Verification Of Protocols Research Articles

LAPTAS: lightweight anonymous privacy-preserving three-factor authentication scheme for WSN-based IIoT

Nowadays, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are essential for monitoring and data collection in many industrial environments. Industrial environments are usually huge. The distances between the devices located in them can be vast; in this case, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) leads to greater productivity and efficiency of industries. Furthermore, the sensor devices in IIoT have limited memory and constrained processing power, and using gateway nodes is inevitable to cover these vast areas and manage communications between industrial sensors. Security threats such as compromised devices, denial of service, and leakage of confidential information can incur hefty expenses and irreparable damage to industrial systems. Hence, in the IIoT hierarchical architecture, anonymous and mutual authentication between users, gateway nodes, and sensor nodes is essential to protect users and the system’s security and privacy. In this article, we propose a lightweight anonymous privacy-preserving three-factor authentication scheme for WSN-Based IIoT (LAPTAS). In LAPTAS, registered users can use their security smartcard to communicate with sensors and access their data. Moreover, the proposed scheme supports sensor node dynamic registration, password and biometric change, and revocation phase. Additionally, we evaluate and verify our scheme’s security formally using the Real-or-Random model and informally with the automatic cryptographic Protocol Verifier tool(ProVerif). Finally, our scheme is simulated by the OPNET network simulator and compared with other similar schemes to ensure that the LAPTAS meets all security and performance requirements.

Verification of HotStuff BFT Consensus Protocol With TLA+/TLC in an Industrial Setting

The extent of formal verification methods applied in industrial projects has always been limited. The proliferation of distributed ledger systems (DLS), also known as blockchain, is rapidly changing the situation. Since the main area of DLSs’ application is the automation of financial transactions, the properties of predictability and reliability are critical for implementing such systems. The actual behavior of the DLS is largely determined by the chosen consensus protocol, which properties require strict specification and formal verification. Formal specification and verification of the consensus protocol is necessary but not sufficient. It is also required to ensure that the software implementation of the DLS nodes complies with this protocol. Finally, the verified software implementation of the protocol must run on a fairly reliable operating system. The financial focus of DLS application has also led to the emergence of the so-called smart contracts, which are an important part of the applied implementations of specific business processes based on DLSs. Therefore, the verifiability of smart contracts is also a critical requirement for industrial DLSs. In this paper, we describe an ongoing industrial project between a large Russian airline and three universities – Innopolis University (IU), Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU). The main expected project result is a DLS for more flexible refueling of aircrafts, verified at least at the four technological levels described above. After brief project overview, we focus on our experience with the formal specification and verification of HotStuff, a leader-based fault-tolerant protocol that ensures reaching distributed consensus in the presence of Byzantine processes. The formal specification of the protocol is performed in the TLA+ language and then verified with a specialized TLC tool to verify models based on TLA+ specifications.

Оптимизация программ на ProVerif для криптографических протоколов выработки общего ключа

Cryptographic protocols are used to establish a secure connection between “honest” agents who communicate strictly in accordance with the rules of the protocol. In order to make sure that the designed cryptographic protocol is cryptographically strong, various software tools are usually used. However, an adequate specification of a cryptographic protocol is usually presented as a set of requirements for the sequences of transmitted messages, including the format of such messages. The fulfillment of all these requirements leads to the fact that the formal specification for a real cryptographic protocol becomes cumbersome, as a result of which it is difficult to analyze it by formal methods. One of such rapidly developing tools for formal verification of cryptographic protocols is ProVerif. A distinctive feature of the ProVerif tool is that with large protocols, it often fails to analyze them, i.e. it can neither prove the security of the protocol nor refute it. In such cases, they resort either to the approximation of the problem, or to equivalent transformations of the program model in the ProVerif language, simplifying the ProVerif model. In this article, we propose a way to simplify the ProVerif specifications for AKE protocols using the El Gamal encryption scheme. Namely, we suggest equivalent transformations that allow us to construct a ProVerif specification that simplifies the analysis of the specification for the ProVerif tool. Experimental results for the Needham-Schroeder and Yahalom cryptoprotocols show that such an approach can be promising for automatic verification of real protocols.

