Message Authentication

 message authentication is concerned with:


protecting the integrity of a message

validating identity of originator

non-repudiation of origin (dispute resolution)
 will consider the security requirements
 then three alternative functions used:

hash function (see Ch 11)

message encryption

message authentication code (MAC)
Message Security Requirements
 disclosure
 traffic analysis
 masquerade
 content modification
 sequence modification
 timing modification
 source repudiation
 destination repudiation
Symmetric Message Encryption
 encryption can also provides authentication
 if symmetric encryption is used then:

receiver know sender must have created it

since only sender and receiver now key used

know content cannot of been altered

if message has suitable structure, redundancy
or a checksum to detect any changes
Public-Key Message Encryption
 if public-key encryption is used:

encryption provides no confidence of sender
• since anyone potentially knows public-key

however if
• sender signs message using their private-key
• then encrypts with recipients public key
• have both secrecy and authentication

again need to recognize corrupted messages

but at cost of two public-key uses on message
 Message Authentication Code
(MAC)
 generated by an algorithm that creates a
small fixed-sized block

depending on both message and some key

like encryption though need not be reversible
 appended to message as a signature
 receiver performs same computation on
message and checks it matches the MAC
 provides assurance that message is
unaltered and comes from sender
Message Authentication Code
 a small fixed-sized block of data
 generated from message + secret key
 MAC = C(K,M)
 appended to message when sent
 Message Authentication
Codes
 as shown the MAC provides authentication
 can also use encryption for secrecy

generally use separate keys for each

can compute MAC either before or after encryption

is generally regarded as better done before
 why use a MAC?

sometimes only authentication is needed

sometimes need authentication to persist longer than
the encryption (eg. archival use)
 note that a MAC is not a digital signature
 MAC Properties
 a MAC is a cryptographic checksum
MAC = CK(M)

condenses a variable-length message M

using a secret key K

to a fixed-sized authenticator
 is a many-to-one function

potentially many messages have same MAC

but finding these needs to be very difficult
 Requirements for MACs
 taking into account the types of attacks
 need the MAC to satisfy the following:
1. knowing a message and MAC, is infeasible
to find another message with same MAC
2. MACs should be uniformly distributed
3. MAC should depend equally on all bits of the
message
 Security of MACs
 like block ciphers have:
 brute-force attacks exploiting
m/

strong collision resistance hash have cost 2 2

• 128-bit hash looks vulnerable, 160-bits better


MACs with known message-MAC pairs
• can either attack keyspace (cf key search) or MAC
• at least 128-bit MAC is needed for security
 Security of MACs
 cryptanalytic attacks exploit structure

like block ciphers want brute-force attacks to
be the best alternative
 more variety of MACs so harder to
generalize about cryptanalysis
Keyed Hash Functions as MACs
 want a MAC based on a hash function

because hash functions are generally faster

crypto hash function code is widely available
 hash includes a key along with message
 original proposal:
KeyedHash = Hash(Key|Message)

some weaknesses were found with this
 eventually led to development of HMAC
 HMAC Design Objectives
 use, without modifications, hash functions
 allow for easy replaceability of embedded
hash function
 preserve original performance of hash
function without significant degradation
 use and handle keys in a simple way.
 have well understood cryptographic analysis
of authentication mechanism strength
 HMAC
 specified as Internet standard RFC2104
 uses hash function on the message:
HMACK(M)= Hash[(K+ XOR opad) ||
Hash[(K+ XOR ipad) ||
M)] ]

where K+ is the key padded out to size

opad, ipad are specified padding constants
 overhead is just 3 more hash calculations than the
message needs alone
 any hash function can be used

eg. MD5, SHA-1, RIPEMD-160, Whirlpool
 HMAC
Overview
 HMAC Security
 proved security of HMAC relates to that of
the underlying hash algorithm
 attacking HMAC requires either:

brute force attack on key used

birthday attack (but since keyed would need
to observe a very large number of messages)
 choose hash function used based on
speed verses security constraints
 CMAC
 previously saw the DAA (CBC-MAC)
 widely used in govt & industry
 but has message size limitation
 can overcome using 2 keys & padding
 thus forming the Cipher-based Message
Authentication Code (CMAC)
 adopted by NIST SP800-38B
CMAC Overview
 Authenticated Encryption
 simultaneously protect confidentiality and
authenticity of communications

often required but usually separate
 approaches

Hash-then-encrypt: E(K, (M || H(M))

MAC-then-encrypt: E(K2, (M || MAC(K1, M))

Encrypt-then-MAC: (C=E(K2, M), T=MAC(K1, C)

Encrypt-and-MAC: (C=E(K2, M), T=MAC(K1, M)
 decryption /verification straightforward
 but security vulnerabilities with all these