Cryptography and Network Security

Spring 2006
http://www.abo.fi/~ipetre/crypto/

Lecture 10: Message authentication: MAC, hashes

Ion Petre
Academy of Finland and
Department of IT, Åbo Akademi University

April 18, 2006 1

Message authentication

„ Goal here: having received a message one would like to make sure that the
message has not been altered on the way
‰ Produce a short sequence of bits that depends on the message and on a secret key
‰ To authenticate the message, the partner will compute the same bit pattern, assuming
he shares the same secret key
„ This does not necessarily includes encrypting or signing the message
‰ The message can be sent in plain, with the authenticator appended
‰ This is not a digital signature: the receiver can produce the same MAC
‰ One may encrypt the authenticator with his private key to produce a digital signature
‰ One may encrypt both the message and the authenticator
„ Possible attacks on message authentication:
‰ Content modification
‰ Sequence modification – modifications to a sequence of messages, including
insertion, deletion, reordering
‰ Timing modification – delay or replay messages

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Authentication functions

„ Three types of authentication exist

‰ Message encryption – the ciphertext serves as authenticator
‰ Message authentication code (MAC) – a public function of the message
and a secret key producing a fixed-length value to serve as
authenticator
„ This does not provide a digital signature because A and B share the same
key
‰ Hash function – a public function mapping an arbitrary length message
into a fixed-length hash value to serve as authenticator
„ This does not provide a digital signature because there is no key

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I. Message encryption as authentication

„ Main idea here: the message must have come from A because the ciphertext can be
decrypted using his (secret or public) key
„ Also, none of the bits in the message have been altered because an opponent does not
know how to manipulate the bits of the ciphertext to induce meaningful changes to the
plaintext
„ Conclusion: encryption (either symmetric or public-key) provides authentication as well
as confidentiality

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Encryption as authenticator

From Stallings: Cryptography

and Network Security

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Encryption as authenticator

„ Some careful considerations are needed here:

‰ How does B recognize a meaningful message from an arbitrary
sequence of bits?
„ He can apply the decryption key to any sequence of bits he receives
‰ This is not necessarily easy task if the message is some sort of binary
file
‰ Immediate idea of attack: send arbitrary bit sequences to disrupt the
receiver – he will try to figure out the meaning of that bit sequence
„ Defense against this type of attack: add to the message a certain
structure such as an error-correcting code (e.g., check-sum bits) and
then encrypt the whole file
‰ B will detect illegitimate messages because they will not have the
required structure

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More to authentication than simple encryption?

„ Often one needs alternative authentication schemes than just encrypting

the message
‰ Sometimes one needs to avoid encryption of full messages due to legal
requirements
‰ Encryption and authentication may be separated in the system architecture
‰ If a message is broadcast to several destinations in a network (such as a
military control center), then it is cheaper and more reliable to have just one
node responsible to evaluate the authenticity – message will be sent in plain
with an attached authenticator
‰ If one side has a heavy load, it cannot afford to decrypt all messages – it will
just check the authenticity of some randomly selected messages
‰ If the message is sent encrypted, it is of course protected over the network.
However, once the receiver decrypts the message, it is no longer secure.
Using a different type of authentication protects the message also on the local
computer

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II. Message authentication code (MAC)

„ To generate the MAC of a message M, Alice gives M and the secret key K to a MAC
function C: MAC=CK(M)
‰ Alice will send M plus the MAC to Bob
‰ Bob has the same secret key K and generates the MAC himself to check the match
„ Typical attacks on MACs
‰ Produce an illegitimate message with the same signature as a given (or chosen) legitimate one
‰ Produce a valid MAC for an illegitimate message
„ Requirements for MACs
‰ The MAC function is in general many-to-one – messages are arbitrarily long and the MAC has
fixed length, thus there will be more than one message with the same MAC
‰ Computationally easy to compute the MAC
‰ Knowing M and CK(M) it is computationally infeasible to construct another message M’ with
CK(M’)= CK(M)
‰ CK(M) is uniformly distributed – if the attacker chooses a random bit pattern of length n, the
chances of it being the correct signature is 2-n
‰ If M’ is obtained from M by certain transformations (even switching one bit), then the probability
that the two have the same MAC is 2-n

