Security weakness in a three-party pairing-based protocol for password authenticated key exchange

Junghyun Nam; Youngsook Lee; Seungjoo Kim; Dongho Won

doi:10.1016/j.ins.2006.09.001

Security weakness in a three-party pairing-based protocol for password authenticated key exchange

Junghyun Nam^*
, Youngsook Lee
, Seungjoo Kim
, Dongho Won

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

60 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Authentication and key exchange are fundamental for establishing secure communication channels over public insecure networks. Password-based protocols for authenticated key exchange are designed to work even when user authentication is done via the use of passwords drawn from a small known set of values. Recently, Wen et al. (H.-A. Wen, T.-F. Lee, T. Hwang, Provably secure three-party password-based authenticated key exchange protocol using Weil pairing, IEE Proceedings-Communications 152 (2) (2005) 138-143) proposed a new protocol for password-based authenticated key exchange in the three-party setting, where the clients trying to establish a common secret key do not share a password between themselves but only with a trusted server. Wen et al.'s protocol carries a claimed proof of security in a formal model of communication and adversarial capabilities. However, this work shows that the protocol for three-party key exchange is completely insecure and the claim of provable security is seriously incorrect. We conduct a detailed analysis of flaws in the protocol and its security proof, in the hope that no similar mistakes are made in the future.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1364-1375
Number of pages	12
Journal	Information Sciences
Volume	177
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2006.09.001
Publication status	Published - 2007 Mar 15
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank the anonymous referees for their suggestions which significantly improved this paper. This work was supported by the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) support program supervised by the IITA (Institute of Information Technology Assessment).

Keywords

Key exchange protocol
Man-in-the-middle attack
Password-based authentication
Provable security
Weil pairing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Theoretical Computer Science
Software
Control and Systems Engineering
Computer Science Applications
Information Systems and Management
Artificial Intelligence

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10.1016/j.ins.2006.09.001

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title = "Security weakness in a three-party pairing-based protocol for password authenticated key exchange",

abstract = "Authentication and key exchange are fundamental for establishing secure communication channels over public insecure networks. Password-based protocols for authenticated key exchange are designed to work even when user authentication is done via the use of passwords drawn from a small known set of values. Recently, Wen et al. (H.-A. Wen, T.-F. Lee, T. Hwang, Provably secure three-party password-based authenticated key exchange protocol using Weil pairing, IEE Proceedings-Communications 152 (2) (2005) 138-143) proposed a new protocol for password-based authenticated key exchange in the three-party setting, where the clients trying to establish a common secret key do not share a password between themselves but only with a trusted server. Wen et al.'s protocol carries a claimed proof of security in a formal model of communication and adversarial capabilities. However, this work shows that the protocol for three-party key exchange is completely insecure and the claim of provable security is seriously incorrect. We conduct a detailed analysis of flaws in the protocol and its security proof, in the hope that no similar mistakes are made in the future.",

keywords = "Key exchange protocol, Man-in-the-middle attack, Password-based authentication, Provable security, Weil pairing",

author = "Junghyun Nam and Youngsook Lee and Seungjoo Kim and Dongho Won",

note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank the anonymous referees for their suggestions which significantly improved this paper. This work was supported by the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) support program supervised by the IITA (Institute of Information Technology Assessment). ",

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AU - Nam, Junghyun

AU - Lee, Youngsook

AU - Kim, Seungjoo

AU - Won, Dongho

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank the anonymous referees for their suggestions which significantly improved this paper. This work was supported by the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) support program supervised by the IITA (Institute of Information Technology Assessment).

PY - 2007/3/15

Y1 - 2007/3/15

N2 - Authentication and key exchange are fundamental for establishing secure communication channels over public insecure networks. Password-based protocols for authenticated key exchange are designed to work even when user authentication is done via the use of passwords drawn from a small known set of values. Recently, Wen et al. (H.-A. Wen, T.-F. Lee, T. Hwang, Provably secure three-party password-based authenticated key exchange protocol using Weil pairing, IEE Proceedings-Communications 152 (2) (2005) 138-143) proposed a new protocol for password-based authenticated key exchange in the three-party setting, where the clients trying to establish a common secret key do not share a password between themselves but only with a trusted server. Wen et al.'s protocol carries a claimed proof of security in a formal model of communication and adversarial capabilities. However, this work shows that the protocol for three-party key exchange is completely insecure and the claim of provable security is seriously incorrect. We conduct a detailed analysis of flaws in the protocol and its security proof, in the hope that no similar mistakes are made in the future.

AB - Authentication and key exchange are fundamental for establishing secure communication channels over public insecure networks. Password-based protocols for authenticated key exchange are designed to work even when user authentication is done via the use of passwords drawn from a small known set of values. Recently, Wen et al. (H.-A. Wen, T.-F. Lee, T. Hwang, Provably secure three-party password-based authenticated key exchange protocol using Weil pairing, IEE Proceedings-Communications 152 (2) (2005) 138-143) proposed a new protocol for password-based authenticated key exchange in the three-party setting, where the clients trying to establish a common secret key do not share a password between themselves but only with a trusted server. Wen et al.'s protocol carries a claimed proof of security in a formal model of communication and adversarial capabilities. However, this work shows that the protocol for three-party key exchange is completely insecure and the claim of provable security is seriously incorrect. We conduct a detailed analysis of flaws in the protocol and its security proof, in the hope that no similar mistakes are made in the future.

KW - Key exchange protocol

KW - Man-in-the-middle attack

KW - Password-based authentication

KW - Provable security

KW - Weil pairing

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DO - 10.1016/j.ins.2006.09.001

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JO - Information Sciences

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ER -

Security weakness in a three-party pairing-based protocol for password authenticated key exchange

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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