“These results must be false”: A usability evaluation of
constant-time analysis tools

D 2024

“These results must be false”: A usability evaluation of constant-time analysis tools

FOURNÉ, Marcel, Daniel DE ALMEIDA BRAGA, Ján JANČÁR, Mohamed SABT, Peter SCHWABE et. al.

Basic information

Original name

“These results must be false”: A usability evaluation of constant-time analysis tools

Authors

FOURNÉ, Marcel, Daniel DE ALMEIDA BRAGA, Ján JANČÁR (703 Slovakia, guarantor, belonging to the institution), Mohamed SABT, Peter SCHWABE, Gilles BARTHE, Pierre-Alain FOUQUE and Yasemin ACAR

Edition

Philadelphia, PA, US. Philadelphia, US, 33rd USENIX Security Symposium, p. 6705-6722, 18 pp. 2024

Publisher

USENIX Association

Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Stať ve sborníku

Field of Study

10201 Computer sciences, information science, bioinformatics

Country of publisher

United States of America

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Publication form

electronic version available online

References:

URL

Organization unit

Faculty of Informatics

ISBN

978-1-939133-44-1

Keywords in English

constant-time; timing attacks; crypto library; survey; developer survey; user study; usable security; human factors; cryptography

Abstract

V originále

Cryptography secures our online interactions, transactions, and trust. To achieve this goal, not only do the cryptographic primitives and protocols need to be secure in theory, they also need to be securely implemented by cryptographic library developers in practice. However, implementing cryptographic algorithms securely is challenging, even for skilled professionals, which can lead to vulnerable implementations, especially to side-channel attacks. For timing attacks, a severe class of side-channel attacks, there exist a multitude of tools that are supposed to help cryptographic library developers assess whether their code is vulnerable to timing attacks. Previous work has established that despite an interest in writing constant-time code, cryptographic library developers do not routinely use these tools due to their general lack of usability. However, the precise factors affecting the usability of these tools remain unexplored. While many of the tools are developed in an academic context, we believe that it is worth exploring the factors that contribute to or hinder their effective use by cryptographic library developers. To assess what contributes to and detracts from usability of tools that verify constant-timeness (CT), we conducted a two-part usability study with 24 (post) graduate student participants on 6 tools across diverse tasks that approximate real-world use cases for cryptographic library developers. We find that all studied tools are affected by similar usability issues to varying degrees, with no tool excelling in usability, and usability issues preventing their effective use. Based on our results, we recommend that effective tools for verifying CT need usable documentation, simple installation, easy to adapt examples, clear output corresponding to CT violations, and minimal noninvasive code markup. We contribute first steps to achieving these with limited academic resources, with our documentation, examples, and installation scripts.

Links

MUNI/A/1586/2023, interní kód MU

Name: Aplikovaný výzkum na FI: Forenzní aspekty kritických infrastruktur, aplikovaná kryptografie, kyberbezpečnostní cvičení, algoritmy plánování v logistice a pro zpracování dat z fyzikálních sensorů

Investor: Masaryk University, Applied research at FI: Forensic aspects of critical infrastructures, applied cryptography, cybersecurity trainings, scheduling algorithms logistics and algorithms for physical sensors

VJ02010010, research and development project

Name: Nástroje pro verifikaci bezpečnosti kryptografických zařízení s využitím AI (Acronym: AI-SecTools)

Investor: Ministry of the Interior of the CR

Citovat

FOURNÉ, Marcel, Daniel DE ALMEIDA BRAGA, Ján JANČÁR, Mohamed SABT, Peter SCHWABE, Gilles BARTHE, Pierre-Alain FOUQUE and Yasemin ACAR. “These results must be false”: A usability evaluation of constant-time analysis tools. Online. In Davide Balzarotti, Wenyuan Xu. 33rd USENIX Security Symposium. Philadelphia, PA, US. Philadelphia, US: USENIX Association, 2024, p. 6705-6722. ISBN 978-1-939133-44-1.

@inproceedings{2384079,
   author = {Fourné, Marcel and De Almeida Braga, Daniel and Jančár, Ján and Sabt, Mohamed and Schwabe, Peter and Barthe, Gilles and Fouque, PierreandAlain and Acar, Yasemin},
   address = {Philadelphia, US},
   booktitle = {33rd USENIX Security Symposium},
   edition = {Philadelphia, PA, US},
   editor = {Davide Balzarotti, Wenyuan Xu},
   keywords = {constant-time; timing attacks; crypto library; survey; developer survey; user study; usable security; human factors; cryptography},
   howpublished = {elektronická verze "online"},
   language = {eng},
   location = {Philadelphia, US},
   isbn = {978-1-939133-44-1},
   pages = {6705-6722},
   publisher = {USENIX Association},
   title = {“These results must be false”: A usability evaluation of constant-time analysis tools},
   url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity24/presentation/fourne},
   year = {2024}
}

TY  - JOUR
ID  - 2384079
AU  - Fourné, Marcel - De Almeida Braga, Daniel - Jančár, Ján - Sabt, Mohamed - Schwabe, Peter - Barthe, Gilles - Fouque, Pierre-Alain - Acar, Yasemin
PY  - 2024
TI  - “These results must be false”: A usability evaluation of constant-time analysis tools
PB  - USENIX Association
CY  - Philadelphia, US
SN  - 9781939133441
KW  - constant-time
KW  - timing attacks
KW  - crypto library
KW  - survey
KW  - developer survey
KW  - user study
KW  - usable security
KW  - human factors
KW  - cryptography
UR  - https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity24/presentation/fourne
N2  - Cryptography secures our online interactions, transactions, and trust. To achieve this goal, not only do the cryptographic primitives and protocols need to be secure in theory, they also need to be securely implemented by cryptographic library developers in practice. However, implementing cryptographic algorithms securely is challenging, even for skilled professionals, which can lead to vulnerable implementations, especially to side-channel attacks. For timing attacks, a severe class of side-channel attacks, there exist a multitude of tools that are supposed to help cryptographic library developers assess whether their code is vulnerable to timing attacks. Previous work has established that despite an interest in writing constant-time code, cryptographic library developers do not routinely use these tools due to their general lack of usability. However, the precise factors affecting the usability of these tools remain unexplored. While many of the tools are developed in an academic context, we believe that it is worth exploring the factors that contribute to or hinder their effective use by cryptographic library developers. To assess what contributes to and detracts from usability of tools that verify constant-timeness (CT), we conducted a two-part usability study with 24 (post) graduate student participants on 6 tools across diverse tasks that approximate real-world use cases for cryptographic library developers. We find that all studied tools are affected by similar usability issues to varying degrees, with no tool excelling in usability, and usability issues preventing their effective use. Based on our results, we recommend that effective tools for verifying CT need usable documentation, simple installation, easy to adapt examples, clear output corresponding to CT violations, and minimal noninvasive code markup. We contribute first steps to achieving these with limited academic resources, with our documentation, examples, and installation scripts.
ER  -

FOURNÉ, Marcel, Daniel DE ALMEIDA BRAGA, Ján JANČÁR, Mohamed SABT, Peter SCHWABE, Gilles BARTHE, Pierre-Alain FOUQUE and Yasemin ACAR. “These results must be false”: A usability evaluation of constant-time analysis tools. Online. In Davide Balzarotti, Wenyuan Xu. \textit{33rd USENIX Security Symposium}. Philadelphia, PA, US. Philadelphia, US: USENIX Association, 2024, p.~6705-6722. ISBN~978-1-939133-44-1.

Detailed Information on Publication Record