A Formal Security Analysis of the Signal Messaging Protocol

Extended Version, July 2019†

Katriel Cohn-Gordon∗ , Cas Cremers† , Benjamin Dowling‡ , Luke Garratt§ , Douglas Stebila¶
∗ Independent Scholar [email protected]
† CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany [email protected]
‡ ETH Zürich, Switzerland [email protected]
§ Cisco Systems, USA [email protected]
¶ University of Waterloo, Canada [email protected]

Abstract
The Signal protocol is a cryptographic messaging protocol that provides end-to-end encryption for
instant messaging in WhatsApp, Wire, and Facebook Messenger among many others, serving well over
1 billion active users. Signal includes several uncommon security properties (such as “future secrecy” or
“post-compromise security”), enabled by a novel technique called ratcheting in which session keys are
updated with every message sent.
We conduct a formal security analysis of Signal’s initial extended triple Diffie-Hellman (X3DH) key
agreement and Double Ratchet protocols as a multi-stage authenticated key exchange protocol. We extract
from the implementation a formal description of the abstract protocol, and define a security model which
can capture the “ratcheting” key update structure as a multi-stage model where there can be a “tree”
of stages, rather than just a sequence. We then prove the security of Signal’s key exchange core in our
model, demonstrating several standard security properties. We have found no major flaws in the design,
and hope that our presentation and results can serve as a foundation for other analyses of this widely
adopted protocol.

1. Introduction
Revelations about mass surveillance of communications have made consumers more privacy-aware. In
response, scientists and developers have proposed techniques which can provide security for end users even if
they do not fully trust the service providers. For example, the popular messaging service WhatsApp was unable
to comply with Brazilian government demands for users’ plaintext messages [16] because of its end-to-end
encryption.
Early instant messaging systems did not provide much security. While some systems did encrypt traffic
between the user and the service provider, the service provider retained the ability to read the plaintext of users’
messages. Off-the-Record Messaging [17, 30] was one of the first security protocols for instant messaging:
acting as a plugin to a variety of instant messaging applications, users could authenticate each other using public
keys or a shared secret passphrase, and obtain end-to-end confidentiality and integrity. One novel feature of
OTR was its fine-grained key freshness: along with each message round trip, users established a fresh ephemeral
Diffie–Hellman (DH) shared secret. Since it was not possible to work backward from a later state to an earlier
state and decrypt past messages, this technique became known as ratcheting; in particular, asymmetric ratcheting
since it involves asymmetric (public key) cryptography. OTR saw relatively limited adoption, but its ratcheting
technique can be seen in modern security protocols.
Perhaps the first secure instant message protocol to achieve widespread adoption was Apple’s iMessage,
a proprietary protocol that provides end-to-end encryption. A notable characteristic of iMessage is that it
automatically manages the distribution of users’ long-term keys, and in particular (as of this writing) users have
no interface for verifying friends’ keys. iMessage, unfortunately, had a variety of flaws that seriously undermine
its security [38].

The Signal Protocol. While there has been a range of activity in end-to-end encryption for instant messaging
[33, 71], the most prominent development in this space has been the Signal messaging protocol, “a ratcheting
forward secrecy protocol that works in synchronous and asynchronous messaging environments” [55, 56].
Signal’s goals include end-to-end encryption as well as advanced security properties such as perfect forward
secrecy and “future secrecy”.
The Signal protocol can be roughly divided into three types of stages:
• The initial key exchange, or X3DH (extended triple Diffie-Hellman) protocol [64], which combines
long-term, medium-term and ephemeral Diffie-Hellman keys to produce a shared secret “root” value.
† An overview of changes can be found in Appendix D. An extended abstract of this paper appears at IEEE EuroS&P 2017.
D.S. was supported in part by Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant DP130104304, Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery grant RGPIN-2016-05146 and Discovery Accelerator Supplement RGPAS 492986-2016.
 • An asymmetric ratchet stage [63], where users alternate in sending new ephemeral Diffie-Hellman keys in
a ping-pong fashion with previously generated root keys to generate forward-secret chaining keys.
• A symmetric ratchet stage [63], where users take no additional entropy but instead use key derivation
functions to ratchet forward chaining keys to create symmetric encryption keys.
Each message sent by a user is encrypted using a fresh message key, which attempts to provide a high degree
of forward secrecy. The ping-pong pattern of new ephemeral Diffie-Hellman keys inject additionally entropy
into this process, which is intended to continually achieve perfect forward secrecy as well as post-compromise
security.
The Signal protocol, and in particular its ratcheting construction, has a relatively complex history. TextSecure
[56] was a secure messaging app and the predecessor to Signal. It contained the first definition of Signal’s
“Double Ratchet”, which effectively combines ideas from OTR’s asymmetric ratchet and a symmetric ratchet
(which applies a symmetric key derivation function to create a new key, but does not incorporate fresh DH
material, similar to so-called “forward-secure” symmetric encryption [11]). TextSecure’s combined ratchet was
referred to as the “Axolotl Ratchet”, though the name Axolotl was used by some to refer to the entire protocol.
TextSecure was later merged with RedPhone, a secure telephony app, and was renamed Signal1 , the name of
both the instant messaging app and the cryptographic protocol. In the rest of this paper, we will be discussing
the cryptographic protocol only.
The Signal cryptographic protocol has seen explosive uptake of encryption in personal communications: it (or a
variant) is now used by WhatsApp [73], Wire [39], and Facebook Messenger [34], as well as a host of variants
in “secure messaging” apps, including Silent Circle [58], Pond [53], and (via the OMEMO extension [70] to
XMPP) Conversations [25] and ChatSecure [4].

Security of Signal. One might have expected this widespread uptake of the Signal protocol to be accompanied
by an in-depth security analysis and examination of the design rationale, in order to: (i) understand and specify
the security assurances which Signal is intended to provide; and (ii) verify that it provides them. However, this
was not the case when it was released: when WhatsApp’s Signal Protocol integration was announced in 2015,
there was little Signal Protocol documentation available and no in-depth security analysis. This was in stark
contrast to the ongoing development of the next version of the Transport Layer Security protocol, TLS 1.3,
which explicitly involved academic analysis in its development [14, 27, 31, 44, 48, 54].
Since then, documentation has been introduced for both the X3DH initial key exchange protocol [64], as
well as the Double Ratchet protocol [63], covering both the asymmetric and symmetric ratcheting stages of the
Signal protocol.
Frosch et al. [36, 37] had performed a security analysis of TextSecure v3, showing that in their model
the computation of the long-term symmetric key which seeds the ratchet is a secure one-round key exchange
protocol, and that the key derivation function and authenticated encryption scheme used in TextSecure are
secure. However, it did not cover any of the security properties of the ratcheting mechanisms.
In addition, Frosch et al. identified an Unknown Key Share (UKS) attack against TextSecure, because the
cryptographic material was not bound to the identities. Since UKS attacks can be subtle, we explain the attack
slightly differently, using the agent names as in [36, Section 4.2] to simplify comparison.
Unknown Key Share (UKS) attacks. In this work, we use the original definition of UKS attack as defined
in 1999 in [15]2 . In a UKS attack, the target of the attack is a session of an honest agent (e.g., Pe ) that tries
to communicate with another honest agent (e.g., Pa ). Furthermore, in a UKS attack, the adversary does not
learn the session key: instead, the point is the mismatching peer assumptions of the honest agents. In a protocol
secure against UKS attacks, if two honest agents end up sharing a key, each should be the intended peer of the
other. In a UKS attack, this assumption is violated. Depending on the UI and implementation details, this is a
substantial authentication failure. Concretely, receiving and successfully decrypting a message in a protocol
vulnerable to UKS attacks does not guarantee that the message was intended for the recipient. (If Ed receives a
message “you’re fired” from his boss Alice, he cannot deduce that Alice intended to fire him.)
The UKS attack on TextSecure v3. In the UKS attack from [36, Figure 7], the adversary is Pb who aims to
attack Pe . When Pa tries to communicate with Pb as its peer, Pb lies about its public identity key and presents
Pe ’s key as its own. Note that Pe is the target of the attack (not Pa , who is communicating with a dishonest
agent). The adversary subsequently reroutes Pa ’s messages to Pe , who is the real target of the attack. Ultimately,
Pa and Pe compute the same keys. Pe assumes that the keys are shared with Pa , which is correct. However,
Pa thinks they are shared with Pb . Concretely, Pe may now falsely assume that when it receives messages
1. TextSecure v1 was based on OTR; in v2 it migrated to the Axolotl Ratchet and in v3 made some changes to the cryptographic
primitives and the wire protocol. Signal is based on TextSecure v3.
2. We note that the X3DH documentation [64, p. 4.8] gives a very different interpretation of UKS attack, which is not compatible with
the original definition from [15]. The X3DH documentation instead describes a UKS attack as an “identity misbinding attack” that involves
presenting someone else’s public key as one’s own. While a (traditional) UKS attack can easily be prevented by a simple modification of
the key exchange protocol, the identity misbinding phenomenon cannot.

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encrypted with such a key, then they are intended for Pe . In fact, Pa intended them for Pb . This constitutes a
UKS attack.
Preventing UKS attacks. The fix for UKS attacks can be trivial for libraries with access to agent identities:
including both agents’ identities in the key derivation function stops the attack. However, this UKS attack is
not prevented by the Signal core (i.e., the key agreement and Double Ratchet analysed here), because derived
keys still do not depend on the identities of the communication partners. The UKS attack can also be prevented
at the application level, for example by including the assumed peer identities (e.g., the peer’s phone number) in
initial message exchanges.
Providing a security analysis for the Signal protocol is challenging. First, Signal employs a novel and previously
unstudied design, involving over ten different types of keys and a complex update process which leads to
various “chains” of related keys. It therefore does not directly fit into traditional analysis models. Second, some
of its claimed properties have only been formalised relatively recently [24].

1.1. Contributions
We provide an in-depth formal security analysis of the key establishment core of the Signal messaging
protocol, which is used by more than a billion users.
Our paper focuses on the multi-stage AKE protocol aspect of Signal. Our formalism in Section 4 defines
what a multi-stage AKE protocol is and a generic security experiment for multi-stage AKE protocols capturing
session-key indistinguishability, then provides specialized freshness conditions that capture specific properties
of Signal.
Compared to previous multi-stage AKE security models which involve a single sequence of stages within
each session, our model allows for a tree of stages which model the various “chains” in Signal.
Our model remains generic for multi-stage AKE protocol as it is parameterized by freshness and cleanness
conditions that allow the model to capture different security properties of session key indistinguishability. We
proceed to provide cleanness conditions that are specialized to capture specific properties of Signal corresponding
to its unique security goals. Among the interesting aspects of our model are the subtle differences between
security properties of keys derived via symmetric and asymmetric ratcheting. In particular, the relationship
between the initial key exchange and the subsequent ratcheting stages is partly why we chose to capture
both the initial key exchange and the subsequent protocol in a single model. In addition, there is no clear
delineation within Signal between these two protocols, as some secret values generated during the initial X3DH
key exchange are re-used within the subsequent Double Ratchet protocol.
We subsequently prove that the key establishment core of Signal is secure in our model, providing the first
formal security guarantees for Signal.
We give a proof sketch in Section 5 and the full proof in Section B.3. At a high level, the proof technique
is relatively straightforward and conventional. We suppose that there exists an adversary which breaks Signal,
and construct an adversary which breaks a primitive. To do so, we perform a series of game hops, followed
by a case distinction on the type of attack the adversary performs. Specifically, we split our analysis into
five general cases, each corresponding to a “stage” that derives a message key, be they the initial X3DH key
exchange, an asymmetric ratcheting stage, or a symmetric ratcheting stage. Within these stages, we split our
analysis further into subcases, each corresponding to a pair of Diffie-Hellman keyshares that the attacker has not
accessed the associated secret value of. After some more game hops, we arrive at a game which is unwinnable
by construction. Combining the intermediate probability bounds leads us to our overall security theorem.
Signal does not cleanly separate key exchange from subsequent data messages, and so we had to rearrange
the order of certain operations in order to make this separation. It also re-uses Diffie–Hellman keys for signatures;
we did not model this reuse. The details of these changes are described later.
Our full proof is in the random oracle model, but we have also outlined the steps required for a proof in
the standard model as a delta to the original proof, using (a variant of) the PRF-ODH assumption. As our proof
is essentially a case distinction, the latter addition is not only arguably using a more plausible cryptographic
assumption, but also provides more concrete analysis of the different security guarantees depending on how a
message key is derived in the Signal Protocol.
In practice, Signal is more than just its key exchange protocol. In Section 6, we describe many other aspects
of Signal that are not covered by our analysis, which we believe are a rich opportunity for future research. We
hope our presentation of the protocol in Section 2 can serve as a starting point for understanding Signal’s core.

