Protocol and Implementation Attacks

Abstract

Many commercially available security products depend crucially on the use of cryptographic algorithms. Obviously, if the underlying cryptosystem is bro­ken, the intention of the systems designer can be subverted. However, for detecting security leaks in communication software, it is not sufficient to eval­uate the cryptographic algorithms used. It is often neglected in protocol design that a system might be broken entirely without eroding the security of the un­derlying algorithm [ 102]. In that case, one speaks of a protocol attack. In other scenarios, attackers exploit faulty implementations; in this case one speaks of an implementation attack.

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact sciences and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love storyoran elopement into thefifth proposition of Euclid.—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle