Refinement types for secure implementations

J Bengtson, K Bhargavan, C Fournet… - ACM Transactions on …, 2011 - dl.acm.org
ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), 2011dl.acm.org
We present the design and implementation of a typechecker for verifying security properties
of the source code of cryptographic protocols and access control mechanisms. The
underlying type theory is a λ-calculus equipped with refinement types for expressing pre-and
post-conditions within first-order logic. We derive formal cryptographic primitives and
represent active adversaries within the type theory. Well-typed programs enjoy assertion-
based security properties, with respect to a realistic threat model including key compromise …
We present the design and implementation of a typechecker for verifying security properties of the source code of cryptographic protocols and access control mechanisms. The underlying type theory is a λ-calculus equipped with refinement types for expressing pre- and post-conditions within first-order logic. We derive formal cryptographic primitives and represent active adversaries within the type theory. Well-typed programs enjoy assertion-based security properties, with respect to a realistic threat model including key compromise. The implementation amounts to an enhanced typechecker for the general-purpose functional language F#; typechecking generates verification conditions that are passed to an SMT solver. We describe a series of checked examples. This is the first tool to verify authentication properties of cryptographic protocols by typechecking their source code.
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