Gavin Lowe
Lowe’s attack on a well-known authentication protocol showed why protocol designs require adversarial analysis, not just intuitive arguments about cryptographic primitives.
Gavin Lowe is a computer scientist associated with the University of Oxford whose work includes formal methods and security-protocol analysis.
An attack that changed a protocol
In 1995, Lowe demonstrated a man-in-the-middle attack on the Needham–Schroeder public-key protocol using formal methods. The corrected variant is commonly known as the Needham–Schroeder–Lowe protocol.
Why the result matters
The episode became a durable lesson: sound cryptographic building blocks do not automatically yield a sound protocol. Formal modeling can reveal attacks that informal review misses.
Timeline
- 1995Publishes the discovery of an attack on the Needham–Schroeder public-key protocol.
- 1996Publishes a corrected version of the protocol.
- 2000sContinues work on formal methods and concurrency at Oxford.
- PresentResearch and teaching remain associated with the University of Oxford.
Gavin Lowe
- Type
- Person
- Era
- 1990s-Present
- Known for
- Needham–Schroeder–Lowe attack; Protocol verification; CSP
- Tags
- formal-methods, security-protocols, authentication, csp
Created by Joas A Santos · Something wrong or want it removed? Open an issue.