1.2. Additional Related Work

A moderate body of research has arisen around the Signal Protocol, of which we give a brief summary.
In concurrent work to the conference version of this paper, Kobeissi, Bhargavan, and Blanchet [46] use ProVerif
and CryptoVerif to analyze a simplified variant of Signal specified in a JavaScript variant called ProScript.
Their main focus is to present a methodology for automated verification for secure messaging protocols and

3
their implementations, and they consider a variant of Signal (that, e.g., does not use symmetric ratcheting).
They identify a possible key compromise impersonation (KCI) attack; we discuss this further in the context of
our model in our discussion of freshness in Section 4.3. From the ProScript code, they automatically extract
ProVerif models that consider a finite number of sessions without loops. The CryptoVerif models are created
manually. In both cases, the analysis involves the systematic manual exploration of several combinations of
compromised keys. In contrast, we set out to manually construct and prove the strongest possible property that
holds for Signal. For the core protocol design, this allows us to prove a stronger and more-fine grained security
property.

Related techniques. Symmetric ratcheting and DH updates (asymmetric ratcheting) are not the only way of
updating state to ensure forward secrecy—i.e., that compromise of current state cannot be used to decrypt past
communications. Forward-secure public key encryption [21] allows users to publish a short unchanging public
key; messages are encrypted with knowledge of a time period, and after receiving a message, a user can update
their secret key to prevent decryption of messages from earlier time periods.
Signal’s asymmetric ratcheting, which it inherits from the design of OTR [17], have been claimed to offer
properties such as “future secrecy”. Future secrecy of protocols like Signal has been discussed in depth by
Cohn-Gordon, Cremers, and Garratt [24]. Their key observation is that Signal’s future secrecy is (informally)
specified with respect to a passive adversary, and therefore turns out to be implied by the formal notion
of forward secrecy. Instead, they observe that mechanisms such as asymmetric ratcheting can be used to
achieve a substantially stronger property against an active adversary. They formally define this property as
“post-compromise security”, and show how this substantially raises the bar for resourceful network attackers
to attack specific sessions. Furthermore, their analysis indicates that post-compromise security of Signal may
depend on subtle details related to device state reset and the handling of multiple devices.
Green and Miers [41] suggest using puncturable encryption to achieve fine-grained forward security with
unchanging public keys: instead of deleting or ratcheting the secret key, it is possible to modify it so that it
cannot be used to decrypt a certain message. While this is an interesting approach (especially for its relative
conceptual simplicity), we focus on Signal due to its widespread adoption.
Rösler, Mainka, and Schwenk [69] study practical vulnerabilities in the group chat implementations in a
number of messaging systems. Our work, in contrast, focuses only on the two-party case.

