proceedings of the Second ACM Workshop on Digital Identity Management, pp. 11–16. ACM (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Schumann, J.: Automatic verification of cryptographic protocols with SETHEO. In: McCune, W. (ed.) CADE 1997. LNCS, vol. 1249, pp. 87–100. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Song, D., Berezin, S., Perrig, A.: Athena: A novel approach to efficient automatic security protocol analysis. Journal of Computer Security 9(1/2), 47–74 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Syverson, P., Van Oorschot, P.: On unifying some cryptographic protocol logics. In: Proceedings of 1994 IEEE Symposium on Research in Security and Privacy, pp. 14–28. IEEE (1994)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IBM Research-India, 4, Block C, Vasant Kunj Institutional Area, New Delhi, India, 110070

    Apurva Kumar

Authors
  1. Apurva Kumar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Angelos Stavrou

  2. VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Herbert Bos

  3. Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ, USA

    Georgios Portokalidis

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Kumar, A. (2014). A Lightweight Formal Approach for Analyzing Security of Web Protocols. In: Stavrou, A., Bos, H., Portokalidis, G. (eds) Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses. RAID 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8688. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11379-1_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11379-1_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-11378-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-11379-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation