arXiv subjects

Roberto Metere

Publications and source records attributed to Roberto Metere.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

What a Mesh: Formal Security Analysis of WPA3 SAE Wireless Authentication

The latest Wi-Fi security standard, IEEE 802.11, includes a secure authentication protocol called SAE, whose use is mandatory for WPA3-Personal networks. The protocol is specified at two separate but linked levels: a traditional cryptographic description of the communication logic between network devices, and a state machine description that realises the former in each single device. Current formal verification efforts focus mainly on communication logic. We present detailed formal models of the protocol at both levels, provide precise specifications of its security properties, and analyse machine-checked proofs in ProVerif and ASMETA. The integrated analysis of the above two models is particularly novel, enabling us to identify and address several issues in the current IEEE 802.11 specification more thoroughly than would have been possible otherwise, leading to several official revisions of the standard.

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arXiv2025

Formal Verification of Physical Layer Security Protocols for Next-Generation Communication Networks (extended version)

Formal verification is crucial for ensuring the robustness of security protocols against adversarial attacks. The Needham-Schroeder protocol, a foundational authentication mechanism, has been extensively studied, including its integration with Physical Layer Security (PLS) techniques such as watermarking and jamming. Recent research has used ProVerif to verify these mechanisms in terms of secrecy. However, the ProVerif-based approach limits the ability to improve understanding of security beyond verification results. To overcome these limitations, we re-model the same protocol using an Isabelle formalism that generates sound animation, enabling interactive and automated formal verification of security protocols. Our modelling and verification framework is generic and highly configurable, supporting both cryptography and PLS. For the same protocol, we have conducted a comprehensive analysis (secrecy and authenticity in four different eavesdropper locations under both passive and active attacks) using our new web interface. Our findings not only successfully reproduce and reinforce previous results on secrecy but also reveal an uncommon but expected outcome: authenticity is preserved across all examined scenarios, even in cases where secrecy is compromised. We have proposed a PLS-based Diffie-Hellman protocol that integrates watermarking and jamming, and our analysis shows that it is secure for deriving a session key with required authentication. These highlight the advantages of our novel approach, demonstrating its robustness in formally verifying security properties beyond conventional methods.

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arXiv2024

Towards Achieving Energy Efficiency and Service Availability in O-RAN via Formal Verification

As Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) continue to expand, AI-driven applications (xApps) are increasingly being deployed enhance network management. However, developing xApps without formal verification risks introducing logical inconsistencies, particularly in balancing energy efficiency and service availability. In this paper, we argue that prior to their development, the formal analysis of xApp models should be a critical early step in the O-RAN design process. Using the PRISM model checker, we demonstrate how our results provide realistic insights into the thresholds between energy efficiency and service availability. While our models are simplified, the findings highlight how AI-informed decisions can enable more effective cell-switching policies. We position formal verification as an essential practice for future xApp development, avoiding fallacies in real-world applications and ensuring networks operate efficiently.

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arXiv2024

User-Guided Verification of Security Protocols via Sound Animation

Current formal verification of security protocols relies on specialized researchers and complex tools, inaccessible to protocol designers who informally evaluate their work with emulators. This paper addresses this gap by embedding symbolic analysis into the design process. Our approach implements the Dolev-Yao attack model using a variant of CSP based on Interaction Trees (ITrees) to compile protocols into animators -- executable programs that designers can use for debugging and inspection. To guarantee the soundness of our compilation, we mechanised our approach in the theorem prover Isabelle/HOL. As traditionally done with symbolic tools, we refer to the Diffie-Hellman key exchange and the Needham-Schroeder public-key protocol (and Lowe's patched variant). We demonstrate how our animator can easily reveal the mechanics of attacks and verify corrections. This work facilitates security integration at the design level and supports further security property analysis and software-engineered integrations.

