We propose a new UKS attack, which coerces two entities A and B into sharing a key with each other but in fact A thinks that she is sharing the key with another entity C and B thinks that he is sharing the key with another entity D, where C and D might or might not be the same entity. We call this attack a Bilateral Unknown Key-Share(BUKS) attack and refer to the existing UKS attacks, which are against one entity only, as a Unilateral UKS (UUKS) attack. We demonstrate that a few well-known authenticated key agreement protocols, some of which have been proved holding the UUKS resilience property, are vulnerable to the BUKS attack. We then explore a gap between the traditional BR-type proof of UUKS resilience and a BUKS adversary's behaviour, and extend the BR model to cover the BUKS resilience attribute. Finally we provide a simple countermeasure to prevent a key agreement protocol from BUKS attacks.
Category / Keywords: cryptographic protocols / authenticated key agreement, bilateral unknown key-share resilience Date: received 1 Jun 2007 Contact author: liqun chen at hp com Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation Version: 20070605:064237 (All versions of this report) Short URL: ia.cr/2007/209 Discussion forum: Show discussion | Start new discussion