Formal verification of secondary authentication protocol for 5G secondary authentication

The Fifth-Generation mobile network (5G) will enable interconnectivity between the Home Network (HN) and Data Network (DN) whereby mobile users with their User Equipment (UE) will be able to access services provided by external Service Providers (SP) seamlessly. The mobile user and SP will rely on security assurances provided by authentication protocols used. For 5G, primary authentication between the UE and the HN has been defined and specified by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) while the secondary authentication has also been defined but not specified. 3GPP recommends the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) framework for secondary authentication between the UE and the SP. However, the secondary authentication methods have not been formally verified, so this paper proposes a Secondary Authentication Protocol (SAP) for service authentication and provides a comprehensive formal analysis using ProVerif a security protocol verifier. Finally, it conducts a security analysis on the protocol's security properties.

Formal verification of secondary authentication protocol for 5G secondary authentication

Formal verification of secondary authentication protocol for 5G secondary authentication

CoMAD: Context-Aware Mutual Authentication Protocol for Drone Networks

Drone technology is developing very rapidly. Flying devices accomplishing various applications are becoming an integral part of our daily life undoubtedly. Drones are characterized by extreme mobility, decent computing power, scalability, and a very short lifetime due to energy constraints. The rise of drones inevitably enabled swarms and drone networking applications. Drone networks is a path-breaking subclass of flying ad-hoc networks with unique capabilities and specific requirements. One very important challenge with swarms is the device authentication problem, in other words, proving the identity of a single or a group of drones that request to join the swarm. In this paper, we tackle this emerging problem and propose a novel context-aware mutual authentication protocol. The proposed protocol provides authentication for groups of drones and supports recovering a swarm in case of network separation. Likewise, the protocol can handle drone joins and leaves. Moreover, the protocol is not dependent on network infrastructure, secure storage, and secure channels. We tested the protocol using an automated formal security protocol verification tool, called Scyther. The tests resulted in the complete verification of the authentication and secrecy claims for arbitrary network instances and all defined use-cases. The protocol is also shown to have proven performance advantages over the existing schemes.

An Edge Assisted Secure Lightweight Authentication Technique for Safe Communication on the Internet of Drones Network

Security and privacy are among the most critical challenges on the internet of drones (IoD) network. The communication entities of the IoD network can communicate securely with the use of authenticated key agreement (AKA) based techniques. However, the design of such techniques must balance the tradeoff between security and lightweight features. Recently, Chen et al. proposed an authentication and key sharing scheme for IoD deployment. It is, however, realized after scrutiny that the proposed technique is vulnerable to security attacks under the well-accepted Canetti-Krawczyk (CK) adversary model. Moreover, the scheme applies to the IoD network with only one drones' flying zone. To solve these challenges, this paper proposed a secure lightweight proven authenticated key agreement (SLPAKA) technique for IoD deployment. The technique is free from all the problems identified in the scheme of Chen et al. To ensure the reliability of the SLPAKA, the security of the technique has been assessed from a theoretical method and formal way using the ProVerif cryptographic protocol verification tool. Apart from comparing the performance of SLPAKA with the benchmarking schemes in terms of security, computational cost, and communication cost, the SLPAKA and the technique proposed by Chen et al. are implemented using a python programming language to evaluate and compare their performance in terms of energy consumption and computational time metrics. The results show that the SLPAKA outperforms the technique of Chen et al. and all the other benchmarking techniques in terms of security and lightweight features.