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arXiv2023

A Direct Lazy Sampling Proof Technique in Probabilistic Relational Hoare Logic

Programs using random values can either make all choices in advance (eagerly) or sample as needed (lazily). In formal proofs, we focus on indistinguishability between two lazy programs, a common requirement in the random oracle model (ROM). While rearranging sampling instructions often solves this, it gets complex when sampling is spread across procedures. The traditional approach, introduced by Bellare and Rogaway in 2004, converts programs to eager sampling, but requires assuming finite memory, a polynomial bound, and artificial resampling functions. We introduce a novel approach in probabilistic Relational Hoare Logic (pRHL) that directly proves indistinguishability, eliminating the need for conversions and the mentioned assumptions. We also implement this approach in the EasyCrypt theorem prover, showing that it can be a convenient alternative to the traditional method.

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arXiv2023

Checking and Automating Confidentiality Theory in Isabelle/UTP

The severity of recent vulnerabilities discovered on modern CPUs, e.g., Spectre [1], highlights how information leakage can have devas-tating effects to the security of computer systems. At the same time, it suggests that confidentiality should be promoted as a normal part of program verification, to discover and mitigate such vulnerabili-ties early in development. The theory we propose is primarily based on Bank's theory [2], a framework for reasoning about confidentiali-ty properties formalised in the Unifying Theories of Programming (UTP) [3]. We mechanised our encoding in the current implementa-tion of UTP in the Isabelle theorem prover, Isabelle/UTP [4]. We have identified some theoretical issues in Bank's original framework. Finally, we demonstrate how our mechanisation can be used to for-mally verify of some of the examples from Bank's work.

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arXiv2022

An Overview of Cyber Security and Privacy on the Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Electric vehicles (EVs) are key to alleviate our dependency on fossil fuels. The future smart grid is expected to be populated by millions of EVs equipped with high-demand batteries. To avoid an overload of the (current) electricity grid, expensive upgrades are required. Some of the upgrades can be averted if users of EVs participate to energy balancing mechanisms, for example through bidirectional EV charging. As the proliferation of consumer Internet-connected devices increases, including EV smart charging stations, their security against cyber-attacks and the protection of private data become a growing concern. We need to properly adapt and develop our current technology that must tackle the security challenges in the EV charging infrastructure, which go beyond the traditional technical applications in the domain of energy and transport networks. Security must balance with other desirable qualities such as interoperability, crypto-agility and energy efficiency. Evidence suggests a gap in the current awareness of cyber security in EV charging infrastructures. This paper fills this gap by providing the most comprehensive to date overview of privacy and security challenges To do so, we review communication protocols used in its ecosystem and provide a suggestion of security tools that might be used for future research.

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arXiv2022

Securing the Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Electric Vehicles (EVs) can help alleviate our reliance on fossil fuels for transport and electricity systems. However, charging millions of EV batteries requires management to prevent overloading the electricity grid and minimise costly upgrades that are ultimately paid for by consumers. Managed chargers, such as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) chargers, allow control over the time, speed and direction of charging. Such control assists in balancing electricity supply and demand across a green electricity system and could reduce costs for consumers. Smart and V2G chargers connect EVs to the power grid using a charging device which includes a data connection to exchange information and control commands between various entities in the EV ecosystem. This introduces data privacy concerns and is a potential target for cyber-security attacks. Therefore, the implementation of a secure system is crucial to permit both consumers and electricity system operators to trust smart charging and V2G. In principle, we already have the technology needed for a connected EV charging infrastructure to be securely enabled, borrowing best practices from the Internet and industrial control systems. We must properly adapt the security technology to take into account the challenges peculiar to the EV charging infrastructure. Challenges go beyond technical considerations and other issues arise such as balancing trade-offs between security and other desirable qualities such as interoperability, scalability, crypto-agility, affordability and energy efficiency. This document reviews security and privacy topics relevant to the EV charging ecosystem with a focus on smart charging and V2G.

