Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Database Security
Authentication
Mobile
Privacy
Compliance
Careers and People
Identity & Access Management
Security Monitoring
Advanced Threats
Insider Threats
Vulnerability Management
Comments
Vulnerable Invisible Salamanders and You: A Tale of Encryption Weakness
Newest First  |  Oldest First  |  Threaded View
Johannes Bauer
50%
50%
Johannes Bauer,
 User Rank: Author
7/23/2020 | 1:27:51 PM
The difficulty of cryptographic constructions
The story sounds quite intriguing. I agree with the author that it's usually not cryptographic primitives that fail, but instead constructions, protocols and/or implementations. Similar to how authentication is secure, block ciphers are secure, but authenticate-then-encrypt might give way to padding oracle attacks.

In the text and linked BlackHat synopsis, the author describes how multiple messages under an AEAD scheme like AES-GCM can be decrypted successfully by multiple keys. I'd say it is unsurprising they decrypt (any key will decrypt the message, just most of the messages would be garbage), but for the security properties of any AEAD construction to hold, the authentication tag should be invalid for the message afterwards. The text reads like the author may have found a way where in specific constructions this is not the case, so I am very excited to read more details about the attack.

The number one reason why I love applied cryptography. You never stop learning :-)

Best, Johannes


News
Former CISA Director Chris Krebs Discusses Risk Management & Threat Intel
Kelly Sheridan, Staff Editor, Dark Reading,  2/23/2021
Edge-DRsplash-10-edge-articles
Security + Fraud Protection: Your One-Two Punch Against Cyberattacks
Joshua Goldfarb, Director of Product Management at F5,  2/23/2021
News
Cybercrime Groups More Prolific, Focus on Healthcare in 2020
Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer,  2/22/2021
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon Contest
Write a Caption, Win an Amazon Gift Card! Click Here
Latest Comment: This comment is waiting for review by our moderators.
Current Issue
2021 Top Enterprise IT Trends
We've identified the key trends that are poised to impact the IT landscape in 2021. Find out why they're important and how they will affect you today!
Flash Poll
Building the SOC of the Future
Building the SOC of the Future
Digital transformation, cloud-focused attacks, and a worldwide pandemic. The past year has changed the way business works and the way security teams operate. There is no going back.
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2021-20327
PUBLISHED: 2021-02-25
A specific version of the Node.js mongodb-client-encryption module does not perform correct validation of the KMS server’s certificate. This vulnerability in combination with a privileged network position active MITM attack could result in interception of traffic between the Node....
CVE-2021-20328
PUBLISHED: 2021-02-25
Specific versions of the Java driver that support client-side field level encryption (CSFLE) fail to perform correct host name verification on the KMS server’s certificate. This vulnerability in combination with a privileged network position active MITM attack could result in inte...
CVE-2020-27543
PUBLISHED: 2021-02-25
The restify-paginate package 0.0.5 for Node.js allows remote attackers to cause a Denial-of-Service by omitting the HTTP Host header. A Restify-based web service would crash with an uncaught exception.
CVE-2020-23534
PUBLISHED: 2021-02-25
A server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in Upgrade.php of gopeak masterlab 2.1.5, via the 'source' parameter.
CVE-2021-27330
PUBLISHED: 2021-02-25
Triconsole Datepicker Calendar <3.77 is affected by cross-site scripting (XSS) in calendar_form.php. Attackers can read authentication cookies that are still active, which can be used to perform further attacks such as reading browser history, directory listings, and file contents.