Substitution Attack Research Articles

A Blockchain‐Based Proxy Re‐Encryption Scheme With Cryptographic Reverse Firewall for IoV

ABSTRACTAs the internet of vehicles (IoV) technology develops, it promotes the intelligent interaction among vehicles, roadside units, and the environment. Nevertheless, it also brings vehicle information security challenges. In recent years, vehicle data sharing is suffering to algorithm substitution attacks (ASA), which means backdoor adversaries can carry out filtering attacks through data sharing. Therefore, this paper designs a blockchain‐based proxy re‐encryption (PRE) scheme with cryptographic reverse firewall (BIBPR‐CRF) for IoV. In our proposal, CRF can promise the internal safety of vehicle units. More specifically, it can prevent ASA attacks while ensuring chosen plaintext attack (CPA)‐security. Meanwhile, the PRE algorithm can provide the confidential sharing and secure operation of data. Moreover, we use a consortium blockchain service center (CBSC) to store the first ciphertext and re‐encrypt it with smart contracts on the blockchain, which can avoid single point of failure and achieve higher efficiency compared to proxy servers. Finally, we evaluate the performance of BIBPR‐CRF with regard to communication cost, computational cost, and energy consumption. Our proposal is the most fitting for IoV application, in contrast with the other three schemes.

Edwards curve digital signature algorithm for video integrity verification on blockchain framework

Within the field of forensic science, video integrity is an essential component that ensures the validity and dependability of visual evidence that is essential for court cases. Maintaining the integrity of justice in a time when digital modification tools are easily accessible requires making sure that video recordings are unaltered. Video footage is carefully inspected by forensic analysts who use advanced tools to look for indications of manipulation or change. This paper presents a novel, lightweight approach for verifying the integrity of video data. The proposed method utilizes the blockchain and the Edwards Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, coupled with the BLAKE2b hash function. Signatures are generated for video clips with a predetermined size called video segments and stored in blocks chronologically. The signature of the previous block is stored in the current block to add another layer of security. At the time of validation, these signatures are verified. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods in both speed and security. Our method is capable of identifying any type of forgery on any video file, by anyone, at any given moment, with insignificant additional storage requirements. Furthermore, our security analysis shows that our method is resilient against various types of attacks, including collision attacks, key substitution attacks, side-channel attacks, and chosen message attacks. The proposed lightweight video integrity verification method is better suited for use in resource constrained devices.

Substitution Attacks: A Catalyst to Reframe the DNA Manufacturing Cyberbiosecurity Landscape in the Age of Benchtop Synthesizers.

The advent of easy-to-use benchtop DNA synthesizers has ushered in a transformative era in biotechnology, extending the capabilities of DNA synthesis to nonspecialists. However, this revolution in access to this technology exposes several vulnerabilities, notably in the form of substitution attacks. These attacks exploit the intricate interplay between the digital domain of DNA sequences and the physical reality of synthesis instruments, posing substantial threats to biosecurity. This article delves deeply into the dynamic and multifaceted landscape of cyberbiosecurity, specifically emphasizing a novel attack vector that evades traditional screening algorithms. To achieve this, the article explores algorithmic approaches designed to screen DNA sequences, shedding light on the vulnerabilities exposed by substitution attacks and recontextualizing the cyberbiosecurity actor landscape in the context of the entire DNA manufacturing process. The exploration of cyberbiosecurity brings existing vulnerabilities in DNA screening algorithms to light and sets the stage for future research and policy considerations. By emphasizing opportunities for a comprehensive, multipronged approach rooted in end-to-end practical DNA manufacturing, this study provides a foundation for advancing both knowledge and strategies in the realm of cyberbiosecurity. This article serves as a clarion call for increased vigilance and innovation in navigating the intricate landscape of cyberbiosecurity. Effectively understanding and mitigating substitution attacks is necessary to safeguard the integrity of synthesized genetic material, particularly in the context of the democratization of DNA synthesis technology.