Secure Channel Models. Bellare et al. [10] develop generic security definitions for ratcheted key exchange
in a different context, also based on a computational model with key indistinguishability. They describe a
Diffie–Hellman based protocol that is somewhat similar to the Signal protocol in that it uses a ratcheting
mechanism and updates state, and prove that it is secure in their model under an oracle Diffie–Hellman
assumption. They also show how to combine symmetric encryption schemes with ratcheted key exchange
schemes. Their model captures variations of “backward” (healing from compromise) and forward secrecy,
but their model only allows for one-way communication between Alice and Bob, so the security notions are
one-sided: if the receiver’s long-term key is compromised then all security is lost. They also only capture the
asymmetric type of ratcheting in this sense, and do not consider symmetric ratcheting. The authors explicitly
identify modelling Signal as future work.
Building on Bellare et al. [10], Poettering and Rösler [65] extend to a model which covers bidirectional
updates, following a purist approach. They give a stronger notion of compromise than ours, and give constructions
meeting their definition from hierarchical identity-based encryption. Durak and Vaudenay [32] and Jost, Maurer,
and Mularczyk [45] continue along these lines, the former avoiding key-update primitives and the latter slightly
weakening the security definition while remaining stronger than ours. Finally, Alwen, Coretti, and Dodis [1]
give a clean-slate security model which additionally captures "immediate decryption", which we do not cover
in our analysis.

Overview. In Section 2 we give a detailed presentation of the Signal protocol. We follow this by a high-level
description of its threat model in Section 3, and a formal security model in Section 4. In Section 5 we prove
security of Signal’s core in our model. As a first analysis of a complex protocol our model has some limitations
and simplifying assumptions, discussed in detail in Section 6. We conclude in Section 7.

2. The Core Signal Protocol

The Signal protocol aims to send encrypted messages from one party to another. At a high level, Signal
is an asynchronous secure channel protocol, with keys computed by a multi-stage AKE protocol, between
an initiator Alice, a responder Bob, with the help of a key distribution server which only stores and relays
information between parties, but does not perform any computation.
As stated above, we focus on solely the key establishment component of Signal, which can be thought of
as a multi-stage authenticated key exchange protocol.

4
 Responder–initiator sym-ri:1,2 (k = mkri
1,2 )
symmetric ratchets not present
(initiator’s receiving chain,
responder’s sending chain) sym-ri:1,1 (k = mkri
1,1 ) sym-ri:2,1 (k = mkri
2,1 )

Initial handshake,
followed by asymmetric ratchets 0 asym-ri:1 asym-ir:1 asym-ri:2
triggered by receiver flow (k = mkir
0,0 ) (k = mkri
1,0 ) (k = mkir
1,0 ) (k = mkri
2,0 )
then sender flow and so on

sym-ir:0,1 (k = mkir
0,1 ) sym-ir:1,1 (k = mkir
1,1 )
Initiator–responder
symmetric ratchets
sym-ir:0,2 (k = mkir
0,2 ) sym-ir:1,2 (k = mkir
1,2 )
(initiator’s sending chain,
responder’s receiving chain)
sym-ir:0,3 (k = mkir
0,3 )

Figure 1: A tree of stages from one example execution of Signal. The content of each node is the stage name and the
session key derived during the stage.

