On the Security of Cryptographic Protocols Using the Little Theorem of Witness Functions

03/01/2019

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by   Jaouhar Fattahi, et al.

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In this paper, we show how practical the little theorem of witness functions is in detecting security flaws in some category of cryptographic protocols. We convey a formal analysis of the Needham-Schroeder symmetric-key protocol in the theory of witness functions. We show how it helps to teach about a security vulnerability in a given step of this protocol where the value of security of a particular sensitive ticket in a sent message unexpectedly plummets compared with its value when received. This vulnerability may be exploited by an intruder to mount a replay attack as described by Denning and Sacco.