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 Basic uses of MAC

April 18, 2006 9

Basic uses of MAC

April 18, 2006 10

 MAC based on DES:
Data Authentication Algorithm (DAA)

„ One of the most widely used MACs – ANSI standard X9.17, also FIPS
PUB 113
„ Cipher block chaining mode of DES with an initialization vector of zero
‰ Message to be authenticated is grouped into 64-bit blocks, last block padded
with 0: D1,D2, …, DN
‰ O1=EK(D1), O2=EK(D2⊕O1), O3=EK(D3⊕O2), …, ON=EK(DN⊕ON-1)
‰ MAC is ON or a part of it, e.g., its 32 leftmost bits

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III. Authentication based on hash functions

„ A fixed-length hash value h is generated by a function H that takes as input a

message of arbitrary length: h=H(M)
‰ A sends M and H(M)
‰ B authenticates the message by computing H(M) and checking the match
„ Requirements for a hash function
‰ H can be applied to a message of any size
‰ H produces fixed-length output
‰ Computationally easy to compute H(M)
‰ Computationally infeasible to find M such that H(M)=h, for a given h
‰ Computationally infeasible to find M’ such that H(M’)=H(M), for a given M
‰ Computationally infeasible to find M,M’ with H(M)=H(M’) (to resist to birthday
attacks)
„ Note: the hash function is not considered secret – some other means
are required to protect it
„ Note 2: Hash function plus secrecy (key) gives a MAC – these are called
HMACs

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 Basic uses of hash functions

a. Classical encryption
of message+hash

b. Only the hash value

is encrypted

c. As in (b) but with

public key (provides
digital signature)

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 Basic uses of hash functions

d. Hash is encrypted
with an asymmetric
system, then a second
encryption is applied

e. No encryption here
but the hash is
applied to a message
where a secret text S
has been appended

f. As in (e), but with

encryption

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Basic uses of hash functions

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A few simple hash functions

„ Bit-by-bit XOR of plaintext blocks: h= D1⊕ D2⊕… ⊕ DN

‰ Provides a parity check for each bit position
‰ Not very effective with text files: most significant bit always 0
‰ Attack: to send blocks X1, X2, …, XN-1, choose XN=X1⊕ X2⊕… ⊕ XN-1 ⊕h
‰ It does not help if (only) the hash is sent encrypted!
„ Another example: rotated XOR – before each addition the hash value is
rotated to the left with 1 bit
‰ Better than the previous hash on text files
‰ Similar attack
„ Another technique: cipher block chaining technique without a secret key
‰ Divide message into blocks D1, D2,…,DN and use them as keys in the
encryption method (e.g., DES)
‰ H0=some initial value, Hi=EDi(Hi-1)
‰ H=HN
‰ This can be attacked with the birthday attack if the key is short (as in DES)

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Birthday paradox

„ Given at least 23 people, the probability of having two people with

the same birthday is more then 0.5
„ Related problem: Given two sets X,Y each having k elements from
the set {1,2,…,N}, how large should k so that the probability that X
and Y have a common element is more than 0.5?
‰ Answer: k should be larger than the square root of N
‰ If N=2m, take k=2m/2

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 Birthday attack

„ Suppose a hash value on 64 bits is used (as the one based on DES)
‰ In principle this is secure: to find a message M’ with H(M)=H(M’), one apparently has
to generate in average 263 messages M’
„ A different much more effective attack is possible
‰ A is prepared to sign the document by appending its hash value (on m bits) and then
encrypting the hash code with its private key
‰ E will generate 2m/2 variations of the message M and computes the hash values for
all of them
‰ E also generates 2m/2 variations of the message M’ that she would really like to have
A authenticating and computes the hash values for all of them
‰ By the birthday paradox, the probability that the two sets of hash values have one
element in common is more than 0.5 – she finds M and M’ with the same hash values
(messages expressing totally different things!)
‰ E will offer M to A for hashing and then signing
‰ E will send instead M’ with the signature A has produced
‰ E breaks the protocol although she does not know A’s private key!
‰ Level of effort for the hash based on DES: 233

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Example of composing variations to a message

