15-440 Distributed Systems

Fall 2016

L-23 Security

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 Today's Lecture

Internet security weaknesses

Establishing secure channels (Crypto 101)

Key distribution

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 What is “Internet Security” ?
Denial-of-Service

Password
Traffic Cracking
Worms & Viruses modification

Trojan Horse
DNS Poisoning
Phishing
Spyware
IP Spoofing

End-host Route Hijacks Traffic

impersonation Eavesdropping

Spam

Internet Security: Prevent bad things from happening on the internet!

 Internet Design Decisions:
(ie: how did we get here? )
Originas a small and cooperative network
( largely trusted infrastructure)

Global Addressing (every

sociopath is your next-door neighbor)

Connection-less datagram service

(can’t verify source, hard to protect
bandwidth)
 Internet Design Decisions:
(ie: how did we get here? )
Anyone can connect
 ( ANYONE can connect)

Millionsof hosts run nearly identical

software
 ( single exploit can create epidemic)

Most Internet users know about as much as

Senator Stevens aka “the tubes guy”
 ( God help us all…)
 Our “Narrow” Focus

Yes:
1) Creating a “secure channel” for
communication

Some:
2) Protecting resources and limiting
connectivity

No:
1) Preventing software vulnerabilities &
malware, or “social engineering”.
Secure Communication with an Untrusted
Infrastructure
Bob

ISP
ISPD
D
ISP
ISPBB

ISP
ISPCC
ISP
ISPA
A
Alice
 What do we need for a secure
communication channel?
Authentication (Who am I talking to?)

Confidentiality (Is my data hidden?)

Integrity (Has my data been modified?)

Availability (Can I reach the destination?)

 Example: Eavesdropping - Message
Interception (Attack on Confidentiality)
Mallory
Bob

ISP
ISPD
D
ISP
ISPBB

ISP
ISPCC
ISP
ISPA
A
Alice
Eavesdropping Attack: Example
tcpdump with promiscuous network
interface
 On a switched network, what can you see?

What might the following traffic types reveal

about communications?
 Full IP packets with unencrypted data
 Full IP packets with encrypted payloads
 Just DNS lookups (and replies)

slide derived from original by Nick Feamster

 Authenticity Attack - Fabrication

ISP
ISPD
D
ISP
ISPBB

ISP
ISPCC
ISP
ISPA
A
Alice
Hello, I’m
“Bob”
 Integrity Attack - Tampering
Stop the flow of the message
Delay and optionally modify the message
Release the message again

Alice Bob

Perpetrator

slide derived from original by Nick Feamster

 Attack on Availability
Destroy hardware (cutting fiber) or software
Modify software in a subtle way
Corrupt packets in transit

Alice Bob

Blatant denial of service (DoS):

 Crashing the server
 Overwhelm the server (use up its resource)

slide derived from original by Nick Feamster

 Example: Web access
Alice wants to connect to her bank to
transfer some money...
Alice wants to know ...
 that she’s really connected to her bank. Authentication
 That nobody can observe her financial data Confidentiality
 That nobody can modify her request Integrity
 That nobody can steal her money! (A mix)
The bank wants to know ...
 That Alice is really Alice (or is authorized to act for
Alice)
 The same privacy things that Alice wants so they
don’t get sued or fined by the government.

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 Today's Lecture

Internet security weaknesses

Crypto 101

Key distribution

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 Cryptography As a Tool
Using cryptography securely is not simple
Designing cryptographic schemes correctly
is near impossible.

Today we want to give you an idea of what

can be done with cryptography.
Take a security course if you think you may
use it in the future (e.g. 18-487)
 Well...
What tools do we have at hand?

Hashing
 e.g., SHA-1

Secret-key cryptography, aka symmetric

key.
 e.g., AES

Public-key cryptography
 e.g., RSA
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 Secret Key Cryptography
Given a key k and a message m
 Two functions: Encryption (E), decryption (D)
 ciphertext c = E(k, m)
 plaintext m = D(k, c)
 Both use the same key k.

Hello,Bob
“secure” channel
Alice Bob.com
knows K knows K

But... how does that help with authentication?

They both have to know a pre-shared key K before they start!

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Symmetric Key: Confidentiality
Motivating Example:
You and a friend share a key K of L random
bits, and a message M also L bits long.
Scheme:
You send her the xor(M,K) and then they
“decrypt” using xor(M,K) again.

1) Do you get the right message to your friend?

2) Can an adversary recover the message M?
Symmetric Key: Confidentiality

 One-time Pad (OTP) is secure but usually

impractical
 Key is as long at the message
 Keys cannot be reused (why?)

