NAME

login - key exchange protocol

DESCRIPTION

The following encrypted key exchange protocol is used between a client such as login in security-login (2), and a certificate signing process such as logind (8), to justify the latter's issuing a certificate that can later be presented to an Inferno service to establish credentials.

A shared secret must previously be agreed between user and certifying authority (CA). It is used by the protocol to establish a secure channel between user and CA.

In the description below:

ivec

is an 8 byte random number (`initialisation vector') chosen for this conversation.

sha

is the 20 byte secure hash (SHA-1) of the password

key

is an 8 byte secret formed as follows:

key[0] = ivec[0]^sha[0]^sha[8]^sha[16]
key[1] = ivec[1]^sha[1]^sha[9]^sha[17]
    

...

key[5] = ivec[5]^sha[5]^sha[13];
key[6] = ivec[6]^sha[6]^sha[14];
key[7] = ivec[7]^sha[7]^sha[15];
    

alpha

is a Diffie-Hellman base used system wide

p

is a Diffie-Hellman modulus used system wide

key(m)

is m encrypted using the RC4 algorithm with key.

Rx

is a random number of the same order as p.

secret

is the Diffie-Hellman secret alpha**(r0*r1) mod p.

The protocol follows. ``user→CA xxx'' means that the user sends the message ``xxx'' to the certifying authority. Any party can send an error instead of a message at any point to terminate the protocol.

user→CA	name
CA→user	ACK

user→CA	ivec
CA→user	key(alpha**r0 mod p), alpha, p

user→CA	alpha**r1 mod p
CA→user	CA's public key, SHA(CA's public key + secret)

user→CA	user's public key, SHA(user's public key + secret)
CA→user	user's public key certificate
    

The complexity of this protocol is intended to shield the password. To start a clear text attack against the password, one needs to first attack the Diffie-Hellman exponential to determine alpha**r0 mod p. A possible weakness is that the encrypted quantity is base64 encoded, constraining the possible values of each byte. This could aid a brute force attack.

Alpha and p are sent unprotected, though the user code does a few sanity checks on the values it receives. This is another likely point of attack. We should like to know about any.

The role of ivec is to foil any replay attacks by someone spoofing the CA though this is probably overkill.

SEE ALSO

security-intro (2), security-login (2), logind (8), signer (8)