Efficient public-key searchable encryption against inside keyword guessing attacks for cloud storage

Cloud storage offers data users relief from cumbersome management tasks and enhances overall efficiency. However, while it brings convenience, there is also the risk of privacy breaches. To address this, public-key encryption with keyword search (PEKE) presents a solution that balances efficiency, convenience, and security in the context of cloud storage. Nevertheless, PEKS is vulnerable to inside keyword guessing attacks and algorithm substitution attacks, posing a serious threat to its deployment. Cryptographic reverse firewall technique randomizes incoming messages to effectively defend against both types of attacks mentioned earlier through a gateway. However, this approach requires the gateway to store a random number for each keyword, increasing storage costs and potentially exposing keyword information. In response, we propose an improved scheme that inherits the remarkable properties of the method based on cryptographic reverse firewall. Additionally, the proposed scheme eliminates the need for gateways to store random numbers, reducing the management and storage burdens and supports multiple keywords for one document, a feature more aligned with real-world applications. Furthermore, we prove the security of the scheme, which achieves the same security goals as the existing scheme. Finally, we analyze the scheme s efficiency through theoretical analysis and performance evaluation, which demonstrates its efficiency.

Cryptanalysis of Secure ECC-Based Three Factor Mutual Authentication Protocol for Telecare Medical Information System

Telecare Medical Information System (TMIS) is gaining importance in the present COVID-19 crisis. TMIS as a technology, offers patients a range of remote medical services, incorporated into Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). The patient’s medical report is confidentially transmitted over an open channel in TMIS environments. An attacker may attempt to compromise the security, such as forgery, replay, and impersonation attacks. To ensure secure communication, various authentication solutions have been introduced for TMIS. Biometrics and Elliptic Curve Cryptography-based mutual authentication protocol was recommended by Sahoo et al. in 2020 and is proved to have some loopholes in the protocol. We discovered, however, Sahoo et al. method is unable to prevent privileged insider attacks and insider attacks along with patient anonymity. Jongseok Ryu et al. recommended a ECC based three-factor mutual authentication protocol and ensures patient’s confidentiality for TMIS with proof of informal analysis. They have also performed formal security studies utilizing the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA), the Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic and Real-Or-Random (ROR) model. However, we have reviewed the Jongseok Ryu et al.’s proposal. Based on his attacker model, we have examined that this scheme is unsafe against Message Substitution Attacks, Man-in-the-Middle attacks, Session Key Disclosure attacks, Privileged Insider attacks, and Stolen verifier attacks. we suggest a technique to be safe from the above security threats.

Enhance the trust between IoT devices, mobile apps, and the cloud based on blockchain

The current IoT platform is vulnerable to remote device hijacking and substitution attacks, primarily due to weak authentication and authorization mechanisms between IoT devices, mobile apps, and the cloud. Such attacks can lead to privacy breaches and even threaten the safety of users’ lives and properties. Thus, ensuring the trustworthiness of IoT devices is crucial. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based trust management approach to enhance the trust between IoT devices, mobile apps, and the cloud. We have implemented our approach by combining Ethereum with a smart home solution to create a distributed trust management system for IoT devices. Our evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in detecting the above attacks, with acceptable performance.

A tamper-resistant timed secure data transmission protocol based on smart contract

Many time-sensitive scenarios need to decrypt data at a specified time. The timed-release encryption (TRE) primitive can meet this requirement. However, in the single-time server TRE model, there is a single point of failure problem. Therefore, we propose a tamper-resistant timed secure data transmission protocol based on smart contracts. Firstly, by decomposing the ciphertext into ciphertext fragments, the amount of deposit that a single middleman needs to submit is reduced. Secondly, it provides the system with security redundancy that changes with the decomposition mode. Thirdly, the sender is required to submit the hash value of each ciphertext fragment to the blockchain network at the same time as sending data, so that the receiver can quickly verify the authenticity of the ciphertext to resist substitution attack. Security analysis shows that the proposed protocol model can resist interruption attacks, release-ahead attacks and replacement attacks. Finally, we conduct a monetary cost test on the Ethereum’s Rinkeby test network. The results show that our running cost is almost double compared with the existing similar scheme, but it is still very low and almost negligible compared with the value of the content and the expected profits it brings.

