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Authentication and Key Management Automation in Decentralized Secure Email and Messaging Via Low-Entropy Secrets

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Authentication and Key Management Automation in Decentralized Secure Email and Messaging Via Low-Entropy Secrets Authentication and Key Management Automation in Decentralized Secure Email and Messaging via Low-entropy Secrets Itzel Vazquez Sandoval1, Arash Atashpendar1;2 and Gabriele Lenzini1 1SnT, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg 2itrust Consulting, Luxembourg Keywords: Authentication, Key Management, Secure Email and Messaging, Password-Authenticated Key Exchange. Abstract: We revisit the problem of entity authentication in decentralized end-to-end encrypted email and secure messaging to propose a practical and self-sustaining cryptographic solution based on password-authenticated key exchange (PAKE). This not only allows users to authenticate each other via shared low-entropy secrets, e.g., memorable words, without a public key infrastructure or a trusted third party, but it also paves the way for automation and a series of cryptographic enhancements; improves security by minimizing the impact of human error and potentially improves usability. First, we study a few vulnerabilities in voice-based out-of-band authentication, in particular a combinatorial attack against lazy users, which we analyze in the context of a secure email solution. Next, we propose solving the problem of secure equality test using PAKE to achieve entity authentication and to establish a shared high-entropy secret key. Our solution lends itself to offline settings, compatible with the inherently asynchronous nature of email and modern messaging systems. The suggested approach enables enhancements in key management such as automated key renewal and future key pair authentications, multi-device synchronization, secure secret storage and retrieval, and the possibility of post-quantum security as well as facilitating forward secrecy and deniability in a primarily symmetric-key setting. We also discuss the use of auditable PAKEs for mitigating a class of online guess and abort attacks in authentication protocols. 1 INTRODUCTION long time, e.g., see (Ruoti et al., 2018). Over the years, several methods have been estab- The use of email and instant messaging (IM) has be- lished to tackle authentication, and indirectly key man- come pervasive and entrenched in the fabric of modern agement: manual validation, web of trust, public key communication. Thanks to cryptography, modern mes- infrastructure (PKI) and hierarchical validation, pub- saging tools have reached a considerable degree of lic key directories as well as server-derived public sophistication (e.g., Signal) and offer advanced secu- keys such as identity-based encryption (IBE). The set rity features ranging from end-to-end encryption to of viable candidates becomes much smaller once we forward secrecy and deniability. For these reasons, consider a decentralized setting, i.e., without a PKI coupled with better usability, although email has a or a trusted third party (TTP). For this scenario, the long history and remains undeniably popular with hun- body of work on key authentication contains hundreds dreds of billions of emails exchanged on a daily basis of works focusing on methods based on the use of (Clark et al., 2018), secure messaging has often been out-of-band (OOB) channels and short authentication recommended by security experts as the go-to tool for string (SAS) comparisons, see Section 1.1. However, secure communication. Yet, secure messaging and when it comes to schemes that rely on low-entropy email share two long-standing challenges, namely en- shared secrets, which is what we address here, the only tity authentication and key management. work that to the best of our knowledge proposes a so- The primary concern is entity authentication, lution is by (Alexander and Goldberg, 2007). They which invariably involves a mechanism that associates use a modified solution to the socialist millionaires’ some cryptographic material with an identity, e.g., pub- problem (SMP) by (Boudot et al., 2001), also known lic key authentication. Key management, affecting as secure equality test, for authentication in the off-the- email more acutely, is intertwined with authentication record messaging (OTR) protocol. and the need for automating it has been known for a Due to the required user interaction in most of 167 Vazquez Sandoval, I., Atashpendar, A. and Lenzini, G. Authentication and Key Management Automation in Decentralized Secure Email and Messaging via Low-entropy Secrets. DOI: 10.5220/0009834001670179 In Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications (ICETE 2020) - SECRYPT, pages 167-179 ISBN: 978-989-758-446-6 Copyright c 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved SECRYPT 2020 - 17th International Conference on Security and Cryptography these approaches, e.g., for verifying the authenticity of with a cryptographic protocol is the impact of fail- an interlocutor’s public key, usability plays a key role ures occurring in methods highly-dependent on user in achieving authentication. Reducing the gap between behavior, which could completely jeopardize