<div dir="ltr">Dear All,<br><div><br></div><div>Next Sunday, at 10:30, the university of Haifa will host Marc Stevens' talk concerning his findings about the Flame worm. The flame worm is one of the two worms that allegedly were designed to battle the Iranian nuclear program. Marc, who is also known as the guy that created a rouge X.509 certificate (using a cluster of Sony PS3), will discuss his findings concerning the cryptanalytic attacks that were used to create the attack.<br>
<br>You are all invited to the university to hear his talk.<br></div><div>[Location - TBA]<br></div><div><br>Cheers,<br></div><div><br>--------- Forwarded message ----------<br><div class="gmail_quote">
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 16:50:21 +0200<br>
Subject: Marc Stevens (CWI Amsterdam) @ Sunday Nov 17 on Improving<br>
Counter-cryptanalysis<br>
<br>
** NOTE SPECIAL TIME **<br>
<br>
Time: November 17, Sunday 10:30, Room 303<br>
Place: TBA<br>
<br>
Title: "Improving Counter-cryptanalysis"<br>
<br>
Abstract:<br>
<br>
Flame, a highly advanced malware for cyberwarfare discovered in May, spread<br>
itself as a properly, but illegitimately, signed Microsoft Update security<br>
patch. Flame achieved this by forging a signature from Microsoft using a<br>
so-called chosen-prefix collision attack on the very weak cryptographic<br>
hash function MD5. In this talk I will focus on counter-cryptanalysis, a<br>
new paradigm for strengthening cryptographic primitives, and the first<br>
example thereof, namely an efficient anomaly detection technique that<br>
detects whether a given signature was forged using a cryptanalytic<br>
collision attack on the underlying hash function. We used<br>
counter-cryptanalysis to expose Flame's yet unknown variant chosen-prefix<br>
collision attack even though only one of the two colliding certificates was<br>
available. Finally, I will discuss ongoing work on improving the complexity<br>
of this new technique and efforts to reduce the chance of false negatives,<br>
i.e., existence of feasible yet-undetected collision attacks.<br>
<br>
Short bio:<br>
<br>
Dr. ir. Marc Stevens is currently a post-doc in the Cryptology Group of CWI<br>
Amsterdam. His current research focuses on cryptanalysis with practical<br>
attacks on cryptographic hash functions in particular as well as<br>
counter-cryptanalysis. He received his PhD at Leiden University in June<br>
2012 for which he won the 2013 "Martinus van Marum" prize from the Royal<br>
Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities. He is (co-)recipient of the<br>
CRYPTO 2009 Best Paper Award and recipient of the CRYPTO 2013 Best Young<br>
Researcher Paper Award.<br>
</div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Orr Dunkelman,<br><a href="mailto:Orr.Dunkelman@gmail.com" target="_blank">Orr.Dunkelman@gmail.com</a>
</div></div>