Cryptographic Protocols

This course is part of the Security and Privacy MSc program of the EIT ICT Labs Master School.

Past years

2013 fall semster
2014 fall semster

Lecturer

Dr. Levente Buttyán, Associate Professor
BME Department of Networked Systems and Services,
Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS)

Course objectives

This course gives an overview of the basic building blocks used to engineer cryptographic protocols, and discusses in details the operation of mainstream cryptographic protocols used in wired and wireless computer networks. In particular, TLS and IPsec are covered, as well as security protocols in WiFi networks. We also study protocols used in emerging wireless networks, such as wireless sensor networks and RFID systems.

Assessment and Grading Procedures

Oral exam at the end. Solving the homework assignments as a perquisite. Final grade depends on both the exam and the result of the homework assignments (75-25%)

Schedule and room

Course outline and material

Recommended supplementary material

Important note: Currently, Avatao is available only for invited people. If you want to use Avatao to access hands-on challenges related to the course, please sign up at avatao.com. When signing up, please put the string "EIT Digital 2015" in the optional comment field in order for us to know that you are a student in the EIT Digital Master Program. We will then send you an invitation e-mail and you can complete the registration by following the instructions given in that e-mail.

• General:
  • N. Ferguson, B. Schneier, and T. Kohno, Cryptography Engineering, Wiley, 2010.
  • A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, and S. Vanstone, Handbook of Applied Cryptography, CRC Press, 1996.


• History of cryptography:
  • Reading:
    • Simon Singh, The Code Book
  • Avatao challenges:
    • Breaking the Nihilist historical cipher
    • Trithemius cipher
    • Four-Square game
  • Other:
    • The Imitation Game movie


• Symmetric key ciphers and block encryption modes:
  • Reading:
    • Lecture notes of Mihir Bellare on DES and AES
    • Wikipedia page on block encryption modes
    • Vaudenay's padding oracle attack on CBC
  • Avatao challenges:
    • (In)security by obscurity
    • Hide and Seek
    • One, two, buckle my shoe
    • Small is not always beautiful
    • A known attack against AES-CBC


• Cryptographic hash functions and message authentication codes:
  • Reading:
    • An overview of crypto hash functions and their applications
    • Wikipedia page on cryptographic hash functions
    • Wikipedia page on HMAC
  • Avatao challenges:
    • DM strengthening is indeed strengthening
    • Breaking a naive MAC construction


• Public-key cryptography:
  • Reading:
    • Twenty Years of Attacks on the RSA Cryptosystem
    • Chosen Ciphertext Attacks Against PKCS #1
    • A (relatively easy to understand) primer on elliptic curve cryptography
  • Avatao challenges:
    • RSA Prime Generation 4 da win!
    • Break the RSA!
    • Creating a fake certificate
    • PC master race


• Key exchange protocols:
  • Reading:
    • Programming Satan’s Computer
    • Prudent engineering practice for cryptographic protocols
    • Robustness principles for public-key protocols
    • A Logic of Authentication


• Password based key derivation and key exchange:
  • Reading:
    • PKCS#5: Password-Based Cryptography Specification
    • scrypt: Stronger Key Derivation Via Sequential Memory-Hard Functions
    • Encrypted Key Exchange: Password-based Protocols Secure Against Dictionary Attacks


• Random number generation:
  • Reading:
    • Cryptographic Random Numbers
    • Attacks on PRNGs
    • The Fortuna PRNG
  • Avatao challenges:
    • Exploiting a weak ANSI X9.17 PRNG
    • KriptoG (practice) -- Third part: Modern crypto


• Public Key Infrastructure:
  • Reading:
    • An intro by NIST from 2001
    • Google Certificate Transparency website and RFC
    • Berta István nagy e-szignó könyve*
    • Magyar Elektronikus Aláírás Törvény*
  • Other:
    • A Black Hat talk on user controlled certificate checking (Convergence)


• WiFi security:
  • Reading:
    • WEP weaknesses and attacks
    • FMS attack on RC4 in WEP
    • Attacks on WPA


• Transport Layer Security (TLS/SSL):
  • Reading:
    • Analysis of the SSL 3.0 protocol
    • A survey on SSL/TLS attacks
    • Breaking SSL/TLS protected passwords
    • Lucky 13 attack on TLS
    • BEAST attack on SSL
    • POODLE attack


• Security protocols for wireless sensor networks:
  • Reading:
    • LEAP: Efficient Security Mechanisms for Large Scale Distributed Sensor Networks
    • A Key-Management Scheme for Distributed Sensor Networks
    • Random Key Predistribution Schemes for Sensor Networks
    • Establishing Pairwise Keys in Distributed Sensor Networks
    • A Pairwise Key Pre-distribution Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks
    • SPINS: Security Protocols for Sensor Networks
    • Tinysec: A link layer security architecture for wireless sensor networks
    • MiniSec: A Secure Sensor Network Communication Architecture
    • Security Considerations for IEEE 802.15.4 Networks
    • Secure routing in wireless sensor networks: attacks and countermeasures
    • Packet leashes: a defense against wormhole attacks in wireless networks
    • Preventing Wormhole Attacks on Wireless Ad Hoc Networks: A Graph Theoretic Approach
    • Detecting Wormhole Attacks in Wireless Networks Using Connectivity Information
    • Statistical Wormhole Detection in Sensor Networks
    • SECTOR: Secure Tracking of Node Encounters in Multi-hop Wireless Networks


• Protocols for enhancing privacy:
  • Reading:
    • Anonymous communications with Tor
    • Private authentication with key-trees
    • Group based private authentication


• Targeted malware:
  • Reading:
    • Kim Zetter's book on Stuxnet
    • Kim Zetter's Wired article on Stuxnet
    • CrySyS Lab's paper on Duqu, Flame, and Gauss

Homework

• Homework:
  • description
  • schedule: assignement: Nov 20 | due date: Nov 30

Exams

• 2016.01.06., 13-14, IE.433
• 2016.01.13., 13-14, IE.433