Key agreement protocols and key transport protocols are the crucial components for all secure communications. For example, a fundamental part of SSL- and IPSec-based VPN protocols is the key agreement protocol. After a secure shared key is established between the parties, the parties can use efficient symmetric key encryption schemes, such as AES, to exchange subsequent messages.

Having backfround information on various attacks on key agreement protocols such as replay attack, impersonation attack, key compromised impersonation (KCI) attack, unknown key share (UKS) attack, etc.

Question

- Assess the ability of adversaries to attack these key agreement protocols.

- Find one commonly used (or proposed) key agreement protocol for some practical applications, and analyse whether the attacks that we have discussed could be mounted against your chosen protocol.