Approaches to Formal Verification of Security Protocols

TL;DR

This paper reviews and compares various formal methods for verifying security protocols, demonstrating their application on the Needham-Schroeder Public Key protocol to enhance system reliability.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of different formal verification approaches applied to a well-known security protocol, highlighting their effectiveness and differences.

Findings

Formal methods can identify vulnerabilities in security protocols.

Different approaches offer varied insights into protocol correctness.

Verification improves trustworthiness of security systems.

Abstract

In recent times, many protocols have been proposed to provide security for various information and communication systems. Such protocols must be tested for their functional correctness before they are used in practice. Application of formal methods for verification of security protocols would enhance their reliability thereby, increasing the usability of systems that employ them. Thus, formal verification of security protocols has become a key issue in computer and communications security. In this paper we present, analyze and compare some prevalent approaches towards verification of secure systems. We follow the notion of - same goal through different approaches - as we formally analyze the Needham Schroeder Public Key protocol for Lowe's attack using each of our presented approaches.