Comparison between Kerberos version 4 and version 5:

Kerberos Version 4 Kerberos Version 5

Kerberos v4 was released prior The version 5 was published in

Chronology to the version 5 in the late 1993, years after the appearance
1980’s. of version 5.

Uses the principal name

Key salt algorithm Uses the entire principal name.
partially.

Uses the “receiver-makes-right”

Encoding Uses the ASN.1 coding system.
encoding system.

Well extended. Facilitates

Ticket support Satisfactory forwarding, renewing and
postdating tickets.

Contains only a few IP Contains multiple IP addresses

Network addresses addresses and other addresses and other addresses for types of
for types of network protocols. network protocols.

Transitive cross-realm Reasonable support present for

No present support for the
authentication support such authentication.
cause.

Kerberos Version 4
1. It was released in the late 1980s
2. It uses the principal name partially
3. It uses the 'receiver-makes-right' encoding system.
4. It contains only a few IP addresses.
5. No transitive cross-realm authentication support.
Kerberos Version 5
1. It was published in 1993.
2. It uses the entire principal name.
3. It uses the ASN. 1 coding system.
4. Contains multiple IP addresses.
5. Reasonable support is available for transitive cross-realm authentication.
Reflection attack: In computer security, a reflection attack is a method of attacking a challenge-response
authentication system that uses the same protocol in both directions. That is, the same challenge-
response protocol is used by each side to authenticate the other side. The essential idea of the attack is
to trick the target into providing the answer to its own challenge.

The general attack outline is as follows:

1. The attacker initiates a connection to a target.

2. The target attempts to authenticate the attacker by sending it a challenge.
3. The attacker opens another connection to the target, and sends the target this challenge as its
own.
4. The target responds to the challenge.
5. The attacker sends that response back to the target on the original connection.
If the authentication protocol is not carefully designed, the target will accept that response as valid;
thereby leaving the attacker with one fully authenticated channel connection (the other one is simply
abandoned).
Some of the most common solutions to this attack are described below:
 The responder sends its identifier within the response so, if it receives a response that has its
identifier in it, it can reject it.
1. Alice initiates a connection to Bob
2. Bob challenges Alice by sending a nonce. B -> A: N
3. Alice responds by sending back her identifier and the nonce encrypted using the shared key Kab.
A -> B: {A, N}Kab
4. Bob decrypts the message, makes sure its from Alice and not a message he had sent in the past
by finding A in it and not B and if the nonce is the same as the one he sent in his challenge then
he accepts the message.
 Require the initiating party to first respond to challenges before the target party responds to its
challenges.
 Require the key or protocol to be different between the two directions.
Note: In computer security, challenge–response authentication is a family of protocols in which one
party presents a question ("challenge") and another party must provide a valid answer ("response") to
be authenticated.

IPSec: Features of IPsec

 IPsec is not designed to work only with TCP as a transport protocol. It works with UDP as well as
any other protocol above IP such as ICMP, OSPF etc.
 IPsec protects the entire packet presented to IP layer including higher layer headers.
 Since higher layer headers are hidden which carry port number, traffic analysis is more difficult.
 IPsec works from one network entity to another network entity, not from application process to
application process. Hence, security can be adopted without requiring changes to individual
user computers/applications.
 Tough widely used to provide secure communication between network entities, IPsec can
provide host-to-host security as well.
  The most common use of IPsec is to provide a Virtual Private Network (VPN), either between
two locations (gateway-to-gateway) or between a remote user and an enterprise network
(host-to-gateway).