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arXiv2022

cyberaCTIve: a STIX-based Tool for Cyber Threat Intelligence in Complex Models

Cyber threat intelligence (CTI) is practical real-world information that is collected with the purpose of assessing threats in cyber-physical systems (CPS). A practical notation for sharing CTI is STIX. STIX offers facilities to create, visualise and share models; however, even a moderately simple project can be represented in STIX as a quite complex graph, suggesting to spread CTI across multiple simpler sub-projects. Our tool aims to enhance the STIX-based modelling task in contexts when such simplifications are infeasible. Examples can be the microgrid and, more in general, the smart grid.

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arXiv2022

Automating Cryptographic Protocol Language Generation from Structured Specifications

Security of cryptographic protocols can be analysed by creating a model in a formal language and verifying the model in a tool. All such tools focus on the last part of the analysis, verification, and the interpretation of the specification is only explained in papers. Rather, we focus on the interpretation and modelling part by presenting a tool to aid the cryptographer throughout the process and automatically generating code in a target language. We adopt a data-centric approach where the protocol design is stored in a structured way rather than as textual specifications. Previous work shows how this approach facilitates the interpretation to a single language (for Tamarin) which required aftermath modifications. By improving the expressiveness of the specification data structure we extend the tool to export to an additional formal language, ProVerif, as well as a C++ fully running implementation. Furthermore, we extend the plugins to verify correctness in ProVerif and executability lemmas in Tamarin. In this paper we model the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, which is traditionally used as a case study; a demo is also provided for other commonly studied protocols, Needham- Schroeder and Needham-Schroeder-Lowe.

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arXiv2019

Modelling Load-Changing Attacks in Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are present in many settings addressing a myriad of purposes. Examples are Internet-of-Things (IoT) or sensing software embedded in appliances or even specialised meters that measure and respond to electricity demands in smart grids. Due to their pervasive nature, they are usually chosen as recipients for larger scope cyber-security attacks. Those promote system-wide disruptions and are directed towards one key aspect such as confidentiality, integrity, availability or a combination of those characteristics. Our paper focuses on a particular and distressing attack where coordinated malware infected IoT units are maliciously employed to synchronously turn on or off high-wattage appliances, affecting the grid's primary control management. Our model could be extended to larger (smart) grids, Active Buildings as well as similar infrastructures. Our approach models Coordinated Load-Changing Attacks (CLCA) also referred as GridLock or BlackIoT, against a theoretical power grid, containing various types of power plants. It employs Continuous-Time Markov Chains where elements such as Power Plants and Botnets are modelled under normal or attack situations to evaluate the effect of CLCA in power reliant infrastructures. We showcase our modelling approach in the scenario of a power supplier (e.g. power plant) being targeted by a botnet. We demonstrate how our modelling approach can quantify the impact of a botnet attack and be abstracted for any CPS system involving power load management in a smart grid. Our results show that by prioritising the type of power-plants, the impact of the attack may change: in particular, we find the most impacting attack times and show how different strategies impact their success. We also find the best power generator to use depending on the current demand and strength of attack.

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arXiv2019

Towards a Data Centric Approach for the Design and Verification of Cryptographic Protocols

We propose MetaCP, a Meta Cryptography Protocol verification tool, as an automated tool simplifying the design of security protocols through a graphical interface. The graphical interface can be seen as a modern editor of a non-relational database whose data are protocols. The information of protocols are stored in XML, enjoying a fixed format and syntax aiming to contain all required information to specify any kind of protocol. This XML can be seen as an almost semanticless language, where different plugins confer strict semantics modelling the protocol into a variety of back-end verification languages. In this paper, we showcase the effectiveness of this novel approach by demonstrating how easy MetaCP makes it to design and verify a protocol going from the graphical design to formally verified protocol using a Tamarin prover plugin. Whilst similar approaches have been proposed in the past, most famously the AVISPA Tool, no previous approach provides such as small learning curve and ease of use even for non security professionals, combined with the flexibility to integrate with the state of the art verification tools.

