Cryptography and

Network Security
Chapter 11
Fourth Edition
by William Stallings

Lecture slides by Lawrie Brown

 Chapter 11 – Message
Authentication and Hash
Functions
 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:

message encryption

message authentication code (MAC)

hash function
 Security Requirements
 disclosure
 traffic
analysis
 masquerade
 content modification
 sequence modification
 timing modification
 source repudiation
 destination repudiation
 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
 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
 Using Symmetric Ciphers for
MACs
 can use any block cipher chaining mode
and use final block as a MAC
 Data Authentication Algorithm (DAA) is
a widely used MAC based on DES-CBC

using IV=0 and zero-pad of final block

encrypt message using DES in CBC mode

and send just the final block as the MAC
• or the leftmost M bits (16≤M≤64) of final block
 but final MAC is now too small for security
Data Authentication Algorithm
 Hash Functions
 condenses arbitrary message to fixed size
h = H(M)
 usuallyassume that the hash function is
public and not keyed

cf. MAC which is keyed
 hash used to detect changes to message
 can use in various ways with message
 most often to create a digital signature
Hash Functions & Digital
Signatures
 Requirements for Hash
Functions
1. can be applied to any sized message M
2. produces fixed-length output h
3. is easy to compute h=H(M) for any message M
4. given h is infeasible to find x s.t. H(x)=h
•
one-way property
5. given x is infeasible to find y s.t. H(y)=H(x)
•
weak collision resistance
6. is infeasible to find any x,y s.t. H(y)=H(x)
•
strong collision resistance
 Simple Hash Functions
 are several proposals for simple functions
 based on XOR of message blocks
 not secure since can manipulate any
message and either not change hash or
change hash also
 need a stronger cryptographic function
(next chapter)
 Birthday Attacks
 might think a 64-bit hash is secure
 but by Birthday Paradox is not
 birthday attack works thus:
m/

opponent generates 2 variations of a valid message
2

all with essentially the same meaning

m

opponent also generates 2 /2 variations of a desired
fraudulent message

two sets of messages are compared to find pair with
same hash (probability > 0.5 by birthday paradox)

have user sign the valid message, then substitute the
forgery which will have a valid signature
 conclusion is that need to use larger MAC/hash
 Hash and MAC Algorithms
 Hash Functions

condense arbitrary size message to fixed size

by processing message in blocks

through some compression function

either custom or block cipher based
 Message Authentication Code (MAC)

fixed sized authenticator for some message

to provide authentication for message

by using block cipher mode or hash function
Hash Algorithm Structure
Hash Algorithm Structure
 Secure Hash Algorithm
 SHA originally designed by NIST & NSA in 1993
 was revised in 1995 as SHA-1
 US standard for use with DSA signature scheme

standard is FIPS 180-1 1995, also Internet RFC3174

nb. the algorithm is SHA, the standard is SHS
 based on design of MD4 with key differences
 produces 160-bit hash values
 recent 2005 results on security of SHA-1 have
raised concerns on its use in future applications
 Revised Secure Hash
Standard
 NIST issued revision FIPS 180-2 in 2002
 adds 3 additional versions of SHA

SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512
 designed for compatibility with increased
security provided by the AES cipher
 structure & detail is similar to SHA-1
 hence analysis should be similar
 but security levels are rather higher
SHA-512 Overview
 SHA-512 Compression
Function
 heartof the algorithm
 processing message in 1024-bit blocks
 consists of 80 rounds

updating a 512-bit buffer

using a 64-bit value Wt derived from the
current message block

and a round constant based on cube root of
first 80 prime numbers
SHA-512 Round Function
SHA-512 Round Function
 Block Ciphers as Hash
Functions
 can use block ciphers as hash functions
 using H0=0 and zero-pad of final block
 compute: Hi = EMi [Hi-1]

and use final block as the hash value

similar to CBC but without a key
 resulting hash is too small (64-bit)

both due to direct birthday attack

and to “meet-in-the-middle” attack
 other variants also susceptible to attack
 Hash Functions & MAC
Security
 like
block ciphers have:
 brute-force attacks exploiting
m/

strong collision resistance hash have cost 2 2

• have proposal for h/w MD5 cracker

• 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
 Hash Functions & MAC
Security
 cryptanalytic attacks exploit structure

like block ciphers want brute-force attacks to be the
best alternative
 have a number of analytic attacks on iterated
hash functions

CVi = f[CVi-1, Mi]; H(M)=CVN

typically focus on collisions in function f

like block ciphers is often composed of rounds

attacks exploit properties of round functions
 Summary
 have considered:

message authentication using

message encryption

MACs

hash functions

general approach & security