Resource and timing aspects of security protocols

Protocol security verification is one of the best success stories of formal methods. However, some aspects important to protocol security, such as time and resources, are not covered by many formal models. While timing issues involve e.g., network delays and timeouts, resources such as memory, processing power, or network bandwidth are at the root of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks which have been a serious security concern. It is useful in practice and more challenging for formal protocol verification to determine whether a service is vulnerable not only to powerful intruders, but also to resource-bounded intruders that cannot generate or intercept arbitrarily large volumes of traffic. A refined Dolev–Yao intruder model is proposed, that can only consume at most some specified amount of resources in any given time window. Timed protocol theories that specify service resource usage during protocol execution are also proposed. It is shown that the proposed DoS problem is undecidable in general and is PSPACE-complete for the class of resource-bounded, balanced systems. Additionally, we describe a decidable fragment in the verification of the leakage problem for resource-sensitive timed protocol theories.

Security Analysis of Out‐of‐Band Device Pairing Protocols: A Survey

Numerous secure device pairing (SDP) protocols have been proposed to establish a secure communication between unidentified IoT devices that have no preshared security parameters due to the scalability requirements imposed by the ubiquitous nature of the IoT devices. In order to provide the most user‐friendly IoT services, the usability assessment has become the main requirement. Thus, the complete security analysis has been replaced by a sketch of a proof to partially validate the robustness of the proposal. The few existing formal or computational security verifications on the SDP schemes have been conducted based on the assessment of a wide variety of uniquely defined security properties. Therefore, the security comparison between these protocols is not feasible and there is a lack of a unified security analysis framework to assess these pairing techniques. In this paper, we survey a selection of secure device pairing proposals that have been formally or computationally verified. We present a systematic description of the protocol assumptions, the adopted verification model, and an assessment of the verification results. In addition, we normalize the used taxonomy in order to enhance the understanding of these security validations. Furthermore, we refine the adversary capabilities on the out‐of‐band channel by redefining the replay capability and by introducing a new notion of delay that is dependent on the protocol structure that is more adequate for the ad hoc pairing context. Also, we propose a classification of a number of out‐of‐band channels based on their security properties and under our refined adversary model. Our work motivates the future SDP protocol designer to conduct a formal or a computational security assessment to allow the comparability between these pairing techniques. Furthermore, it provides a realistic abstraction of the adversary capabilities on the out‐of‐band channel which improves the modeling of their security characteristics in the protocol verification tools.

An Efficient User Authentication and Session Key Agreement in Wireless Sensor Network Using Smart Card

Securely accessing the information from sensor nodes is the premier need and becomes the challenging area in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and internet of things environment (IoT). Consequently, keeping up the protection of shared information, authentication assumes a vital role. Where after the mutual authentication, it makes the agreement of the session key among the participants. In this regard, Kalra et al.’s proposed a mechanism for client authentication and session key agreement, and guaranteed, their scheme is highly secured against many possible and well-known threats. However, in this paper, it has been demonstrated that their scheme can suffer from sensor node capturing attack, leakage of gateway node’s secret key and also impractical for session key agreement. Further, an improved scheme has been proposed to conquer the security flaws of Kalra et al.’s scheme. In addition, to check the security properties and to prove the mutual authentication among the participant, the proposed scheme has been verified by ProVerif protocol verification tools. Finally, a comparative study with the other related schemes has also been defined to prove the efficiency of the proposed scheme.

WITHDRAWN: Multilevel authentication and key agreement protocol for D2D communication in LTE based C-IoT network

Abstract An increase in the number of wireless and C-IoT device increases the dependency on the cellular infrastructure. Further, the integration of cellular technologies with IoT leads to challenges like network insecurity and data integrity. Although LTE has very strong data security and authentication mechanism it is not suitable for interoperability in a heterogeneous network. This limitation can be overcome with the development of a multilayer adaptable security protocol. In this paper, we present a three-level LTE based C-IoT architecture and identify the security issues and solutions for this architecture. The proposed Multilevel Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol (ML-AKA) is developed to secure communication in a multilevel IoT architecture. This proposed protocol is authenticated and validated by the Automatic Validation of Internet Security Protocol Application (AVISPA) and Automatic Cryptography Protocol Verifier (ProVerif) tools. The simulation result shows that ML-AKA is secured against different forms of system attacks. In terms of communication overhead, ML-AKA is more efficient than other existing D2D security protocols.