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arXiv2019

TrABin: Trustworthy Analyses of Binaries

Verification of microkernels, device drivers, and crypto routines requires analyses at the binary level. In order to automate these analyses, in the last years several binary analysis platforms have been introduced. These platforms share a common design: the adoption of hardware-independent intermediate representations, a mechanism to translate architecture dependent code to this representation, and a set of architecture independent analyses that process the intermediate representation. The usage of these platforms to verify software introduces the need for trusting both the correctness of the translation from binary code to intermediate language (called transpilation) and the correctness of the analyses. Achieving a high degree of trust is challenging since the transpilation must handle (i) all the side effects of the instructions, (ii) multiple instruction encodings (e.g. ARM Thumb), and (iii) variable instruction length (e.g. Intel). Similarly, analyses can use complex transformations (e.g. loop unrolling) and simplifications (e.g. partial evaluation) of the artifacts, whose bugs can jeopardize correctness of the results. We overcome these problems by developing a binary analysis platform on top of the interactive theorem prover HOL4. First, we formally model a binary intermediate language and we prove correctness of several supporting tools (i.e. a type checker). Then, we implement two proof-producing transpilers, which respectively translate ARMv8 and CortexM0 programs to the intermediate language and generate a certificate. This certificate is a HOL4 proof demonstrating correctness of the translation. As demonstrating analysis, we implement a proof-producing weakest precondition generator, which can be used to verify that a given loop-free program fragment satisfies a contract. Finally, we use an AES encryption implementation to benchmark our platform.

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arXiv2018

Sound Transpilation from Binary to Machine-Independent Code

In order to handle the complexity and heterogeneity of mod- ern instruction set architectures, analysis platforms share a common design, the adoption of hardware-independent intermediate representa- tions. The usage of these platforms to verify systems down to binary-level is appealing due to the high degree of automation they provide. How- ever, it introduces the need for trusting the correctness of the translation from binary code to intermediate language. Achieving a high degree of trust is challenging since this transpilation must handle (i) all the side effects of the instructions, (ii) multiple instruction encoding (e.g. ARM Thumb), and (iii) variable instruction length (e.g. Intel). We overcome these problems by formally modeling one of such intermediate languages in the interactive theorem prover HOL4 and by implementing a proof- producing transpiler. This tool translates ARMv8 programs to the in- termediate language and generates a HOL4 proof that demonstrates the correctness of the translation in the form of a simulation theorem. We also show how the transpiler theorems can be used to transfer properties verified on the intermediate language to the binary code.

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arXiv2018

Analysing and Patching SPEKE in ISO/IEC

Simple Password Exponential Key Exchange (SPEKE) is a well-known Password Authenticated Key Exchange (PAKE) protocol that has been used in Blackberry phones for secure messaging and Entrust's TruePass end-to-end web products. It has also been included into international standards such as ISO/IEC 11770-4 and IEEE P1363.2. In this paper, we analyse the SPEKE protocol as specified in the ISO/IEC and IEEE standards. We identify that the protocol is vulnerable to two new attacks: an impersonation attack that allows an attacker to impersonate a user without knowing the password by launching two parallel sessions with the victim, and a key-malleability attack that allows a man-in-the-middle (MITM) to manipulate the session key without being detected by the end users. Both attacks have been acknowledged by the technical committee of ISO/IEC SC 27, and ISO/IEC 11770-4 revised as a result. We propose a patched SPEKE called P-SPEKE and present a formal analysis in the Applied Pi Calculus using ProVerif to show that the proposed patch prevents both attacks. The proposed patch has been included into the latest revision of ISO/IEC 11770-4 published in 2017.

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arXiv2017

Automated Cryptographic Analysis of the Pedersen Commitment Scheme

Aiming for strong security assurance, recently there has been an increasing interest in formal verification of cryptographic constructions. This paper presents a mechanised formal verification of the popular Pedersen commitment protocol, proving its security properties of correctness, perfect hiding, and computational binding. To formally verify the protocol, we extended the theory of EasyCrypt, a framework which allows for reasoning in the computational model, to support the discrete logarithm and an abstraction of commitment protocols. Commitments are building blocks of many cryptographic constructions, for example, verifiable secret sharing, zero-knowledge proofs, and e-voting. Our work paves the way for the verification of those more complex constructions.

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