Graph design for data authentication over insecure communication channel

Data authentication is a critical issue in communication systems. Based on data authentication techniques, the receiver can affirm that the data is really sent from an authentic sender and it is not a fabricated message from an opponent. One of the important techniques of data authentication is authentication codes. Authentication codes are utilized in communication channels in which there may be an opponent besides the sender and the receiver. This opponent may play both substitution attack or impersonation attack. Via an impersonation attack the opponent can transmit a message on the channel to the receiver and hopes that the receiver will take delivery of it as an authentic. Through the substitution attack we imply that once the opponent observes a message is sent by the sender, he substitutes that message with another one and expect that the receiver will accepted it as authentic. For each of those styles of attacks, there is an associated probability that the opponent will success to cheat the receiver. That are the probability of a successful impersonation attack P1 and the probability of a successful substitution attack P2. For more security of the communication system, it is far proposed to construct an authentication code with small values of P1 and P2. In this paper, we present an approach for design a graph message authentication code. This approach constructs a set of mutually orthogonal graph designs on a regular graph H by a graph G. Imposing certain conditions on H and G, we build a combinatorial design on H that yields to an authentication code with low probability of impersonation attack and of substitution attack. Moreover, we prove that such probabilities are related to the order of the graph H.

Subverting Telegram’s End-to-End Encryption

Telegram is a popular secure messaging service with third biggest user base as of 2021. In this paper, we analyze the security of Telegram’s end-to-end encryption (E2EE) protocol in presence of mass-surveillance. Specifically, we show >that Telegram’s E2EE protocol is susceptible to fairly efficient algorithm substitution attacks. While official Telegram clients should be protected against this type of attack due their open-source nature and reproducible builds, this could potentially lead to a very efficient state sponsored surveillance of private communications over Telegram, either on individuals through a targeted attack or massively through some compromised third-party clients. We provide an efficient algorithm substitution attack against MTProto2.0 — the underlying authenticated encryption scheme — that recovers significant amount of encryption key material with a very high probability with few queries and fairly low latency. This could potentially lead to a very efficient state sponsored surveillance of private communications over Telegram, either through a targeted attack or a compromised third-party app. Our attack exploits MTProto2.0’s degree of freedom in choosing the random padding length and padding value. Accordingly, we strongly recommend that Telegram should revise MTProto2.0’s padding methodology. In particular, we show that a minor change in the padding description of MTProto2.0 makes it subversion-resistant in most of the practical scenarios. As a side-effect, we generalize the underlying mode of operation in MTProto2.0, as MTProto-G, and show that this generalization is a multi-user secure deterministic authenticated encryption scheme.

RCCA-secure public-key encryption based on SM2

SM2 cryptographic algorithms have become vital in achieving independently controllable security for national networks and information systems. However, recent studies have shown that in a real-world implementation, the SM2 encryption algorithm might suffer from effective algorithm substitution attacks, which enable attackers to obtain the randomness used in the next-round encryption from the current ciphertext, and thus could decrypt all the successive ciphertexts without a decryption key. A cryptographic reverse firewall has been considered a useful tool to defend against such an attack by rerandomizing a ciphertext, which, however, is incompatible with the CCA security of the SM2 encryption algorithm. To tackle this problem, this work improves the SM2 encryption algorithm for Replayable-CCA (RCCA) security, which could offer a similar security guarantee as CCA while supporting ciphertext rerandomizability for using cryptographic reverse firewalls. The core idea is to apply the OAEP three-round design paradigm by Phan et al. to the context of the SM2 encryption algorithm and rigorously prove its RCCA security in the random oracle model. The proposed scheme is the first rerandomizable RCCA-secure public-key encryption scheme based on SM serial algorithms and could help enhance the security of the SM2 encryption algorithm in real-world applications.