IPsec provides an easy mechanism for implementing Virtual Private Network (VPN) for such institutions.
VPN technology allows institution’s inter-office traffic to be sent over public Internet by encrypting
traffic before entering the public Internet and logically separating it from other traffic. The simplified
working of VPN is shown in the following diagram −

PKIX : Public-key infrastructure (PKI) is the set of hardware, software, people, policies, and procedures
needed to create, manage, store, distribute, and revoke digital certificates based on asymmetric
cryptography.
The principal objective of developing a PKI is to enable secure, convenient, and efficient acquisition of
public keys.
Moreover, The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Public Key Infrastructure X.509 (PKIX) working
group has been the driving force behind setting up a formal (and generic) model based on X.509.
The figure shows the interrelationship among the key elements of the PKIX model.
These elements are:

 End entity: A generic term used to denote end users, devices (e.g., servers, routers), or any other
entity that can identify in the subject field of a public key certificate.
 A certification authority (CA): The issue of certificates and (usually) certificate revocation lists
(CRLs). It may also support a variety of administrative functions, although these often delegated
to one or more Registration Authorities.
 Registration authority (RA): An optional component that can assume a number of administrative
functions from the CA. The RA is often associated with the end entity registration process but can
assist in a number of other areas as well.
 CRL issuer: An optional component that a CA can delegate to publish CRLs.
 Repository: A generic term used to denote any method for storing certificates and CRLs so that
they can be retrieved by end entities.
PKIX Management Functions: Public-Key Infrastructure
 PKIX identifies a number of management functions that potentially need to supported by
management protocols which are:
 Registration
 Initialization
 Certification
 Key pair recovery
 Key pair update
 Revocation request
 Cross-certification
Digital Certificate:
Digital Certificates provide a means of proving your identity in electronic transactions, much like a driver
license or a passport does in face-to-face interactions. With a Digital Certificate, you can assure friends,
business associates, and online services that the electronic information they receive from you are
authentic.
Digital Signature:
Digital signature is a mechanism by which a message is authenticated i.e. proving that a message is
effectively coming from a given sender, much like a signature on a paper document. For instance,
suppose that Alice wants to digitally sign a message to Bob. To do so, she uses her private-key to encrypt
the message; she then sends the message along with her public-key (typically, the public key is attached
to the signed message). Since Alice’s public-key is the only key that can decrypt that message, a
successful decryption constitutes a Digital Signature Verification, and meaning that there is no doubt
that it is Alice’s private key that encrypted the message.

Triple DES: There are two variants of Triple DES known as 3-key Triple DES (3TDES) and 2-key Triple DES
(2TDES).
3-KEY Triple DES
Before using 3TDES, user first generates and distributes a 3TDES key K, which consists of three different
DES keys K1, K2 and K3. This means that the actual 3TDES key has length 3×56 = 168 bits. The
encryption scheme is illustrated as follows −
The encryption-decryption process is as follows −
 Encrypt the plaintext blocks using single DES with key K1.
 Now decrypt the output of step 1 using single DES with key K2.
 Finally, encrypt the output of step 2 using single DES with key K3.
 The output of step 3 is the cipher text.
 Decryption of a cipher text is a reverse process. User first decrypt using K3, then encrypt with
K2, and finally decrypt with K1.
Due to this design of Triple DES as an encrypt–decrypt–encrypt process, it is possible to use a 3TDES
(hardware) implementation for single DES by setting K1, K2, and K3 to be the same value. This provides
backwards compatibility with DES.
Second variant of Triple DES (2TDES) is identical to 3TDES except that K3is replaced by K1. In other
words, user encrypts plaintext blocks with key K1, then decrypt with key K2, and finally encrypt with
K1 again. Therefore, 2TDES has a key length of 112 bits.
Triple DES systems are significantly more secure than single DES, but these are clearly a much slower
process than encryption using single DES.

MAC: Message Authentication Code (MAC)

• generated by an algorithm that creates a small fixed-sized block
– Depending on both message and some key
– like encryption, but need not be reversible
• appended to message as a digest / tag
• Receiver performs same computation on message and checks it matches the MAC
• provides assurance that message is unaltered and comes from sender
• Esp. useful if message can be any bitpattern

As shown the MAC provides authentication

• can also use encryption for secrecy
– Generally use separate keys for each
– can compute MAC either before or after encryption
– is generally regarded as better done before

• Why use a MAC?

– Sometimes only authentication is needed
– Sometimes need authentication to persist longer than the encryption (eg. archival use)

• note that a MAC is not a digital signature