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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shang, Jiahui, Zhang, Luning, Zheng, Zhongxiang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01144
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author Shang, Jiahui
Zhang, Luning
Zheng, Zhongxiang
author_facet Shang, Jiahui
Zhang, Luning
Zheng, Zhongxiang
contents While traditional cryptographic research focuses on algorithm-level provable security, many real-world attacks exploit weaknesses in system implementations, such as memory mismanagement, poor entropy sources, and insecure key lifecycles. Existing approaches address these risks in isolation but lack a unified, verifiable framework for modeling implementation-layer security. In this work, we propose Implementation-Level Provable Security, a new paradigm that defines security in terms of structurally verifiable resilience against real-world attack surfaces during deployment. To demonstrate its feasibility, we present SEER (Secure and Efficient Encryption-based Erasure via Ransomware), a file destruction system that repurposes and reinforces the encryption core of Babuk ransomware. SEER incorporates key erasure, entropy validation, and execution consistency checks to ensure a well-constrained, auditable attack surface. Our evaluation shows that SEER achieves strong irrecoverability guarantees while maintaining practical performance. This work demonstrates a shift from abstract theoretical models toward practically verifiable implementation-layer security.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_01144
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Beyond Algorithmic Proofs: Towards Implementation-Level Provable Security
Shang, Jiahui
Zhang, Luning
Zheng, Zhongxiang
Cryptography and Security
While traditional cryptographic research focuses on algorithm-level provable security, many real-world attacks exploit weaknesses in system implementations, such as memory mismanagement, poor entropy sources, and insecure key lifecycles. Existing approaches address these risks in isolation but lack a unified, verifiable framework for modeling implementation-layer security. In this work, we propose Implementation-Level Provable Security, a new paradigm that defines security in terms of structurally verifiable resilience against real-world attack surfaces during deployment. To demonstrate its feasibility, we present SEER (Secure and Efficient Encryption-based Erasure via Ransomware), a file destruction system that repurposes and reinforces the encryption core of Babuk ransomware. SEER incorporates key erasure, entropy validation, and execution consistency checks to ensure a well-constrained, auditable attack surface. Our evaluation shows that SEER achieves strong irrecoverability guarantees while maintaining practical performance. This work demonstrates a shift from abstract theoretical models toward practically verifiable implementation-layer security.
title Beyond Algorithmic Proofs: Towards Implementation-Level Provable Security
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01144