Optimization of ProVerif Programs for AKE Protocols

Cryptographic protocols are used to establish secure connection between agents who communicate strictly in accordance with the rules specified by the protocol. To make sure that a newly designed cryptographic protocol is cryptographically strong, various software tools are usually employed. However,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Programming and computer software 2022-12, Vol.48 (8), p.781-787
Main Authors: Vinarskii, E. M., Demakov, A. V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Approximation
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science
Cryptography
Equivalence
Formal method
Formal specifications
Language
Operating Systems
Optimization
Software
Software Engineering
Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems
Syntax
Verification
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Summary:Cryptographic protocols are used to establish secure connection between agents who communicate strictly in accordance with the rules specified by the protocol. To make sure that a newly designed cryptographic protocol is cryptographically strong, various software tools are usually employed. However, an adequate specification of a cryptographic protocol is generally represented as a set of requirements for sequences of transmitted messages, including their format. The fulfillment of all these requirements leads to the fact that the formal specification of a real-world cryptographic protocol becomes cumbersome and, therefore, difficult to analyze by formal methods. ProVerif is one of the intensively developed tools for formal verification of cryptographic protocols. However, ProVerif often fails to analyze large protocols, i.e., it can neither prove the security of the protocol nor refute it. In these cases, either the problem is approximated or equivalent transformations of a program model in the ProVerif language are carried out to simplify the ProVerif model. In this paper, we propose a technique to simplify ProVerif specifications for AKE protocols that use the ElGamal encryption scheme. In particular, we define equivalent transformations that make it possible to construct a ProVerif specification that facilitates the analysis for the ProVerif tool. Experimental results for the Needham–Schroeder and Yahalom cryptoprotocols show that this approach is promising for automatic verification of real-world protocols.
ISSN:0361-7688
1608-3261
DOI:10.1134/S0361768822080035