Analysis of key agreement protocols

Abstract

NORSK: Masteroppgaven tar for seg noen av de siste foreslåtte protokollene for nøkkel-utveksling. Ettersom de er så nye, har de ikke gjennomgått en detaljert analyse, og kan derfor inneholde sikkerhetshull. Sikkerhet i protokollene er viktig, ettersom de er ansvarlig for integriteten og konfidensialiteten til all kommunikasjon fra det øyeblikket de tas i bruk. For å unngå problemer er det viktig å finne den protokollen som har best sikkerhet. Nye protokoller blir foreslått for å prøve å tilfredsstille kravene, men det er ikke noe bevis for at de har klart det. Denne masteroppgaven vil analysere noen av disse nye protokollene og prøve å avdekke deres svakheter. Vi prøver også å forbedre de protokollene der vi finner svakheter.

ENGELSK: This master’s thesis study the recently proposed key agreement protocols. Since they are so new, there has not been any detailed analysis of them; hence one cannot be sure of how secure they really are. The security of these protocols is essential; since they are responsible for the integrity and confidentiality of all transactions from the moment the protocol is employed. If the key agreement procedure contains security flaws, unintended parties can get hold of the key and use it to decrypt all the transmitted messages that are encrypted with this key. In order to secure the systems, one is always interested in finding the key agreement protocol that achieve the highest possible level of security. Because of this, new protocols are suggested all the time. Some of these does not have any security proof, and even those protocols that have been through an analysis may still contain flaws. This master’s thesis analyse a few of these protocols and try to detect their weaknesses and find what kind of attacks that can be a threat to each of the protocols. We also try to enhance the protocols in which we find weaknesses.