Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Update security considerations
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
This change is primarily editorial and includes the followg changes:

* Replace references to "Prio" with references to a generic VDAF. (This
  section was written long ago when we had Prio in mind.)
* Elaborate on known issues for collect requests.
* Discuss Sybil attacks, including enumerating the different types
  (#211).
* Clarify what security properties are assumed for the transport layer.
  This section currently says:

  > The system also assumes that servers communicate over secure and
  > mutually authenticated channels. In practice, this can be done by
  > TLS or some other form of application-layer authentication.

  The term "secure channel" is somewhat ambiguous here. We suspect we
  need mutual authentication, but confidentiality won't be needed.
  • Loading branch information
cjpatton committed May 2, 2022
1 parent 004020f commit 8fc3d2b
Showing 1 changed file with 53 additions and 26 deletions.
79 changes: 53 additions & 26 deletions draft-gpew-priv-ppm.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -1442,35 +1442,62 @@ defined by the PPM parameters. (See {{batch-parameter-validation}}.)

# Security Considerations {#sec-considerations}

Prio assumes a powerful adversary with the ability to compromise an unbounded
number of clients. In doing so, the adversary can provide malicious (yet
truthful) inputs to the aggregation function. Prio also assumes that all but one
server operates honestly, where a dishonest server does not execute the protocol
faithfully as specified. The system also assumes that servers communicate over
secure and mutually authenticated channels. In practice, this can be done by TLS
or some other form of application-layer authentication.

In the presence of this adversary, Prio provides two important properties for
computing an aggregation function F:

1. Privacy. The aggregators and collector learn only the output of F computed
over all client inputs, and nothing else.
1. Robustness. As long as the aggregators execute the input-validation protocol
correctly, a malicious client can skew the output of F only by reporting
false (untruthful) input. The output cannot be influenced in any other way.

There are several additional constraints that a Prio deployment must satisfy in
order to achieve these goals:

1. Minimum batch size. The aggregation batch size has an obvious impact on
privacy. (A batch size of one hides nothing of the input.)
2. Aggregation function choice. Some aggregation functions leak slightly more
than the function output itself.

[TODO: discuss these in more detail.]
PPM assumes an active attacker that controls the network and has the ability to
statically corrupt any number of clients, aggregators, and collectors. That is,
the attacker can learn the secret state of any party prior to the start of its
attack. For example, it may coerce a client into providing malicious input
shares for aggregation or coerce an aggregator into not diverting from the
protocol specified (e.g., by divulging its input shares to the attacker).

In the presence of this adversary, PPM aims to achieve the following high-level
secure aggregation goals:

1. Privacy. Clients trust that some aggregator is honest. That is, as long as at
least one aggregator executes the protocol faithfully as specified, and only
executes the protocol as specified, the parties learn nothing beyond the
aggregate result (i.e., the output of the aggregation function computed over
the honest measurements).
1. Correctness. The collector trusts that the aggregators execute the protocol
correctly. That is, as long as the aggregators execute their roles as
specified, a malicious client can skew the aggregate result only by reporting
a false (untruthful) measurement. The result cannot be influenced in any
other way.

To achieve these goals, there are a variety of attack vectors that a PPM
deployment must consider:

1. When crafted maliciously, collect requests may leak more information about
the measurements than the system intends. For example, the spec currently
allows sequences of collect requests to reveal an aggregate result for a
batch smaller than the minimum batch size. [OPEN ISSUE: See issue#195. This
also has implications for how we solve issue#183.]
1. Even benign collect requests may leak information beyond what one might
expect intuitively. For example, the Poplar1 VDAF
{{?VDAF=I-D.draft-irtf-cfrg-vdaf}} can be used to compute the set of heavy
hitters among a set of arbitrary bit strings uploaded by clients. This
requires multiple evaluations of the VDAF, the results of which reveal
information to the aggregators and collector beyond what follows from the
heavy hitters themselves. Note that this leakage can be mitigated using
differential privacy. [OPEN ISSUE: We have yet not specified how to add DP.]
1. The core PPM spec does not defend against Sybil attacks. In this type of
attack, the adversary adds to a batch a number of reports that skew the
aggregate result in its favor. For example: The result may reveal additional
information about the honest measurements, leading to a privacy violation; or
the result may have some property that is desirable to the adversary ("stats
poisoning"). The upload sub-protocol includes an extensions mechanism that
can be used to prevent --- or at least mitigate --- these types of attacks.
See {{upload-extensions}}. [OPEN ISSUE: No such extension has been
implemented, so we're not yet sure if the current mechanism is sufficient.]
1. Attacks may also come from the network. Thus, it is required that the
aggregators and collector communicate with one another over mutually
authenticated and confidential channels. The core PPM spec does not specify
such a mechanisn beyond requiring server authentication for HTTPS sessions.
Note that clients are not required to authenticate themselves.

## Threat model

[OPEN ISSUE: This subsection is a bit out-of-date.]

In this section, we enumerate the actors participating in the Prio system and
enumerate their assets (secrets that are either inherently valuable or which
confer some capability that enables further attack on the system), the
Expand Down

0 comments on commit 8fc3d2b

Please sign in to comment.