Device-Assisted eUICC Certificate Verification
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing Universal Integrated Circuit Cards (eUICCs) face challenges in efficiently verifying certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) reliability, handling compromised or expired certificates, and managing certificate pinning due to limited computational resources and memory, which can lead to security vulnerabilities such as Man-in-the-Middle attacks.
Innovation Solution
A device-assisted verification system offloads communication and computational processing for certificate and CRL verification from the eUICC, performing tasks like timestamp checking, error checking on CRL sequences, and maintaining a pinning policy to ensure the eUICC receives only reliable and up-to-date public key information, thereby enhancing security and reducing the risk of compromised certificates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If eUICC performs certificate and CRL verification independently, then verification reliability is improved, but device computational load and memory requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The verification system is segmented into two parts: the eUICC handles secure storage and cryptographic operations, while the device handles computational-intensive tasks such as timestamp verification, CRL sequence validation, and pinning policy management. This segmentation allows the eUICC to maintain security without bearing the full computational burden.
Solution Approach 2:
The device acts as an intermediary between the eUICC and external PKI infrastructure. It performs preliminary verification checks on certificates and CRLs before presenting them to the eUICC, filtering out invalid or compromised credentials and reducing the verification workload on the eUICC.
2Reliability
If eUICC stores complete CRL and certificate data, then verification completeness is improved, but memory consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The device extracts and processes CRL data to identify only the relevant revoked certificate identifiers and validity information needed by the eUICC. Instead of storing complete CRL contents, the eUICC stores only essential verification data such as certificate hashes and revocation status, significantly reducing memory requirements while maintaining verification completeness.
3Reliability
If device performs timestamp checking on all certificates, then security against replay attacks is improved, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The device performs timestamp verification on certificates and CRLs in advance, before presenting them to the eUICC. It validates that timestamps are within acceptable ranges and that certificates have not expired, filtering out invalid credentials beforehand. This preliminary action ensures security against replay attacks while allowing the eUICC to process only pre-validated certificates, reducing overall processing time.
Data Source
AI summary
A device assists an embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card (eUICC) resident in the device with verification of public key information or of security materials. The verification provided by the device can be configured by the user and/or by the eUICC. The verification includes checking for expiration of public key information or presence of an associated public key in a trusted list. The trusted list in some instances includes pinning hash values. The device can warn an end user and/or an infrastructure entity, of an issue if the verification fails. An extension of certificate revocation lists includes a logical indication of at least one new public key in a CRL list. A CRL data field may also indicate a previous CRL, where the previous CRL is the most recent CRL containing a public key listing with at least one new entry.