Paper Fun: Simplified Single Packet Authorization

Another paper to be presented next week at worldcomp

Port Knocking and Single Packet Authorization (SPA) are relatively new (circa 2004 and later) techniques used to enable anonymous, temporary activation of remote network services that are otherwise blocked by means of a firewall. These techniques greatly enhance the so-called “zero-day” exploit resilience of systems which properly implement them, but they have weaknesses and more importantly share a weakness common to most common security augmentation system: human nature. This paper presents a framework for securely enabling remote services in a manner which focuses on the human factor, a concept often neglected in security research and the key reason that such systems rarely see widespread usage in the real-world. The primary focus is to make SPA easier for humans to interact with.

pdf paper is here: Simplified Single Packet Authorization_1.4