Lecture 9
fundamental security building block
◦ basis of access control & user accountability
is the process of verifying an identity
claimed by or for a system entity
has two steps:
◦ identification - specify identifier
◦ verification - bind entity (person) and identifier
distinct from message authentication
four means of authenticating user's identity
based one something the individual
◦ knows - e.g. password, PIN
◦ possesses - e.g. key, token, smartcard
◦ is (static biometrics) - e.g. fingerprint, retina
◦ does (dynamic biometrics) - e.g. voice, sign
can use alone or combined
all can provide user authentication
all have issues
widely used user authentication method
◦ user provides name/login and password
◦ system compares password with that saved for
specified login
authenticates ID of user logging and
◦ that the user is authorized to access system
◦ determines the user’s privileges
◦ is used in discretionary access control
offline dictionary attack
specific account attack
popular password attack
password guessing against single user
workstation hijacking
exploiting user mistakes
exploiting multiple password use
electronic monitoring
stop unauthorized access to password file
intrusion detection measures
account lockout mechanisms
policies against using common passwords
but rather hard to guess passwords
training & enforcement of policies
automatic workstation logout
encrypted network links
original scheme
◦ 8 character password form 56-bit key
◦ 12-bit salt used to modify DES encryption into a
one-way hash function
◦ 0 value repeatedly encrypted 25 times
◦ output translated to 11 character sequence
now regarded as woefully insecure
◦ e.g. supercomputer, 50 million tests, 80 min
sometimes still used for compatibility
have other, stronger, hash/salt variants
many systems now use MD5
◦ with 48-bit salt
◦ password length is unlimited
◦ is hashed with 1000 times inner loop
◦ produces 128-bit hash
OpenBSD uses Blowfish block cipher based
hash algorithm called Bcrypt
◦ uses 128-bit salt to create 192-bit hash value
dictionary attacks
◦ try each word then obvious variants in large
dictionary against hash in password file
rainbow table attacks
◦ precompute tables of hash values for all salts
◦ a mammoth table of hash values
◦ e.g. 1.4GB table cracks 99.9% of alphanumeric
Windows passwords in 13.8 secs
◦ not feasible if larger salt values used
users may pick short passwords
◦ e.g. 3% were 3 chars or less, easily guessed
◦ system can reject choices that are too short
users may pick guessable passwords
◦ so crackers use lists of likely passwords
◦ e.g. one study of 14000 encrypted passwords
guessed nearly 1/4 of them
◦ would take about 1 hour on fastest systems to
compute all variants, and only need 1 break!
can block offline guessing attacks by
denying access to encrypted passwords
◦ make available only to privileged users
◦ often using a separate shadow password file
still have vulnerabilities
◦ exploit O/S bug
◦ accident with permissions making it readable
◦ users with same password on other systems
◦ access from unprotected backup media
◦ sniff passwords in unprotected network traffic
clearly have problems with passwords
goal to eliminate guessable passwords
whilst still easy for user to remember
techniques:
◦ user education
◦ computer-generated passwords
◦ reactive password checking
◦ proactive password checking
rule enforcement plus user advice, e.g.
◦ 8+ chars, upper/lower/numeric/punctuation
◦ may not suffice
password cracker
◦ time and space issues
Markov Model
◦ generates guessable passwords
◦ hence reject any password it might generate
Bloom Filter
◦ use to build table based on dictionary using
hashes
◦ check desired password against this table
Objects that a user possesses to
authenticate, e.g.
◦ embossed card.
◦ magnetic stripe card
◦ memory card
◦ smartcard
store but do not process data
magnetic stripe card, e.g. bank card
electronic memory card
used alone for physical access
with password/PIN for computer use
drawbacks of memory cards include:
◦ need special reader
◦ loss of token issues
◦ user dissatisfaction
credit-card like
has own processor, memory, I/O ports
◦ wired or wireless access by reader
◦ may have crypto co-processor
◦ ROM, EEPROM, RAM memory
executes protocol to authenticate with
reader/computer
also have USB dongles
authenticate user based on one of their
physical characteristics
authentication over network more complex
◦ problems of eavesdropping, replay
generally use challenge-response
◦ user sends identity
◦ host responds with random number
◦ user computes f(r,h(P)) and sends back
◦ host compares value from user with own
computed value, if match user authenticated
protects against a number of attacks
client attacks
host attacks
eavesdropping
replay
trojan horse
denial-of-service
introduced user authentication
◦ using passwords
◦ using tokens
◦ using biometrics
remote user authentication issues
example application and case study
Slides are From
Chapter 3 – User Authentication
First Edition
by William Stallings and Lawrie
Brown
Lecture slides by Lawrie Brown
Find GCD(120,27) using Euclidian Algorithm