Searchable Public-Key Encryption With Cryptographic Reverse Firewalls for Cloud Storage

In order to protect data privacy in cloud storage, sensitive data is encrypted before being uploaded to a cloud server. How to retrieve ciphertext safely and effectively has become a problem. Public key encryption with keyword search (PEKS) realizes the retrieval of ciphertexts in clouds without disclosing secret information. However, most PEKS protocols can not resist an keyword guessing attack (KGA) launched by untrusted cloud servers. Meanwhile, these protocols are unable to detect vulnerabilities, resulting in information leakage. In this paper, we design a searchable public-key encryption with cryptographic reverse firewalls (SPKE-CRF), and use the JPBC library to implement the protocol. Security analysis shows that the SPKE-CRF protocol can resist a chosen keyword attack (CKA), a KGA, and an algorithm substitution attack (ASA) without secure channels. Performance analysis shows that the SPKE-CRF protocol has a significant communication and computational cost advantage while being resistant to the KGA and ASA from malicious insider attackers in cloud environments. Therefore, our SPKE-CRF protocol is secure and efficient for cloud storage.

Blockchain-Based Data Acquisition with Privacy Protection in UAV Cluster Network

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) self-organizing network is composed of multiple UAVs with autonomous capabilities according to a certain structure and scale, which can quickly and accurately complete complex tasks such as path planning, situational awareness, and information transmission. Due to the openness of the network, the UAV cluster is more vulnerable to passive eavesdropping, active interference, and other attacks, which makes the system face serious security threats. This paper proposes a Blockchain-Based Data Acquisition (BDA) scheme with privacy protection to address the data privacy and identity authentication problems in the UAV-assisted data acquisition scenario. Each UAV cluster has an aggregate unmanned aerial vehicle (AGV) that can batch-verify the acquisition reports within its administrative domain. After successful verification, AGV adds its signcrypted ciphertext to the aggregation and uploads it to the blockchain for storage. There are two chains in the blockchain that store the public key information of registered entities and the aggregated reports, respectively. The security analysis shows that the BDA construction can protect the privacy and authenticity of acquisition data, and effectively resist a malicious key generation center and the public-key substitution attack. It also provides unforgeability to acquisition reports under the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem (ECDLP) assumption. The performance analysis demonstrates that compared with other schemes, the proposed BDA construction has lower computational complexity and is more suitable for the UAV cluster network with limited computing power and storage capacity.

Practical Algorithm Substitution Attacks on Real-World Public-Key Cryptosystems

Practical Algorithm Substitution Attacks on Real-World Public-Key Cryptosystems

ASCL: Adversarial supervised contrastive learning for defense against word substitution attacks

Attacks with adversarial examples can tremendously worsen the performance of deep neural networks (DNNs). Hence, defending against such adversarial attacks is crucial for nearly all DNN-based applications. Adversarial training is an effective and extensively adopted approach for increasing the robustness of DNNs in which benign examples and their adversarial counterparts are considered together in the training stage. However, this may result in a decrease in accuracy on benign examples because it does not account for the inter-class distance of benign examples. To overcome the aforementioned dilemma, we devise a novel defense approach named adversarial supervised contrastive learning (ASCL), which combines adversarial training with supervised contrastive learning to enhance the robustness of DNN-based models while maintaining their clean accuracy. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed ASCL approach in the scenario of defending against word substitution attacks by means of extensive experiments on benchmark tasks and datasets. The experimental results show that ASCL reduces the attack success rate to 20% while maintaining the accuracy for clean inputs within a 2% margin.

Design, Synthesis, and Biological Evaluations of Novel Azothiazoles Based on Thioamide.

