Modeling and Verifying Physical Properties of Security Protocols for Wireless Networks

Abstract

We present a formal model for modeling and reasoning about security protocols. Our model extends standard, inductive, trace-based, symbolic approaches with a formalization of physical properties of the environment, namely communication, location, and time. In particular, communication is subject to physical constraints, for example, message transmission takes time determined by the communication medium used and the distance traveled. All agents, including intruders, are subject to these constraints and this results in a distributed intruder with restricted, but more realistic, communication capabilities than the standard Dolev-Yao intruder. We have formalized our model in Isabelle/HOL and used it to verify protocols for authenticated ranging, distance bounding, and broadcast authentication based on delayed key disclosure.