Table of contents

  • This session has been presented March 23, 2018.

Description

  • Speaker

    Mathy Vanhoef - KU-Leuven

We introduce key reinstallation attacks (KRACKs). These attacks abuse features of a protocol to reinstall an already in-use key, thereby resetting nonces and/or replay counters associated to this key. We show that our novel attack technique breaks several handshakes that are used in a WPA2-protected network.<br/> All protected Wi-Fi networks use the 4-way handshake to generate fresh session keys. The design of this handshake was proven secure, and over its 14-year lifetime no weaknesses have been found in it. However, contrary to this history, we show that the 4-way handshake is vulnerable to key reinstallation attacks. In such an attack, the adversary tricks a victim into reinstalling an already in-use key. This is achieved by manipulating and replaying handshake messages. When the victim reinstalls the key, the associated incremental nonce and replay counter is reset to its initial value. Apart from breaking the 4-way handshake, we also show that our key reinstallation attack breaks the group key and Fast BSS Transition (FT) handshake. The impact of our attacks depend on both the handshake being targeted, and the data-confidentiality protocol in use. Simplified, against AES-CCMP, an adversary can replay and decrypt packets, but cannot forge packets. Still, this makes it possible to hijack TCP streams and inject malicious data into them. Against WPA-TKIP and GCMP, the impact is catastrophic: an adversary can replay, decrypt, and forge arbitrary packets. Rather surprisingly, GCMP is especially affected because it uses the same authentication key in both communication directions. Finally, we confirmed our findings in practice, and found that every Wi-Fi device is vulnerable to some variant of our attacks. Notably, our attack is exceptionally devastating against Android and Linux: it forces the client into using a predictable all-zero encryption key.

Next sessions

  • Dual attacks in code-based (and lattice-based) cryptography

    • September 19, 2025 (13:45 - 14:45)

    • IRMAR - Université de Rennes - Campus Beaulieu Bat. 22, RDC, Rennes - Amphi Lebesgue

    Speaker : Charles Meyer-Hilfiger - Inria Rennes

    The hardness of the decoding problem and its generalization, the learning with errors problem, are respectively at the heart of the security of the Post-Quantum code-based scheme HQC and the lattice-based scheme Kyber. Both schemes are to be/now NIST standards. These problems have been actively studied for decades, and the complexity of the state-of-the-art algorithms to solve them is crucially[…]
    • Cryptography

  • Présentations des nouveaux doctorants Capsule

    • October 03, 2025 (13:45 - 14:45)

    • IRMAR - Université de Rennes - Campus Beaulieu Bat. 22, RDC, Rennes - Amphi Lebesgue

    Speaker : Alisée Lafontaine et Mathias Boucher - INRIA Rennes

    2 nouveaux doctorants arrivent dans l'équipe Capsule et présenteront leurs thématiques de recherche. Alisée Lafontaine, encadrée par André Schrottenloher, présentera son stage de M2: "Quantum rebound attacks on double-block length hash functions"  Mathias Boucher, encadré par Yixin Shen, parlera des algorithmes quantiques et des réseaux euclidiens.  
  • Design of fast AES-based Universal Hash Functions and MACs

    • October 10, 2025 (13:45 - 14:45)

    • IRMAR - Université de Rennes - Campus Beaulieu Bat. 22, RDC, Rennes - Amphi Lebesgue

    Speaker : Augustin Bariant - ANSSI

    Ultra-fast AES round-based software cryptographic authentication/encryption primitives have recently seen important developments, fuelled by the authenticated encryption competition CAESAR and the prospect of future high-profile applications such as post-5G telecommunication technology security standards. In particular, Universal Hash Functions (UHF) are crucial primitives used as core components[…]
    • Cryptography

  • Lie algebras and the security of cryptosystems based on classical varieties in disguise

    • November 07, 2025 (13:45 - 14:45)

    • IRMAR - Université de Rennes - Campus Beaulieu Bat. 22, RDC, Rennes - Amphi Lebesgue

    Speaker : Mingjie Chen - KU Leuven

    In 2006, de Graaf et al. proposed a strategy based on Lie algebras for finding a linear transformation in the projective linear group that connects two linearly equivalent projective varieties defined over the rational numbers. Their method succeeds for several families of “classical” varieties, such as Veronese varieties, which are known to have large automorphism groups.   In this talk, we[…]
    • Cryptography

  • Some applications of linear programming to Dilithium

    • November 14, 2025 (13:45 - 14:45)

    • IRMAR - Université de Rennes - Campus Beaulieu Bat. 22, RDC, Rennes - Amphi Lebesgue

    Speaker : Paco AZEVEDO OLIVEIRA - Thales & UVSQ

    Dilithium is a signature algorithm, considered post-quantum, and recently standardized under the name ML-DSA by NIST. Due to its security and performance, it is recommended in most use cases.   During this presentation, I will outline the main ideas behind two studies, conducted in collaboration with Andersson Calle-Vierra, Benoît Cogliati, and Louis Goubin, which provide a better understanding of[…]
Show previous sessions