Chapter 8: Network Security

Chapter goals:
 understand principles of network security:
 cryptography and its many uses beyond
“confidentiality”
 authentication
 message integrity
 key distribution

 security in practice:
 firewalls
 security in applications
 Internet spam, viruses, and worms

Network Security 7-1

What is network security?
Confidentiality: only sender, intended receiver
should “understand” message contents
 sender encrypts message
 receiver decrypts message

Authentication: sender, receiver want to confirm

identity of each other
 Virus email really from your friends?
 The website really belongs to the bank?

Network Security 7-2

What is network security?
Message Integrity: sender, receiver want to ensure
message not altered (in transit, or afterwards)
without detection
 Digital signature

Nonrepudiation: sender cannot deny later that

messages received were not sent by him/her
Access and Availability: services must be accessible
and available to users upon demand
 Denial of service attacks
Anonymity: identity of sender is hidden from
receiver (within a group of possible senders)

Network Security 7-3

Friends and enemies: Alice, Bob, Trudy
 well-known in network security world
 Bob, Alice (lovers!) want to communicate “securely”
 Trudy (intruder) may intercept, delete, add messages

Alice Bob
data, control
channel
messages

data secure secure data

sender receiver

Trudy
Network Security 7-4
Who might Bob, Alice be?
 Web client/server (e.g., on-line purchases)
 DNS servers
 routers exchanging routing table updates
 Two computers in peer-to-peer networks
 Wireless laptop and wireless access point
 Cell phone and cell tower
 Cell phone and bluetooth earphone
 RFID tag and reader
 .......
Network Security 7-5
There are bad guys (and girls) out there!
Q: What can a “bad guy” do?
A: a lot!
 eavesdrop: intercept messages
 actively insert messages into connection
 impersonation: can fake (spoof) source address
in packet (or any field in packet)
 hijacking: “take over” ongoing connection by
removing sender or receiver, inserting himself
in place
 denial of service: prevent service from being
used by others (e.g., by overloading resources)

more on this later ……

Network Security 7-6
The language of cryptography
Alice’s Bob’s
K encryption K decryption
A
key B key

plaintext encryption ciphertext decryption plaintext

algorithm algorithm

symmetric key crypto: sender, receiver keys identical

public-key crypto: encryption key public, decryption key
secret (private)
Network Security 7-7
Classical Cryptography
 Transposition Cipher

 Substitution Cipher
 Simple substitution cipher (Caesar cipher)
 Vigenere cipher
 One-time pad

Network Security 7-8

Transposition Cipher: rail fence
 Write plaintext in two rows
 Generate ciphertext in column order

 Example: “HELLOWORLD”

HLOOL
ELWRD
ciphertext: HLOOLELWRD
Problem: does not affect the frequency of
individual symbols
Network Security 7-9
Simple substitution cipher

substituting one thing for another

 Simplest one: monoalphabetic cipher:
• substitute one letter for another (Caesar Cipher)

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC

Example: encrypt “I attack”

Network Security 7-10

Problem of simple substitution
cipher
 The key space for the English Alphabet is
very large: 26! 4 x 1026

 However:
 Previous example has a key with only 26
possible values
 English texts have statistical structure:
• the letter “e” is the most used letter. Hence, if one
performs a frequency count on the ciphers, then the
most frequent letter can be assumed to be “e”

Network Security 7-11

Distribution of Letters in
English

Frequency analysis
Network Security 7-12
Vigenere Cipher
 Idea: Uses Caesar's cipher with various different
shifts, in order to hide the distribution of the
letters.
 A key defines the shift used in each letter in the
text
 A key word is repeated as many times as required
to become the same length

Plain text: I a t t a c k
Key: 2342342 (key is “234”)
Cipher text: K d x v d g m

Network Security 7-13

Problem of Vigenere Cipher
 Vigenere is easy to break (Kasiski, 1863):
 Assume we know the length of the key. We can
organize the ciphertext in rows with the same
length of the key. Then, every column can be seen
as encrypted using Caesar's cipher.

 The length of the key can be found using several

methods:
 1. If short, try 1, 2, 3, . . . .
 2. Find repeated strings in the ciphertext. Their distance
is expected to be a multiple of the length. Compute the
gcd of (most) distances.
 3. Use the index of coincidence.

Network Security 7-14

One-time Pad
 Extended from Vigenere cipher
 Key is as long as the plaintext
 Key string is random chosen
 Pro: Proven to be “perfect secure”
 Cons:
• How to generate Key?
• How to let bob/alice share the same key pad?
 Code book

Network Security 7-15

 Symmetric key cryptography

KA-B KA-B

plaintext encryption ciphertext decryption plaintext

message, m algorithm algorithm
K (m)
A-B
m=K ( KA-B(m) )
A-B

symmetric key crypto: Bob and Alice share know same

(symmetric) key: K
A-B
 e.g., key is knowing substitution pattern in mono
alphabetic substitution cipher
 Q: how do Bob and Alice agree on key value?

