Extracting and Verifying Cryptographic Models from C Protocol Code by Symbolic Execution

November 24, 2011

Misha Aizatulin


Extracting and Verifying Cryptographic Models from C Protocol Code by Symbolic Execution

Time:   3:00pm
Location:   IMDEA conference room

Consider the problem of verifying security properties of a cryptographic protocol coded in C. We propose an automatic solution that needs neither a pre-existing protocol description nor manual annotation of source code. First, symbolically execute the C program to obtain symbolic descriptions for the network messages sent by the protocol. Second, apply algebraic rewriting to obtain a process calculus description. Third, run an existing protocol analyser (ProVerif) to prove security properties or find attacks. We analyse only a single execution path, so our results are limited to protocols with no significant branching. Our results provide the first computationally sound verification of weak secrecy and authentication for (single execution paths of) C code.