Herein we studied the preparation of different thiazoles via the reaction of 2-(3,4-dimethoxybenzylidene)hydrazine-1-carbothioamide (1) with hydrazonoyl halides under base-catalyzed conditions. The reactions proceed through nucleophilic substitution attack at the halogen atom of the hydrazonoyl halides by the thiol nucleophile to form an S-alkylated intermediate. The latter intermediate undergoes cyclization by the loss of water to afford the final products. The structures of the azo compounds were confirmed by FTIR, MS, NMR, and elemental analyses. Indeed, the newly synthesized azo compounds were estimated for their potential anticancer activities by an MTT assay against different human cancer cells, such as lung adenocarcinoma (A549) and colorectal adenocarcinoma (DLD-1). The caspase-3 levels were also estimated using Western blotting and the dual staining technique to evaluate the potency of the titled compounds to promote apoptosis.

Algorithm substitution attacks against receivers

This work describes a class of Algorithm Substitution Attack (ASA) generically targeting the receiver of a communication between two parties. Our work provides a unified framework that applies to any scheme where a secret key is held by the receiver; in particular, message authentication schemes (MACs), authenticated encryption (AEAD) and public key encryption (PKE). Our unified framework brings together prior work targeting MAC schemes (FSE’19) and AEAD schemes (IMACC’19); we extend prior work by showing that public key encryption may also be targeted. ASAs were initially introduced by Bellare, Paterson and Rogaway in light of revelations concerning mass surveillance, as a novel attack class against the confidentiality of encryption schemes. Such an attack replaces one or more of the regular scheme algorithms with a subverted version that aims to reveal information to an adversary (engaged in mass surveillance), while remaining undetected by users. Previous work looking at ASAs against encryption schemes can be divided into two groups. ASAs against PKE schemes target key generation by creating subverted public keys that allow an adversary to recover the secret key. ASAs against symmetric encryption target the encryption algorithm and leak information through a subliminal channel in the ciphertexts. We present a new class of attack that targets the decryption algorithm of an encryption scheme for symmetric encryption and public key encryption, or the verification algorithm for an authentication scheme. We present a generic framework for subverting a cryptographic scheme between a sender and receiver, and show how a decryption oracle allows a subverter to create a subliminal channel which can be used to leak secret keys. We then show that the generic framework can be applied to authenticated encryption with associated data, message authentication schemes, public key encryption and KEM/DEM constructions. We consider practical considerations and specific conditions that apply for particular schemes, strengthening the generic approach. Furthermore, we show how the hybrid subversion of key generation and decryption algorithms can be used to amplify the effectiveness of our decryption attack. We argue that this attack represents an attractive opportunity for a mass surveillance adversary. Our work serves to refine the ASA model and contributes to a series of papers that raises awareness and understanding about what is possible with ASAs.

Backdoor-resistant identity-based proxy re-encryption for cloud-assisted wireless body area networks

The wireless body area network (WBAN) provides users with real-time medical services. Meanwhile, the cloud technology provides greater storage space and computing power for medical data. Both of them have contribute to the development of telemedicine. In a cloud-assisted WBAN, the open network environment and the semi-trust cloud service providers expose the user’s private medical data to backdoor adversaries who can make exfiltration attacks, such as the algorithm substitution attack (ASA) through the process of data sharing. Therefore, it is necessary to find a secure and efficient medical data sharing scheme for the huge amount of medical data. In this paper, we first design an identity-based proxy re-encryption scheme with cryptographic reverse firewall (IBPRE-CRF), then show the application in a multiple-access telemedicine data sharing scenario. Security analysis shows that the IBPRE-CRF scheme provides chosen plaintext attack security and resists exfiltration attacks. Performance analysis shows that the IBPRE-CRF scheme has a significant communication and computational cost advantage while being resistant to exfiltration attacks in clouds. Therefore, our IBPRE-CRF scheme is suitable for telemedicine data sharing in a cloud-assisted WBAN.

Unconditional Authentication Based on Physical Layer Offered Chain Key in Wireless Communication.

