SRP-3 Protocol Design
SRP-3 was the protocol
published in 1998
and described in RFC2945.
It solved the security problems of SRP-1 and
SRP-2,
and is still widely used.
It suffers from the "two-for-one" password guessing attack,
and requires the server to wait for one of the client's
messages before sending its own.
Both these issues have been addressed by SRP-6,
which is recommended for new applications.
N A large safe prime (N = 2q+1, where q is prime)
All arithmetic is done modulo N.
g A generator modulo N
s User's salt
U Username
p Cleartext Password
H() One-way hash function
^ (Modular) Exponentiation
t Security parameter
u Random scrambling parameter
a,b Secret ephemeral values
A,B Public ephemeral values
x Private key (derived from p and s)
v Password verifier
The host stores passwords using the following formula:
x = H(s, p) (s is chosen randomly)
v = g^x (computes password verifier)
The host then keeps {U, s, v} in its password database.
The authentication protocol itself goes as follows:
User -> Host: U, A = g^a (identifies self, a = random number)
Host -> User: s, B = v + g^b, u (sends salt, b = random number,
u = t-bit random number)
User: x = H(s, p) (user enters password)
User: S = (B - g^x) ^ (a + ux) (computes session key)
User: K = H(S)
Host: S = (Av^u) ^ b (computes session key)
Host: K = H(S)
Now the two parties have a shared, strong session key K. To complete
authentication, they need to prove to each other that their keys match.
One possible way:
User -> Host: M = H(H(N) xor H(g), H(U), s, A, B, K)
Host -> User: H(A, M, K)
The two parties also employ the following safeguards:
- The user will abort if he receives B == 0 (mod N) or u == 0.
- The host will abort if it detects that A == 0 (mod N).
- The user must show his proof of K first. If the server detects that
the user's proof is incorrect, it must abort without showing its own
proof of K.
Back