{This letter is / I am writing} to introduce {you to / to you} {Mr. / } Alfred

{P. / } Barton, the {new / newly appointed} {chief / senior} jewelry
buyer for {our / the} Northern {European / Europe} {area / division}.
He {will take /has taken} over {the / } responsibility for {all / the whole
of} our interests in {watches and jewelry / jewelry and watches} in
the {area/region}. …

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Two popular hash algorithms

„ MD5
„ SHA-1

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MD5

„ Most popular hash algorithm until very recently – concerns for its
security were raised and was proposed to be replaced by SHA-1
„ Developed by Rivest at MIT
„ For a message of arbitrary length produces an output of 128 bits
‰ Processes the input in blocks of 512 bits
„ Idea:
‰ Start by padding the message to a length of 448 bits modulo 512 –
padding is always added even if the message is of required length; the
length of the message is added on 64 bits so that altogether the length
is a multiple of 512 bits
‰ Several rounds, each round takes a block of 512 bits from the message
and mixes it thoroughly with a 128 bit buffer that was the result of the
previous round
‰ The last content of the buffer is the hash value

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MD5

April 18, 2006 22

MD5 – the algorithm

1. Padding: add a bit 1 followed by the necessary number of bits 0

2. Append length – the length is represented on 64 bits
• If the length is larger than 264, take the 64 least representative bits
3. Initialize MD buffer with the following 4 values, all on 32 bits:
A=0x01234567, B=0x89ABCDEF, C=0xFEDCBA98,
D=0x76543210
4. Process each message block of 512 bits in 4 rounds
• Each round takes as input the 512 bits in the input and the content of
the buffer ABCD and updates the buffer ABCD (details on the next
slide)
• The four words A,B,C,D in the output of the 4th round are added modulo
232 to the corresponding words A,B,C,D of the input to the first round
5. Output: the 128 bits in the buffer ABCD after the last round

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 MD5 processing of a single 512-bit block

• Each round has 16 steps

•T is a table
• F,G,H,I are Boolean functions (tables) on
B,C,D (bit-by-bit operations)
• X has the current 32 bits of the message
•The message has 512 bits, i.e., 16 blocks of 32 bits
•Each of the 16 blocks is used exactly once in each
round
•Round 1: used in consecutive order
•Round 2: used in the order (1+5i) mod 16,
i=0,…,15
•Round 3: used in the order (5+3i) mod 16,
i=0,…,15
•Round 4: used in the order 7i mod 16, i=0,…,15

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 One single step in MD5

• All operations here are on blocks of 32 bits

• T is a table
• g is one of the functions F,G,H,I (bit-wise function)
• X has the current 32 bits of the message
• CLSs is a circular left shift (rotation) with s bits
• “+” is addition modulo 232

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Table T and truth
table of F,G,H,I

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Strength of MD5

„ Every bit of the output is a function of all bits of the input

„ Rivest’s conjecture:
‰ As strong as it can be for a 128-bit hash: birthday attack on the order of
264 and finding a message with a given digest is on the order of 2128
„ If MD5 is restricted to any of its 4 rounds, then it can be broken
‰ No successful attack on the full algorithm but considered vulnerable

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Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA)

„ Developed by NSA and adopted by NIST in FIPS 180-1 (1993)

‰ SHA-1 specified in RFC 3174 – contains a C code implementation
„ Design based on MD4 (previous version of MD5)
„ Takes as input any message of length up to 264 bits and gives a
160-bit message digest
„ Same structure as MD5, with block length of 512 bits and buffer of
160 bits

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SHA-1 scheme

1. Append padding bits: message is padded so that length is congruent to

448 modulo 512; padding always added – one bit 1 followed by the
necessary number of 0 bits
2. Append length: a block of 64 bits containing the length of the original
message is added
3. Initialize 160-bit MD buffer: this is formed by 32-bit registers A,B,C,D,E.
Initial values: A=0x67452301, B=0xEFCDAB89, C=0x98BADCFE,
D=0x10325476, E=C3D2E1F0
4. Process message in blocks of 512 bits (i.e., 16 words of 32 bits each)
• Four rounds with 20 steps each (on next slide)
• Each round takes as input the current 512-bit input block and the 160-bit
buffer ABCDE and updates the buffer – there is an addition modulo 232
5. Output: the final content of the buffer gives the message digest