Authentication is a critical issue in wireless communication due to the impersonation and substitution attacks from the vulnerable air interface launched by the malicious node. There are currently two kinds of authentication research in wireless communication. One is based on cryptography and relies on computational complexity, the other is based on physical layer fingerprint and can not protect data integrity well. Both of these approaches will become insecure when facing attackers with infinite computing power. In this paper, we develop a wireless unconditional authentication framework based on one-time keys generated from wireless channel. The proposed unconditional authentication framework provides a new perspective to resist infinite computing power attackers. We study the performance of the unconditional authentication framework in this paper. First, a physical layer offered chain key (PHYLOCK) structure is proposed, which can provide one-time keys for unconditional authentication. The physical layer offered chain keys are generated by XORing the physical layer updated keys extracted from the current channel state information (CSI) and the previous chain keys. The security of PHYLOCK is analyzed from the perspective of information theory. Then, the boundary of the deception probability is conducted. It is shown that unconditional authentication can achieve a probability of deception , where is the entropy of the one-time key used for one message. Finally, the conditions for unconditional authentication are listed. Our analysis shows that the length of the key and the authentication code need to be twice the length of the message and the encoding rules of the authentication code need to satisfy the restrictions we listed.

Congruent dissolution of Al2O3 in a K-disilicate melt, with constraints on the reaction mechanism

High resolution O 1s X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) was employed to determine oxygen speciation in 31 mol% K2O silicate glass containing 0.0, 1.0 and 3.0 mol% dissolved Al2O3. Highly resolved bridging oxygen (BO) and non-bridging oxygen (NBO) peaks were observed. The NBO peak intensity decreased and the BO increased with dissolution of Al2O3. The enhanced BO intensity is localized at two binding energies (BE), one characteristic of a Si-O-Si moiety (e.g., quartz, or v-SiO2), the other of a Si-O-Al moiety (e.g., kyanite, Al2SiO5). The dissolution reaction proceeds in two steps; NBO− of a Q3 species attacks and bonds to an under-coordinated surface Al atom of crystalline Al2O3. The reaction produces a Si-O-Al surface species thus converting the attacking NBO to a BO and altering the reactant Q3 species to a Q4 product species:[Q3]−melt + [AlO1.5]surface → [Q4]0melt + [AlO2]−meltThe second step involves reaction of [AlO2]−melt with K+converting it from a modifier cation to a charge compensator, resulting in the polymerization reaction:[K-Q3]0melt + [AlO2]−melt → [Q4]0 + [KAlO2]0melt + 1/2O2−The stoichiometric reaction is the sum of the two:[Q3]−melt + [K-Q3]0melt + [AlO1.5]surface → 2[Q4]0 + [KAlO2]0melt + 1/2O2−Al species detached from the solid surface initially must be bonded to some NBO. Within the melt, nucleophilic substitution attack of the Al-bearing species by Q3 species converts NBO to BO, resulting in [KAlO2]melt being bonded four BOs. This reaction may not go to completion in all melts, depending on dissolved Al content and melt composition.

Practical algorithm substitution attack on extractable signatures

An algorithm substitution attack (ASA) can undermine the security of cryptographic primitives by subverting the original implementation. An ASA succeeds when it extracts secrets without being detected. To launch an ASA on signature schemes, existing studies often needed to collect signatures with successive indices to extract the signing key. However, collection with successive indices requires uninterrupted surveillance of the communication channel and a low transmission loss rate in practice. This hinders the practical implementation of current ASAs, thus causing users to misbelieve that the threat incurred by ASA is only theoretical and far from reality. In this study, we first classify a group of schemes called extractable signatures that achieve traditional security (unforgeability) by reductions ending with key extraction, thus demonstrating that there is a generic and practical approach for ASA with this class of signatures. Further, we present the implementation of ASAs in which only two signatures and no further requirements are needed for the extraction of widely used discrete log-based signatures such as DSA, Schnorr, and modified ElGamal signature schemes. Our attack presents a realistic threat to current signature applications, which can also be implemented in open and unstable environments such as vehicular ad hoc networks. Finally, we prove that the proposed ASA is undetectable against polynomial time detectors and physical timing analysis.