Human Computing for Handling Strong Corruptions in Authenticated Key Exchange

Abstract

We propose the first user authentication and key exchange protocols that can tolerate strong corruptions on the client-side. If a user happens to log in to a server from a terminal that has been fully compromised, then the other past and future user’s sessions initiated from honest terminals stay secure. We define the security model for Human Authenticated Key Exchange HAKE) protocols and first propose two generic protocols based on human-compatible (HC) function family, password-authenticated key exchange (PAKE), commitment, and authenticated encryption. We prove our HAKE protocols secure under reasonable assumptions and discuss efficient instantiations. We thereafter propose a variant where the human gets help from a small device such as RSA SecurID. This permits to implement an HC function family with stronger security and thus allows to weaken required assumptions on the PAKE. This leads to the very efficient HAKE which is still secure in case of strong corruptions. We believe that our work will promote further developments in the area of human-oriented cryptography.