Forward-Security in Private-Key Cryptography

Mihir Bellare; Bennet Yee

Paper 2001/035

Forward-Security in Private-Key Cryptography

Mihir Bellare and Bennet Yee

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive treatment of forward-security in the context of shared-key based cryptographic primitives, as a practical means to mitigate the damage caused by key-exposure. We provide definitions of security, practical proven-secure constructions, and applications for the main primitives in this area. We identify forward-secure pseudorandom bit generators as the central primitive, providing several constructions and then showing how forward-secure message authentication schemes and symmetric encryption schemes can be built based on standard schemes for these problems coupled with forward-secure pseudorandom bit generators. We then apply forward-secure message authentication schemes to the problem of maintaining secure access logs in the presence of break-ins.

Note: Earlier titled ``Design and application of pseudorandom number generators with forward security.'' The first version of this paper dates to 1998.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF PS
Publication info: Published elsewhere. An extended abstract of this paper appears in the Proceedings of the CT-RSA 2003 conference. This is the full version.
Keywords: pseudorandom number generators forward security audit logs
Contact author(s): mihir @ cs ucsd edu
History: 2002-11-18: last of 5 revisions; 2001-05-06: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2001/035
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2001/035,
      author = {Mihir Bellare and Bennet Yee},
      title = {Forward-Security in Private-Key Cryptography},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2001/035},
      year = {2001},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2001/035}
}