In practice, two types of ciphers are

used that require only constant key
length:

Stream Block Ciphers:

Ciphers: Ex: DES, AES,
Ex: RC4, A5 Blowfish
 Symmetric Key: Confidentiality
Stream Ciphers (ex: RC4)

Alice: PRNG Pseudo-Random stream of L bits

K XOR
A-B
Message of Length L bits

=
Encrypted Ciphertext

Bob uses KA-B as PRNG seed, and XORs encrypted

text to get the message back (just like OTP).
Symmetric Key: Confidentiality
 Block Ciphers (ex: AES)
Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 Block 4 (fixed block size,
e.g. 128 bits)

Round Round Round

#1 #2 #n

Alice:
K A-B

Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 Block 4

Bob breaks the ciphertext into blocks, feeds it

through decryption engine using KA-B to recover
the message.
 Symmetric Key: Integrity

 Background: Hash Function Properties

 Consistent hash(X) always yields same result

 One-way given X, can’t find Y s.t. hash(Y) = X

 Collision resistant given hash(W) = Z, can’t find X such

that hash(X) = Z

Hash Fn Fixed Size

Message of arbitrary length Hash
 Symmetric Key: Integrity

Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC)

Hash Fn
Step #1:
Message
Alice creates MAC
MAC
K A-B

Alice Transmits Message &

Step Step #3
MAC
#2 Bob computes MAC with
message and KA-B to
MAC Message
verify.

Why is this secure from a message

integrity perspective? How do
properties of a hash function help us?
Symmetric Key: Authentication

You already know how to do this!

(hint: think about how we showed
integrity)

Hash Fn
I am Bob
A43FF234

K A-B

Wrong!
Alice receives the hash, computes a hash with KA-B ,
and she knows the sender is Bob
Symmetric Key: Authentication
What if Mallory overhears the hash sent by
Bob, and then “replays” it later?

ISP
ISPD
D
ISP
ISPBB

ISP
ISPCC
ISP
ISPA
A Hello, I’m
Bob. Here’s
A43FF234
the hash to
“prove” it
 Symmetric Key: Authentication

A “Nonce”
 A random bitstring used only once. Alice sends nonce to
Bob as a “challenge”. Bob Replies with “fresh” MAC result.

Nonce

Alice Bob

Hash
Nonce
B4FE64

B4FE64 K A-B
Performs same
hash with KA-B
and compares
results
 Symmetric Key: Authentication

A “Nonce”
 A random bitstring used only once. Alice sends nonce to
Bob as a “challenge”. Bob Replies with “fresh” MAC result.

Nonce ?!?!

Alice
Mallory
If Alice sends Mallory a nonce,
she cannot compute the
corresponding MAC without K A-B
Symmetric Key Crypto Review

Confidentiality: Stream & Block Ciphers

Integrity: HMAC
Authentication: HMAC and Nonce

Questions??

Are we done? Not Really:

1)Number of keys scales as O(n2)
2)How to securely share keys in the first
place?
 Asymmetric Key Crypto:
Instead of shared keys, each person has a
“key pair”
KB Bob’s public key
Bob’s private
K B
-1
key

The keys are inverses, so: KB-1 (KB (m)) = m

Asymmetric/Public Key Crypto:
Given a key k and a message m
 Two functions: Encryption (E), decryption (D)
 ciphertext c = E(KB, m)
 plaintext m = D(KB-1 , c)
 Encryption and decryption use different keys!

Hello,Bob
“secure” channel
Alice Bob.com
Knows KB Knows KB, KB-1

But how does Alice know that KB means “Bob”?

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 Asymmetric Key Crypto:

 It is believed to be computationally
unfeasible to derive KB-1 from KB or to
find any way to get M from KB(M) other
than using KB-1 .

KB can safely be made public.

Note: We will not detail the computation that KB(m) entails,

but rather treat these functions as black boxes with the
desired properties. (more details in the book).
Asymmetric Key: Confidentiality

KB Bob’s public key

KB-1 Bob’s private key

encryption ciphertext decryption plaintext message

algorithm algorithm
KB (m) m = KB-1 (KB (m))
 Asymmetric Key: Sign & Verify
 If we are given a message M, and a
value S such that KB(S) = M, what can
we conclude?
 The message must be from Bob, because it
must be the case that S = KB-1(M), and only
Bob has KB-1 !
 This gives us two primitives:
 Sign (M) = KB-1(M) = Signature S
 Verify (S, M) = test( KB(S) == M )
 Asymmetric Key: Integrity &
Authentication
We can use Sign() and Verify() in a similar
manner as our HMAC in symmetric schemes.

S = Sign(M) Message M
Integrity:

Receiver must only check Verify(M, S)

Nonce
Authentication:
S = Sign(Nonce)
Verify(Nonce, S)
 Asymmetric Key Review:
Confidentiality: Encrypt with Public Key of
Receiver
Integrity: Sign message with private key of
the sender
Authentication: Entity being authenticated
signs a nonce with private key, signature is
then verified with the public key

But, these operations are computationally

expensive*
 The Great Divide
Symmetric Crypto: Asymmetric
(Private key) Crypto:
Example: AES (Public key)
Example: RSA
Requires a pre-
shared secret Yes No
between
communicating
parties?

Overall speed of
cryptographic
operations
Fast Slow
 Today's Lecture

Internet security weaknesses

Crypto 101

Key distribution (cover on Thursday)

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