k-hunt: Pinpointing Insecure Cryptographic Keys from Execution Traces
Link: http://web.cse.ohio-state.edu/~lin.3021/file/CCS18.pdf
Source Code: https://github.com/GoSSIP-SJTU/k-hunt
Summary: It would be useful for attackers if they can identify the memory location where an application store its cryptographic keys. It will be more useful to do taint analysis for various purpose (e.g. identify if a key is insecure). This research uses an online dynamic verification system to identify the cryptographic key memory location and verify if they are secure.
Design: The key challenges to identify a cryptographic key are: 1) how to identify cryptographic operations without the signature (because they are intended for proprietary algorithm too), 2) how to identify the memory buffer of the cryptographic key. Additionally, to detect an insecure key in a complex program, it is important to design an optimized taint mechanism. For each of them, they present their key insights. For case 1, they use three different heuristics: identify basic blocks which involves the arithmetic operation, repeatedly executed, and their input-output relationship contain randomness. For case 2, they use two additional heuristics: usually, the key size is less than data buffer size and key are usually derived just before cryptographic execution with randomness. When the key is identified, in the next phase, they rerun the dynamic analysis to detect the insecure keys. To tag a key insecure, it should be: 1) generate with inadequate randomness, 2) in the remote-client environment, only one of them can participate in key derivation, or 3) key is not cleaned up immediately after the use.
Advantage: The design is simple and modularized. It only depends on one specific technology, dynamic binary analysis. The evaluation is influential. The cause is effective.
Disadvantage: The overhead is high for online verification. There is still a possibility of communication cut. The rerun for insecure key detection could be failed because of ASLR.
Discussion: Overall, the research has a significant contribution. More insecure key cases could be derived in future and implemented over it.
