SaTC: CORE: Small: Authentication on the Web: Provable Security for Emerging Protocols

Web上一些重要的通信和认证协议仍然缺乏可证明的安全处理，因此也缺乏安全保障。该项目的影响在于弥合了这一差距。该项目的创新之处在于将现代密码学的可证明安全方法与协议设计相结合，产生了新的安全框架，并对以下新出现的重要协议进行了分析：(1)单点登录(SSO)服务，如OpenID Connect，允许服务提供商将客户的身份验证委托给指定的身份提供商；(2)FIDO2，FIDO联盟的一个非常雄心勃勃的项目，帮助世界摆脱繁琐的密码身份验证使用，转而依赖第二因素设备或生物识别以及安全的PIN；(3)TLS或Quic上的HTTPS协议，目前近一半的互联网流量进行加密和身份验证。然而，当它与主动代理、中间盒或边缘服务器结合使用时，其安全性尚不清楚，所有这些都会检查、缓存或转换流量，以便应用安全规则、提高性能等。对于项目的每个部分，调查人员设计了正式的安全定义，考虑到实际的对抗能力和各种安全威胁。然后，他们试图证明上述协议的密码学核心在关于协议组件的合理计算假设下满足定义。当发现漏洞，而这样的证据不可能时，调查人员就会提出修复方案。应用这种方法的新奇之处在于对两种以上类型的参与方进行建模，其中可能包括人类参与方。调查人员做出了认真的努力，使包括从业者在内的广大受众能够接触到这些结果。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Some important communication and authentication protocols on the Web still lack the provable-security treatment and hence lack the security guarantees as well. The project's impact is in bridging this gap. The project’s novelty is coupling the provable-security approach of modern cryptography with protocol design to yield novel security frameworks and analyses of the following protocols of emerging importance:(1) single sign-on (SSO) services, such as OpenID Connect, that allow service providers to delegate authentication of clients to designated identity providers,(2) FIDO2, a very ambitious project of the FIDO Alliance that helps the world to move away from bothersome use of passwords for authentication, relying instead on second-factor devices or biometrics, as well as secure PINs, (3) HTTPS protocol over TLS or QUIC, which encrypts and authenticates nearly half of Internet traffic nowadays. However, its security is not clear when used in combination with active proxies, middleboxes, or edge servers, all of which inspect, cache, or transform traffic in order to apply security rules, improve performance, etc. For each part of the project, the investigators design formal security definitions that take into account practical adversarial capabilities and various security threats. They then attempt to prove that the cryptographic cores of the aforementioned protocols satisfy the definitions under some reasonable computational assumptions on the protocol's components. When weaknesses are found and such proofs are not possible, then the investigators propose fixes. The novelty in applying such an approach is in modeling parties of more than two types, which may include a human party. The investigators put a serious effort to make the results accessible to a wide audience, including practitioners.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.