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 SHA-1 processing of a single 512-bit block

• Each round has 20 steps

• f1,…,f4 are Boolean functions (tables) on b,c,d
• K is a constant changing in each round:
o K1=0x5A827999, K2=0x6ED9EBA1,
o K3=0x8F1BBCDC, K4=0xCA62C1D6
•W[t] is a 32-bit block derived from the current
512-bit input, changing in every step
• show later how W is generated

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 One single step in SHA-1

• ft is one of the functions f1,…f4 on

B,C,D
•Sk is a circular left shift by k bits
•W is a 32-bit block derived from the
current 512-bit input, changing in every
step
• K is the constant defined earlier
• Addition is modulo 232

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Truth tables for functions f1,…,f4

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Generating the 32-bit words Wt from the input

„ Wt=Xt, for 0≤t ≤15, where X is the input

„ Wt=S1(Wt-16⊕Wt-14 ⊕Wt-8 ⊕Wt-3), for t≥16

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Strength of SHA-1

„ Stronger than MD5 because of longer message digest

„ Slower than MD5 because of more rounds
„ No known attacks
‰ Secret design criteria
„ Variants of SHA-1 with longer message digests have also been
proposed: SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512 (n-bit hash for SHA-n)

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HMAC

„ Interest in recent years in developing a MAC based on a hash function

‰ MD5 and SHA-1 run faster than symmetric block ciphers such as DES
‰ Code for hash functions widely available
‰ No export restrictions for cryptographic hash functions
„ Cryptographic functions (even those used in MAC) restricted
„ Hash values not intended for MAC – they are not protected by secret keys
‰ Some protection needs to be built on top of the hash value
„ The one approach that gained wide support is HMAC (RFC 2104) included in IP
security and SSL
„ Requirements for HMAC
‰ Use existing hash functions
‰ The hash function can be easily replaced by another one – treat the hash function as a black
box
‰ Preserve the performance of the hash function
‰ Use and handle keys in a simple way
‰ Well understood cryptographic analysis of the strength of the authentication mechanism

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HMAC algorithm

„ Idea: append a secret key to the message and compute the hash value
‰ To avoid a brute-force attack, apply the hash twice to mangle thoroughly the bits of the
key with those of the message
„ H=embedded hash function
„ IV=initial value to the has function
„ M=message input to HMAC (including the padding specific to the hash function)
„ Yi=i-th block of M
„ L=number of blocks in M
„ b=number of bit sin a block
„ n=length of the hash code
„ K=secret key, if its length is greater than b – will be given as input to the hash
function to produce n-bit key
„ K+=K padded with 0 on the left to make a b-bit key, if the original length of K is
smaller than b
„ ipad=0x36 repeated b/8 times
„ opad=0x5C repeated b/8 times
HMACK(M)=H[ (K+⊕ opad) || H[(K+⊕ ipad) || M] ]

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 HMAC algorithm

• H=embedded hash function

• IV=initial value input to hash function
• M=message input to HMAC (including the padding ⊕
specific to the hash function)
• Yi= the i-th block of M
• L=number of blocks in M
• b=number of bits in a block
• n=length of hash code produced by the embedded hash
function
• K=secret key, if its length is greater than b – will be given
as input to the hash function to produce n-bit key
• K+=K padded with 0 on the left to make a b-bit key, if the ⊕
original length of K is smaller than b
• ipad=0x36 repeated b/8 times
• opad=0x5C repeated b/8 times

HMACK(M)=H[ (K+⊕ opad) || H[(K+⊕ ipad) || M] ]

April 18, 2006 37

Strength of HMAC

„ Brute-force attack requires an effort on the level 2n-1 for a key of

length n
„ Birthday attack
‰ The main idea in this attack is that Eve can compute the hash values of
many messages and try to find a match
‰ In HMAC she is unable to do that because the hash is protected by a
secret key
‰ Eve will have to rely on messages that she observes on the link: for MD5
she will have to wait in average for 264 messages generated using the
same key
„ On a 1 Gbps-link she needs to observe a continuous stream of messages
with no change in the key for about 250 000 years
„ With SHA-1 280 messages are needed
„ For HMAC, using MD5 is secure (and fast)

April 18, 2006 38