Network Security 7-16

Symmetric key crypto: DES
DES: Data Encryption Standard
 US encryption standard [NIST 1993]
 56-bit symmetric key, 64-bit plaintext input
 How secure is DES?
 DES Challenge: 56-bit-key-encrypted phrase
(“Strong cryptography makes the world a safer
place”) decrypted (brute force) in 4 months
 no known “backdoor” decryption approach
 making DES more secure (3DES):
 use three keys sequentially on each datum
 use cipher-block chaining

Network Security 7-17

Symmetric key
crypto: DES
DES operation
initial permutation
16 identical “rounds” of
function application,
each using different
48 bits of key
final permutation

Network Security 7-18

AES: Advanced Encryption Standard

 new (Nov. 2001) symmetric-key NIST

standard, replacing DES
 processes data in 128 bit blocks
 128, 192, or 256 bit keys
 brute force decryption (try each key)
taking 1 sec on DES, takes 149 trillion
years for AES

Network Security 7-19

Block Cipher
64-bit input

8bits 8bits 8bits 8bits 8bits 8bits 8bits 8bits

loop for
n rounds
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8

8 bits 8 bits 8 bits 8 bits 8 bits 8 bits 8 bits 8 bits

 one pass
64-bit scrambler
through: one
input bit
affects eight 64-bit output

output bits
 multiple passes: each input bit affects most output
bits
 block ciphers: DES, 3DES, AES

Network Security 7-20

Cipher Block Chaining
 cipher block: if input m(1) = “HTTP/1.1” c(1) = “k329aM02”
t=1 block
block repeated, will cipher
produce same cipher …
m(17) = “HTTP/1.1” c(17) = “k329aM02”
t=17 block
text: cipher
 cipher block chaining: XOR ith
input block, m(i), with previous
block of cipher text, c(i-1) m(i)
 c(0) transmitted to receiver in

+
clear
 what happens in “HTTP/1.1” c(i-1)
scenario from above?

block
cipher

c(i)
Network Security 7-21
Public Key Cryptography

symmetric key crypto public key cryptography

 requires sender,  radically different
receiver know shared approach [Diffie-
secret key Hellman76, RSA78]
 Q: how to agree on key  sender, receiver do
in first place not share secret key
(particularly if never  public encryption key
“met”)? known to all
 private decryption
key known only to
receiver

Network Security 7-22

Public key cryptography
+ Bob’s public
K
B key

- Bob’s private
K
B key

plaintext encryption ciphertext decryption plaintext

message, m algorithm + algorithm message
K (m) - +
B m = K B(K (m))
B

Network Security 7-23

Public key encryption algorithms

Requirements:
+ . .
1 need K B( ) and K - ( ) such that
B
- +
K (K (m)) = m
B B

2 given public key K , it should+ be impossible to

compute private key K B

-
B

RSA: Rivest, Shamir, Adelson algorithm

Network Security 7-24
RSA: Choosing keys
1. Choose two large prime numbers p, q.
(e.g., 1024 bits each)

2. Compute n = pq, z = (p-1)(q-1)

3. Choose e (with e<n) that has no common factors

with z. (e, z are “relatively prime”).

4. Choose d such that ed-1 is exactly divisible by z.

(in other words: ed mod z = 1 ).

5. Public key is (n,e). Private key is (n,d).

+ -
KB KB
Network Security 7-25
RSA: Encryption, decryption
0. Given (n,e) and (n,d) as computed above

1. To encrypt bit pattern, m, compute

e
c = m e mod n (i.e., remainder when m is divided by n)

2. To decrypt received bit pattern, c, compute

d
m = c d mod n (i.e., remainder when c is divided by n)

m = (m e mod n) d mod n
Magic
happens!
c

Network Security 7-26

 RSA example:
Bob chooses p=5, q=7. Then n=35, z=24.
e=5 (so e, z relatively prime).
d=29 (so ed-1 exactly divisible by z.

letter m me c = me mod n
encrypt:
l 12 1524832 17

d
decrypt:
c c m = cd mod n letter
17 481968572106750915091411825223071697 12 l

Computational extensive
Network Security 7-27
RSA: Why is that m = (m e mod n) d mod n

Useful number theory result: If p,q prime and

n = pq, then: y y mod (p-1)(q-1)
x mod n = x mod n

e
(m mod n) d mod n = med mod n
ed mod (p-1)(q-1)
= m mod n
(using number theory result above)
1
= m mod n
(since we chose ed to be divisible by
(p-1)(q-1) with remainder 1 )

= m
Network Security 7-28
RSA: another important property
The following property will be very useful later:

- + + -
K (K (m)) = m = K (K (m))
B B B B

use public key use private key

first, followed first, followed
by private key by public key

Result is the same!

Network Security 7-29