A Computationally Sound Mechanized Prover for Security Protocols

• Published in: IEEE transactions on dependable and secure computing Vol. 5; no. 4; pp. 193 - 207
• Main Author: Blanchet, B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington IEEE 01.10.2008; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: Arrays; Automation; C.2.2.c Protocol verification; Calculus; Computation; Computational modeling; Computer networks; Cryptography; D.2.4.d Formal methods; Digital Object Identifier; F.3.1.d Mechanical verification; Games; Hypotheses; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical models; Mechanical factors; Message authentication; Network security; Polynomials; Probability; Protocol; Protocol verification; Protocols; Proving; Public key; Security; Signatures; Studies; Testing; D.2.4.d Formal methods; C.2.2.c Protocol verification; F.3.1.d Mechanical verification
• ISSN: 1545-5971; 1941-0018
• DOI: 10.1109/TDSC.2007.1005

We present a new mechanized prover for secrecy properties of security protocols. In contrast to most previous provers, our tool does not rely on the Dolev-Yao model, but on the computational model. It produces proofs presented as sequences of games; these games are formalized in a probabilistic polynomial-time process calculus. Our tool provides a generic method for specifying security properties of the cryptographic primitives, which can handle shared-key and public-key encryption, signatures, message authentication codes, and hash functions. Our tool produces proofs valid for a number of sessions polynomial in the security parameter, in the presence of an active adversary. We have implemented our tool and tested it on a number of examples of protocols from the literature.