Breaking and (partially) fixing provably secure onion routing

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

After several years of research on onion routing, Camenisch and Lysyanskaya, in an attempt at rigorous analysis, defined an ideal functionality in the universal composability model, together with properties that protocols have to meet to achieve provable security. A whole family of systems based their security proofs on this work. However, analyzing HORNET and Sphinx, two instances from this family, we show that this proof strategy is broken. We discover a previously unknown vulnerability that breaks anonymity completely, and explain a known one. Both should not exist if privacy is proven correctly.In this work, we analyze and fix the proof strategy used for this family of systems. After proving the efficacy of the ideal functionality, we show how the original properties are flawed and suggest improved, effective properties in their place. Finally, we discover another common mistake in the proofs. We demonstrate how to avoid it by showing our improved properties for one protocol, thus partially fixing the family of provably secure onion routing protocols.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2020 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, SP 2020
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages168-185
Number of pages18
ISBN (electronic)978-1-7281-3497-0
Publication statusPublished - May 2020
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesProceedings - IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
Volume2020-May
ISSN1081-6011

Conference

Title41st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, SP 2020
Duration18 - 21 May 2020
CitySan Francisco
CountryUnited States of America

External IDs

Scopus 85091602872