security. security and usability, by finding optimal trade-offs, Our motivation for using PAKE—a method that has been a central theme for decades with a plethora does not seem to have enjoyed enough recognition of long-standing open problems, e.g., see (Unger et al., due to a lack of mature implementations, reluctance 2015; Clark et al., 2018). towards client side crypto, patent-encumbered designs Here we revisit the problem of authenticating pub- and perhaps even unawareness of its usefulness—is lic keys in a decentralized setting and propose a grounded not only in its independence from a PKI or user-friendly and robust approach based on password- a TTP, but also in its provision of a zero-knowledge authenticated key exchange (PAKE) to solve SMP via (ZK) solution for the secure equality test problem us- low-entropy secrets. These secrets are not expected to ing a low number of rounds, compatible with asyn- be sampled from a large, uniformly distributed space, chronous settings, and in the fact that it enables addi- but rather from a small set of values, e.g., typical tional cryptographic enhancements. human-memorable passwords or pin numbers. The We were also motivated by two open problems task of SMP boils down to two parties verifying equal- stressed by (Unger et al., 2015; Clark et al., 2018): ity of their inputs pA and pB in a zero-knowledge bridging the gap between known theoretical results manner such that by the end they learn nothing but the and real-world solutions, and the need for more robust boolean result of the test. By solving SMP via PAKE, authentication methods that also improve the trade- we also establish a shared cryptographically strong se- off between security and usability in secure solutions. cret key, making further cryptographic enhancements Finally, the need for addressing common challenges possible. Furthermore, this approach would not require such as key management automation and device syn- any understanding of cryptographic concepts from the chronization also spurred us on. user, e.g., knowing about public-keys and fingerprints. We also show how the suggested approach would Contributions and Structure. After a brief review not only work naturally in the context of secure mes- of the state-of-the-art in Section 1.1, we cover back- saging, but also in the inherently asynchronous set- ground concepts in Section 2. In Section 3, we focus ting of email. Apart from offering improved usability on a few vulnerabilities in the use of OOB channels properties and eliminating a host of vulnerabilities for authentication, including a partial preimage attack present in OOB-based protocols, as discussed in Sec- aimed at lazy users, which we analyze in the context of tion 3, we show how the PAKE-generated secret key the p≡p secure email solution. In Section 4, we present can be used to pave the path towards providing a se- an efficient PAKE-based solution for authentication in ries of enhancements in secure email and messaging. secure messaging and email via low-entropy secrets, These include inattentive user resistance, automated which enables further cryptographic enhancements. key renewal, automated future key pair authentication We provide a concrete illustrative scheme along with and multi-device synchronization, along with security an analysis of various PAKE constructions and proper- properties such as deniability, forward secrecy, post- ties relevant for our work. We show how our proposal quantum security, auditability for detecting guess and can be used to achieve additional cryptographic tasks abort attacks, secure secret storage and retrieval with and properties such as automation in key management applications in email and secure messaging. and key renewal, forward secrecy in a symmetric-key By applying PAKE to this problem, we advance setting, deniability, post-quantum security, secure se- the state-of-the-art in the use of shared low-entropy cret retrieval, and auditability for mitigating a certain secrets for entity authentication, an idea considered class of online guess and abort attacks. We briefly only in (Alexander and Goldberg, 2007). Also note analyze network transport mechanisms and security. that while SMP is a subproblem solved naturally by Section 5 concludes with remarks on future work. PAKE, the latter has not been applied to the problem of authenticating public keys in decentralized settings. 1.1 Related Work Motivation. Entity authentication in decentralized, The works of (Unger et al., 2015) and (Clark et al., non-PKI environments is generally brushed aside. So- 2018) provide extensive systematic surveys on se- lutions that do consider this problem typically rely on cure messaging and email covering numerous aspects. users correctly executing a manual comparison and We limit ourselves to the decentralized setting with- even tend to keep this feature rather hidden, e.g., Sig- out elaborating on the drawbacks of web of trust ap- nal. Our incentive for replacing OOB authentication proaches covered in the above mentioned works. 168 Authentication and Key Management Automation in Decentralized Secure Email and Messaging via Low-entropy Secrets The literature contains a sizeable body of work on cret keys, see (Krawczyk, 2010) for details.
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