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181

answers:

3

When we talk about security we have the following requirements:

  • authentication
  • integrity
  • Non-repudiation

Isn't the third requirement included in the first two? If we know A sent the message (authentication) and it has not been changed since A sent it (integrity) then how can A repudiate sending it?

Please don't talk about dig-sig as it's in the technical level. I'm talking about the business requirements.

+3  A: 

Neither authentication nor integrity protections prevent replay attacks. A malicious user can capture a signed and encrypted message and post it multiple times. Therefore a party can repudiate having sent the same message multiple times.

Making each message unique using timestamps and/or nonces addresses this and is therefore used for non-repudiation in combination with signing and encryption.

ykaganovich
A: 

Usually the three security requirements are CIA, i.e.

Confidentiallity Integrity Authenticity

But concerning non-repudiation, authentication and integrity dont necessarily provide non-repudiation since integrity says some message has not changed when traveling from point X to Y. Authentication can tell you that some message is sent by anybody who has knowlegde of some (shared) secret that should be only known to a person.

Imaginge a virus stealing private keys from Alice, in that case you can have integrity of message X and authentication that the message is from Alice (although one can argue if this is real authentication) however, some eavesdropped used the stolen private key to send the message.

Henri
A: 
erickson