The Modelling and Analysis of Security Protocols: the CSP Approach

0.8. Security protocol vulnerabilities

To illustrate the kind of attacks to which security protocols can fall prey we outline a number of well-known strategies that an intruder might employ. Note however that the style of analysis that we are presenting in this book does not depend on knowing these strategies. In particular we do not need to worry about whether the list is exhaustive. In fact we can be pretty sure that it is not exhaustive. It will, however, serve to illustrate the various styles of attack. We should also note that we are only dealing here with vulnerabilities due to flaws in the protocol design. There are, of course, other styles of attack, such as cryptanalytic, monitoring timing, EM radiation or fluctuations in power consumption. ...