The Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack is one of the most well known attacks in computer security, representing one of the biggest concerns for security professionals. MITM targets the actual data that flows between endpoints, and the confidentiality and integrity of the data itself. In this paper, we extensively review the literature on MITM to analyse and categorize the scope of MITM attacks, considering both a reference model, such as the open systems interconnection (OSI) model, as well as two specific widely used network technologies, i.e., GSM and UMTS. In particular, we classify MITM attacks based on several parameters, like location of an attacker in the network, nature of a communication channel, and impersonation techniques. Based on an impersonation techniques classification, we then provide execution steps for each MITM class. We survey existing countermeasures and discuss the comparison among them. Finally, based on our analysis, we propose a categorisation of MITM prevention mechanisms, and we identify some possible directions for future research.

A Survey of Man In The Middle Attacks

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) developed the Simon and Speck families of lightweight block ciphers as an aid for securing applications in very constrained environments where AES may not be suitable. This paper summarizes the algorithms, their design rationale, along with current cryptanalysis and implementation results.

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SIMON and SPECK: Block Ciphers for the Internet of Things.

Designing an efficient cipher was always a delicate balance between linear and non-linear operations. This goes back to the design of DES, and in fact all the way back to the seminal work of Shannon.

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Ciphers for MPC and FHE

Mobile telephony equipment is daily carried by billions of subscribers everywhere they go. Avoiding linkability of subscribers by third parties, and protecting the privacy of those subscribers is one of the goals of mobile telecommunication protocols. We use formal methods to model and analyse the security properties of 3G protocols. We expose two novel threats to the user privacy in 3G telephony systems, which make it possible to trace and identify mobile telephony subscribers, and we demonstrate the feasibility of a low cost implementation of these attacks. We propose fixes to these privacy issues, which also take into account and solve other privacy attacks known from the literature. We successfully prove that our privacy-friendly fixes satisfy the desired unlinkability and anonymity properties using the automatic verification tool ProVerif.

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New privacy issues in mobile telephony: fix and verification

Embedded systems are deployed in various domains, including industrial installations, critical and nomadic environments, private spaces and public infrastructures. Their operation typically involves access, storage and communication of sensitive and/or critical information that requires protection, making the security of their resources and services an imperative design concern. The demand for applicable cryptographic components is therefore strong and growing. However, the limited resources of these devices, in conjunction with the ever-present need for smaller size and lower production costs, hinder the deployment of secure algorithms typically found in other environments and necessitate the adoption of lightweight alternatives. This paper provides a survey of lightweight cryptographic algorithms, presenting recent advances in the field and identifying opportunities for future research. More specifically, we examine lightweight implementations of symmetric-key block ciphers in hardware and software architectures. We evaluate 52 block ciphers and 360 implementations based on their security, performance and cost, classifying them with regard to their applicability to different types of embedded devices and referring to the most important cryptanalysis pertaining to these ciphers.

A review of lightweight block ciphers

Desynchronization attack on RAPP ultralightweight authentication protocol

The recently approved IEEE 802.15.4a standard defines an ultra-wideband (UWB) based physical layer using concatenated coding with mixed binary phase-shift keying and binary pulse-position modulation (BPSK-BPPM) and direct-sequence spreading with time hopping. The concatenated code consists of an outer Reed-Solomon (RS) and an inner convolutional code, and the coding and modulation are combined such that both coherent and noncoherent receiver architectures are supported. In this paper, the error-rate performance of IEEE 802.15.4a compliant UWB radios is investigated. To this end, semi-analytical expressions for the bit-error rate (BER) and frame-error rate (FER) of the coded UWB system are derived. The presented framework is comprehensive in that (i) different methods for generating reliability information (i.e., decoding metrics), (ii) the effects of suboptimal multipath combining, and (iii) coherent and noncoherent reception methods are included. Furthermore, a particularly suited errors-and-erasures RS decoding scheme is devised. The evaluation of the error-rate expressions together with simulation results for realistic UWB channels show that (i) the error-rate approximations are tight over wide ranges of BER and FER, (ii) symbol-wise metrics are clearly advantageous over bit-wise metrics for decoding of the convolutional code, (iii) combining the 5 to 10 strongest multipath components approaches the performance of full combining within 1-2 dB for residential and 3-5 dB for outdoor UWB environments, and (iv) the simplicity of noncoherent detection comes at loss of more than 10 dB in signal-to-noise ratio compared to coherent detection.

Performance Analysis of the IEEE 802.15.4a UWB System

Privacy is faced with serious challenges in the ubiquitous computing world. In order to handle this problem, some researchers in recent years have focused on design and analysis of privacy-friendly ultralightweight authentication protocols. Although the majority of these schemes have been broken to a greater or lesser extent, most of these attacks are based on ad-hoc methods that are not extensible to a large class of ultralightweight protocols. So this research area still suffers from the lack of structured cryptanalysis and evaluation methods. In this paper, we introduce new frameworks for full disclosure attacks on ultralightweight authentication protocols based on new concepts of recursive linear and recursive differential cryptanalysis. The recursive linear attack is passive, deterministic, and requires only a single authentication session, if it can be applied successfully. The recursive differential attack is more powerful and can be applied to the protocols on which the linear attack may not work. This attack is probabilistic, active in the sense that the attacker suffices only to block some specific messages, and requires a few authentication sessions. Having introduced these frameworks in a general view, we apply them on some well-known ultralightweight protocols. The first attack can retrieve all the secret data of Yeh and SLMAP authentication protocols and the second one can retrieve all the secret data of LMAP++, SASI, and David-Prasad authentication protocols.

Recursive Linear and Differential Cryptanalysis of Ultralightweight Authentication Protocols.

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Recursive Linear and Differential Cryptanalysis of Ultralightweight Authentication Protocols

In this paper we propose two new attacks on UMTS network. Both attacks exploit the UMTS-GSM interworking and are possible in the GSM access area of UMTS network. The first attack allows the attacker to eavesdrop on the entire traffic of the victim UMTS subscriber in the GERAN coverage of the UMTS network. The second attack is an impersonation attack i.e. the attacker impersonates a genuine UMTS subscriber to a UMTS network and fools the network to provide services at the expense of the victim subscriber in its GERAN coverage.

Zahra Ahmadian

Papers

Desynchronization attack on RAPP ultralightweight authentication protocol

Performance Analysis of the IEEE 802.15.4a UWB System

Recursive Linear and Differential Cryptanalysis of Ultralightweight Authentication Protocols.

Recursive Linear and Differential Cryptanalysis of Ultralightweight Authentication Protocols

New attacks on UMTS network access