InnoChain: a Distributed Ledger for Industry with Formal Verification on all Implementation Levels

The extent of formal verification methods applied to industrial projects has always been limited. The proliferation of distributed ledger systems (DLS), also known as blockchain, is rapidly changing the situation. Since the main area of DLSs' application is the automation of financial transactions, the properties of predictability and reliability are critical for implementing such systems. The actual behavior of the DLS is determined by the chosen consensus protocol, which properties require strict specification and formal verification. Formal specification and verification of the consensus protocol is necessary but not sufficient. It is required to ensure that the software implementation of the DLS nodes complies with this protocol. The verified software implementation of the protocol must run on a fairly reliable operating system. The so-called “smart contracts”, which are an important part of the applied implementations of specific business processes based on DLSs, must be verifiable as well. In this paper, we describe an ongoing industrial project that will result in a DLS verified at least at the four technological levels described above. We then share our experience with the formal specification and verification of HotStuff, a leader-based fault-tolerant protocol that ensures reaching distributed consensus in the presence of Byzantine processes.

Editorial for special issue on security, trust, and privacy in internet of things: Challenges and solutions

Editorial for special issue on security, trust, and privacy in internet of things: Challenges and solutions

Defect-Based Condition Assessment Model for Sewer Pipelines Using Fuzzy Hierarchical Evidential Reasoning

Assessing the condition of sewer pipelines is essential for addressing associated problems as a result of deterioration to maintain functionality and avoid additional social costs. This paper presents the development of a defect-based condition assessment model for sewer pipelines. The model aims to cover the structural, operational, and rehabilitation defects that are associated with the pipeline, joints, and maintenance holes on pipe segments. The analytic network process (ANP), which considers the interdependencies between pipeline components and defect types, was used to deduce the relative importance weights through questionnaires and interviews with infrastructure experts and professionals. The model employs the defects’ severities to develop fuzzy membership functions based on a predefined linguistic condition grading scale that would precisely indicate the degree of distress. Hierarchical evidential reasoning (HER) and the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory were used to integrate the defects’ conditions and to evaluate the overall condition of sewer pipelines, which is represented as a crisp value calculated by the weighted average defuzzification method. A validation dataset was used in the model validation and protocol verification. This model is expected to minimize the inaccuracy of sewer condition assessment through the application of severity, uncertainty mitigation, and robust aggregation. It could also benefit asset managers by providing a precise condition overview for maintenance, rehabilitation, and budget allocation purposes.

Universal Verification Methodology Based Verification of UART Protocol

Verification today acts as a constriction of any complex VLSI design. Bringing out improved verification efficiency is a must. Most of the computers and microcontrollers contain a number of serial data ports. These data ports are used to connect with devices such as keyboards and printers which are basically serial input and output devices. Transmission and reception of serial data from an isolated location can be done with the help of a modem connected to the serial port. UART- Universal Asynchronous Receiver and transmitter is a hardware device which facilitates serial transmission and reception of data. In this work presented here, the UART has been designed with the use of the industry standard Verilog HDL code and the verification of the protocol has been done using system Verilog code in UVM environment. The UVM based verification methodology can significantly reduce the time needed for verification.

UVM methodology based functional Verification of SPI Protocol

The scalability and complexity nature of the integrated circuit design makes the verification process more complicated and time-consuming. Therefore, in the present modern-day SOC’s there is a strong need for verification architectures with increased reusability and easy accessibility. The UVM methodology-based verification architecture with reusable components is one of the widely accepted test bench architectures for carrying out such functional verification. This paper presents a UVM methodology based functional verification of the SPI protocol core with a dedicated architecture. First the SPI core is modeled using Verilog RTL. Then using the reusable components in UVM + System Verilog environment, the SPI core is verified under two modes such as i) SPI communication with wishbone interface and ii) SPI Master-Slave communication.

