Understanding the Weaknesses of Human-Protocol Interaction

Abstract

Abstract. A significant number of attacks on systems are against the non-cryptographic components such as the human interaction with the system. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy of human-protocol interaction weaknesses. This set of weaknesses presents a harmonization of many findings from different research areas. In doing so we collate the most common human-interaction problems that can potentially result in successful attacks against protocol implementations. We then map these weaknesses onto a set of design recommendations aimed to minimize those weaknesses.

A Proposed Framework for Analysing Security Ceremonies

“…When implemented, the assumptions are replaced by dynamic user-interactions. When these assumptions are too strong, it becomes difficult to implement a protocol providing the expected security properties (Carlos and Price, 2012). By adding new components to the specification, such as users and different communication mediums, we can start to describe these assumptions in the ceremony, and consequently perform a more detailed analysis of them and their impact on the ceremony's security properties.…”

“…This leaves such implementations susceptible to failure, weakening the achievability of the protocol's goals due to the weakening of the assumptions. Additionally, implementations such as those we find in web browsers force users to authenticate digital objects (Certificates) which, according to some research findings, is not feasible (Carlos and Price, 2012).…”

“…Ellison gives an overview and establishes the basic building blocks for ceremony description. Carlos and Price (Carlos and Price, 2012) further analysed the human-protocol interaction problems, proposing a taxonomy of overlooked components in this interaction and elaborating a set of design recommendations for security ceremonies. Although Ellison proposes the possibility of using formal methods for security protocol analysis, no major work is found today in the ceremony formal-analysis field.…”

Model for analysing Anti-Phishing Authentication Ceremonies

“…They extend the ceremony analysis by proposing a layered model for integrated technical and technology practice analysis. Their approach is somewhat similar to human-protocol interaction layers defined by Carlos [11]. In network security systems, Karlof et al [12] proposed a concept of conditioned-safe ceremony which is a ceremony that deliberately conditions users to automatically take actions that protect them from an attack.…”

“…The major effort yet to be accomplished in the field of ceremony design and analysis is the modelling of the memory and processing performed by human nodes [10], [11], [12], [13]. Ceremony analysis provides a more complete understanding of the security threats surrounding the use of a protocol by a human than analysing the protocol alone.…”