Paper 2016/920
Breaking Web Applications Built On Top of Encrypted Data
Paul Grubbs and Richard McPherson and Muhammad Naveed and Thomas Ristenpart and Vitaly Shmatikov
Abstract
We develop a systematic approach for analyzing client-server applications that aim to hide sensitive user data from untrusted servers. We then apply it to Mylar, a framework that uses multi-key searchable encryption (MKSE) to build Web applications on top of encrypted data. We demonstrate that (1) the Popa-Zeldovich model for MKSE does not imply security against either passive or active attacks; (2) Mylar-based Web applications reveal users’ data and queries to passive and active adversarial servers; and (3) Mylar is generically insecure against active attacks due to system design flaws. Our results show that the problem of securing client-server applications against actively malicious servers is challenging and still unsolved. We conclude with general lessons for the designers of systems that rely on property-preserving or searchable encryption to protect data from untrusted servers.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
- Category
- Applications
- Publication info
- Published elsewhere. Major revision. ACM CCS 2016
- DOI
- 10.1145/2976749.2978351
- Keywords
- searchable encryptionaccess patternsdefinitions
- Contact author(s)
- pag225 @ cornell edu
- History
- 2016-09-22: received
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2016/920
- License
-
CC BY