Formal Verification and Performance Analysis of a New Data Exchange Protocol for Connected Vehicles

In this article, we focus on the usage of MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) within Connected Vehicles (CVs). Indeed, in the original version of MQTT protocol, the broker is responsible “only” for sending received data to subscribers; abstracting then the underlying mechanism of data exchange. However, within CVs context, subscribers (i.e., the processing infrastructure) may be overloaded with irrelevant data, in particular when the requirement is real or near real-time processing. To overcome this issue, we propose MQTT-CV; a new variant of MQTT protocol, in which the broker is able to perform local processing in order to reduce the workload at the infrastructure; i.e., filtering data before sending them. In this article, we first validate formally the correctness of MQTT-CV protocol (i.e., the three components of the proposed protocol are correctly interacting), through the use of Promela language and its system verification tool; the model checker SPIN. Secondly, using real-world data provided by our car manufacturer partner, we have conducted real implementation and experiments. The obtained results show the effectiveness of our approach in term of data workload reduction at the processing infrastructure. The mean improvement, besides the fact that it is dependent of the target application, was in general about 10 times less in comparison to native MQTT protocol.

IMSC-EIoTD: Identity Management and Secure Communication for Edge IoT Devices.

The Internet of things (IoT) will accommodate several billions of devices to the Internet to enhance human society as well as to improve the quality of living. A huge number of sensors, actuators, gateways, servers, and related end-user applications will be connected to the Internet. All these entities require identities to communicate with each other. The communicating devices may have mobility and currently, the only main identity solution is IP based identity management which is not suitable for the authentication and authorization of the heterogeneous IoT devices. Sometimes devices and applications need to communicate in real-time to make decisions within very short times. Most of the recently proposed solutions for identity management are cloud-based. Those cloud-based identity management solutions are not feasible for heterogeneous IoT devices. In this paper, we have proposed an edge-fog based decentralized identity management and authentication solution for IoT devices (IoTD) and edge IoT gateways (EIoTG). We have also presented a secure communication protocol for communication between edge IoT devices and edge IoT gateways. The proposed security protocols are verified using Scyther formal verification tool, which is a popular tool for automated verification of security protocols. The proposed model is specified using the PROMELA language. SPIN model checker is used to confirm the specification of the proposed model. The results show different message flows without any error.

Practical Approach in Verification of Security Systems Using Satisfiability Modulo Theories

Abstract The paper presents a novel method for the verification of security protocols’ (SPs)time properties. The new method uses a translation to satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) problem. In our approach, we model protocol users’ behaviours using networks of synchronized timed automata. Suitably specified correctness properties are defined as a reachability property of some chosen states in an automata network. Then, the network of timed automata and the property are translated to an SMT problem and checked using an SMT-solver and a BMC algorithm. We consider the most important time properties of protocol executions using specially constructed time conditions. The new method was also implemented and experimentally evaluated for six well-known SPs. We also compared our new SMT-based technique with the corresponding SAT-based approach.

Modelling and Verification of Real-Time Publish and Subscribe Protocol Using Uppaal and Simulink/Stateflow

Real-Time Publish and Subscribe (RTPS) protocol is a protocol for implementing message exchange over an unreliable transport in data distribution service (DDS). Formal modelling and verification of the protocol provide stronger guarantees of its correctness and efficiency than testing alone. In this paper, we build formal models for the RTPS protocol using Uppaal and Simulink/Stateflow. Modelling using Simulink/Stateflow allows analyzing the protocol through simulation, as well as generate executable code. Modelling using Uppaal allows us to verify properties of the model stated in TCTL (Timed Computation Tree Logic), as well as estimate its performance using statistical model checking. We further describe a procedure for translation from Stateflow to timed automata, where a subset of major features in Stateflow is supported, and prove the soundness statement that the Stateflow model is a refinement of the translated timed automata model. As a consequence, any property in a certain fragment of TCTL that we have verified for the timed automata model in Uppaal is preserved for the original Stateflow model.