Kohnhäuser, Florian (2019)
Advanced Remote Attestation Protocols for Embedded Systems.
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Ph.D. Thesis, Primary publication
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Item Type: | Ph.D. Thesis | ||||
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Type of entry: | Primary publication | ||||
Title: | Advanced Remote Attestation Protocols for Embedded Systems | ||||
Language: | English | ||||
Referees: | Katzenbeisser, Prof. Dr. Stefan ; Hollick, Prof. Dr. Matthias | ||||
Date: | 6 June 2019 | ||||
Place of Publication: | Darmstadt | ||||
Date of oral examination: | 18 July 2019 | ||||
Abstract: | Small integrated computers, so-called embedded systems, have become a ubiquitous and indispensable part of our lives. Every day, we interact with a multitude of embedded systems. They are, for instance, integrated in home appliances, cars, planes, medical devices, or industrial systems. In many of these applications, embedded systems process privacy-sensitive data or perform safety-critical operations. Therefore, it is of high importance to ensure their secure and safe operation. However, recent attacks and security evaluations have shown that embedded systems frequently lack security and can often be compromised and misused with little effort. A promising technique to face the increasing amount of attacks on embedded systems is remote attestation. It enables a third party to verify the integrity of a remote device. Using remote attestation, attacks can be effectively detected, which allows to quickly respond to them and thus minimize potential damage. Today, almost all servers, desktop PCs, and notebooks have the required hardware and software to perform remote attestation. By contrast, a secure and efficient attestation of embedded systems is considerably harder to achieve, as embedded systems have to encounter several additional challenges. In this thesis, we tackle three main challenges in the attestation of embedded systems. First, we address the issue that low-end embedded devices typically lack the required hardware to perform a secure remote attestation. We present an attestation protocol that requires only minimal secure hardware, which makes our protocol applicable to many existing low-end embedded devices while providing high security guarantees. We demonstrate the practicality of our protocol in two applications, namely, verifying code updates in mesh networks and ensuring the safety and security of embedded systems in road vehicles. Second, we target the efficient attestation of multiple embedded devices that are connected in challenging network conditions. Previous attestation protocols are inefficient or even inapplicable when devices are mobile or lack continuous connectivity. We propose an attestation protocol that particularly targets the efficient attestation of many devices in highly dynamic and disruptive networks. Third, we consider a more powerful adversary who is able to physically tamper with the hardware of embedded systems. Existing attestation protocols that address physical attacks suffer from limited scalability and robustness. We present two protocols that are capable of verifying the software integrity as well as the hardware integrity of embedded devices in an efficient and robust way. Whereas the first protocol is optimized towards scalability, the second protocol aims at robustness and is additionally suited to be applied in autonomous networks. In summary, this thesis contributes to enhancing the security, efficiency, robustness, and applicability of remote attestation for embedded systems. |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:tuda-tuprints-89987 | ||||
Classification DDC: | 000 Generalities, computers, information > 004 Computer science | ||||
Divisions: | 20 Department of Computer Science > Security Engineering Profile Areas > Cybersecurity (CYSEC) LOEWE > LOEWE-Schwerpunkte > NiCER – Networked infrastructureless Cooperation for Emergency Response LOEWE > LOEWE-Zentren > CRISP - Center for Research in Security and Privacy |
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Date Deposited: | 09 Sep 2019 13:42 | ||||
Last Modified: | 09 Jul 2020 02:43 | ||||
URI: | https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/id/eprint/8998 | ||||
PPN: | 453889794 | ||||
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