Scott C. Johnson
Cryptography II Term Paper

Recent 'CRIME' Attacks on TSL/SSL

Abstract

Recently TSL/SSL have come under attack. This attack has been called the 'CRIME' attack, or Compression Ratio Info-leak Made Easy. This attack takes advantage of the compressing of encrypted data to obtain the key used to encode the data. By looking at the ways a system compresses various types and sizes of data, the attacker can find patterns that allows them to obtain the key of data sent by that host. This is done by the attacker tricking a user to load a specific Javascript. This script will craft special SSL requests to a system the attackee already has a connection with. These carefully crafted scripts will allow the attacker to obtain compression patterns. With these patterns the attacker can decompress and decode the header of the attackees incoming transmissions. Allowing the attacker to obtain the special key shared by the attackee and host they are connected with.

Paper

Paper

Presentation

Presentation

Potential Sources

Note: Scholarly sources are limited on this topic at this time, due to the new nature of this attack. Any suggested sources are welcomed.

https://media.blackhat.com/eu-13/briefings/Beery/bh-eu-13-a-perfect-crime-beery-wp.pdf
http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2012-4929
http://www.privatewifi.com/from-beast-to-crime-another-attack-exposes-https-vulnerability/
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/031413-researchers-resurrect-and-improve-crime-267698.html?page=1