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Verification and Attack Synthesis for Network Protocols

Published: November 3, 2025 | arXiv ID: 2511.01124v1

By: Max von Hippel

Potential Business Impact:

Finds bugs in computer communication rules.

Business Areas:
Network Security Information Technology, Privacy and Security

Network protocols are programs with inputs and outputs that follow predefined communication patterns to synchronize and exchange information. There are many protocols and each serves a different purpose, e.g., routing, transport, secure communication, etc. The functional and performance requirements for a protocol can be expressed using a formal specification, such as, a set of logical predicates over its traces. A protocol could be prevented from achieving its requirements due to a bug in its design or implementation, a component failure (e.g., a crash), or an attack. This dissertation shows that formal methods can feasibly characterize the functionality and performance of network protocols under normal conditions as well as when subjected to attacks.


Page Count
127 pages

Category
Computer Science:
Cryptography and Security