Skip to main content

Understanding Abstractions of Secure Channels

  • Conference paper
Formal Aspects of Security and Trust (FAST 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 6561))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Many security architectures make use of layered security protocols, where a special-purpose application protocol is layered on top of a general-purpose secure transport protocol. When analysing such an architecture, it makes sense to abstract away from the implementation details of the secure transport protocol and just model the services it provides. But is this abstraction sound, or might it risk losing attacks? This is the question we consider in this paper. We show that —under certain assumptions— the abstraction is sound, in the sense that it correctly models the application-layer behaviour as seen by honest principals.

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

Access this chapter

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., Fournet, C., Gonthier, G.: Secure implementation of channel abstractions. In: Proceedings of Logic in Computer Science (LICS 1998), pp. 105–116 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Andova, S., Cremers, C., Gjøsteen, K., Mauw, S., Mjølsnes, S., Radomirović, S.: A framework for compositional verification of security protocols. Information and Computation 206, 425–459 (2008)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Armando, A., Carbone, R., Compagna, L.: LTL model checking for security protocols. In: 20th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  4. 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: The 6th ACM Workshop on Formal Methods in Security Engineering, FMSE 2008 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Bella, G., Longo, C., Paulson, L.C.: Verifying second-level security protocols. In: Basin, D., Wolff, B. (eds.) TPHOLs 2003. LNCS, vol. 2758, pp. 352–366. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Bugliesi, M., Focardi, R.: Language based secure communication. In: Proceedings of the 21st IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Canetti, R., Meadows, C., Syverson, P.F.: Environmental requirements for authentication protocols. In: Okada, M., Babu, C. S., Scedrov, A., Tokuda, H. (eds.) ISSS 2002. LNCS, vol. 2609, pp. 339–355. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Cortier, V., Delaitre, J., Delaune, S.: Safely composing security protocols. In: Arvind, V., Prasad, S. (eds.) FSTTCS 2007. LNCS, vol. 4855, pp. 352–363. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Ciobâcă, Ş., Cortier, V.: Protocol composition for arbitrary primitives. In: Proc. 23rd IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium, CSF 2010 (2010) (forthcoming)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Datta, A., Derek, A., Mitchell, J.C., Pavlovic, D.: Secure protocol composition. In: Proc. FMSE 2003, pp. 11–23 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Dilloway, C.: On the Specification and Analysis of Secure Transport Layers. DPhil thesis, Oxford University (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Dilloway, C., Lowe, G.: Specifying secure transport layers. In: 21st IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium, CSF 21 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Google. Web-based reference implementation of SAML-based SSO for Google Apps. (2008), http://code.google.com/apis/apps/sso/saml_reference_implementation_web.html

  14. Guttman, J.D.: Cryptographic protocol composition via the authentication tests. In: de Alfaro, L. (ed.) FOSSACS 2009. LNCS, vol. 5504, pp. 303–317. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  15. Guttman, J.D., Thayer, F.J.: Protocol independence through disjoint encryption. In: Proceedings of the 13th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop (CSFW), Washington, DC, USA. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Guttman, J.D., Thayer, F.J.: Authentication tests and the structure of bundles. Theoretical Computer Science (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Kamil, A.: The Modelling and Analysis of Layered Security Architectures in Strand Spaces. DPhil thesis, Oxford University (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Kamil, A., Lowe, G.: Specifying and modelling secure channels in strand spaces. In: Degano, P., Guttman, J.D. (eds.) FAST 2009. LNCS, vol. 5983, pp. 233–247. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Kamil, A., Lowe, G.: Analysing TLS in the strand spaces model (2010) (in preparation)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Kelsey, J., Schneier, B., Wagner, D.: Protocol interactions and the chosen protocol attack. In: International Workshop on Security Protocols (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Mödersheim, S., Viganò, L.: Secure pseudonymous channels. In: Backes, M., Ning, P. (eds.) ESORICS 2009. LNCS, vol. 5789, pp. 337–354. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. OASIS Security Services Technical Committee. Security assertion markup language (SAML) v2.0 technical overview (2005), http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/security/

  23. Roscoe, A.W.: The Theory and Practice of Concurrency. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Thayer, F.J., Herzog, J.C., Guttman, J.D.: Strand spaces: Why is a security protocol correct? In: IEEE Symposium on Research in Security and Privacy, pp. 160–171. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Thomas, S.: SSL and TLS: Securing the Web. Wiley, Chichester (2000)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Kamil, A., Lowe, G. (2011). Understanding Abstractions of Secure Channels. In: Degano, P., Etalle, S., Guttman, J. (eds) Formal Aspects of Security and Trust. FAST 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6561. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19751-2_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19751-2_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-19750-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-19751-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics