We investigate how formal methods can be used for the verification of cryptographic protocols such that the verified properties are valid for the concrete implementation of the protocol using actual cryptography. We give an abstract deterministic specification for secure message transmission with ordered channels along with a possible implementation that we prove to be secure in the sense of simulatability, which is the cryptographic notion of a secure refinement. The correctness of this proof relies on a composition theorem and a deterministic bisimulation, which we formally verify using the theorem prover PVS. We further use PVS to formally verify that message reordering is in fact prevented in the specification. We finally show that integrity properties are preserved under simulatability, which allows for carrying over the proven property to the concrete implementation. This yields the first example ever of a formally verified but nevertheless cryptographically sound proof of a security protocol.
By: Michael Backes, Christian Jacobi, Birgit Pfitzmann
Published in: RZ3514 in 2003
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