Basic setup. Signal assumes each party has a long-term public/private key pair, referred to as the identity key.
However, since the parties might be offline at any point in time, standard authenticated key-exchange (AKE)
solutions cannot be directly applied. For instance, using DH key-exchange to achieve perfect-forward secrecy
requires both parties to contribute new ephemeral DH keys, but the recipient may be offline at the time of
sending.
Instead, Signal implements an asynchronous transmission protocol, by requiring potential recipients to
pre-send batches of ephemeral public keys, during registration or later. When the sender wishes to send a
message, she obtains keys for the recipient from an intermediate server (which only acts as a buffer), and
performs an AKE-like protocol using the long-term and ephemeral keys to compute a message encryption key.
This basic setup is then extended by making the message keys dependent on all previously performed
exchanges between the parties, using a combination of “ratcheting” mechanisms to form “chains”. New random
and secret values are also introduced into the computations at various points, influencing future message keys
computed by the communicating partners.

Scope. The Signal protocol uses an intricate design. Our focus is to study the existing protocol: we aim simply
to report what Signal is, not why any of its design choices were made.
It is not entirely straightforward to pin down a precise definition of the intended usage and security properties
of Signal. Our descriptions in this section were aided by existing documentation but the ultimate authority was
the implementation3 [55]. After the conference version of this paper was published, Open Whisper Systems
released high-level specifications for X3DH [64] and the Double Ratchet [63] which help to clarify many details,
although the codebase is still necessary to obtain a full definition and the specification does not contain detailed
definitions of the security goals.

2.1. Protocol Overview

Focusing on Signal as a multi-stage authenticated key exchange protocol, the main steps are as follows:
Registration. (Section 2.6)
At installation (and periodically afterwards), both Alice and Bob independently register their identity with
a key distribution server and upload some long-term, medium-term, and ephemeral public keys.
Session setup. (Section 2.7)
Alice requests and receives a set of Bob’s public keys from the key distribution server and use them to
setup a long-lived messaging session and establish initial symmetric encryption keys. This is called the
TripleDH handshake or X3DH.
Synchronous messaging (a.k.a. asymmetric-ratchet updates). (Section 2.9)
When Alice wants to send a message to Bob (or vice versa) and has just received a message from Bob,
she exchanges Diffie–Hellman values with Bob, generating new shared secrets and uses them to begin new
chains of message keys. Each DH operation is a stage of the “asymmetric ratchet” (and strictly occurs in a
ping-pong fashion).
Asynchronous messaging (a.k.a. symmetric-ratchet). (Section 2.8)
When Alice wants to send a message to Bob (or vice versa) but has not received a message from Bob
since her last sent message to Bob, she derives a new symmetric encryption key from her previous state
using a PRF. Each PRF application is a stage of the “symmetric ratchet”.
3. The tagged releases of libsignal lag behind the current codebase. The commit hash of the state of the repository as of our reading is
listed in the bibliography. Note that there are separate implementations in C, JavaScript and Java; the latter is used by Android mobile apps
and is the one we have read most carefully.

5
 Initiator A Server S Responder B

Registration. During registration, each party registers their identity RegisterPreKeyBundle

and a set of public keys, called a “pre-key bundle”, with the server. RegisterPreKeyBundle

Session setup. For Alice to establish a secure communications RequestPreKeys, B

channel with Bob, Alice obtains Bob’s pre-key bundle from the
PreKeyBundleB
server.

Alice generates an ephemeral “ratchet” public key, derives a rk, ck, mk ← KDF(triple-DH shared secret)
root key, chaining key, and message key by combining her keys EncryptedMessagemk , rchpkA
0 ,0
with Bob’s, and transmits her ephemeral public key alongside an
encryption of her first message.
RequestPreKeys, A
Bob, upon receiving all this, obtains Alice’s pre-key bundle from the
server, then derives the shared secrets. PreKeyBundleA

Symmetric ratchet stage. Suppose Alice wants to send another

message to Bob but has not yet received any reply from him. She ck 0 , mk 0 ← KDF(ck)
uses the symmetric ratchet to derive a new message key. She also NextEncryptedMessagemk0 , rchpkA
1
sends Bob a fresh ephemeral ratchet public key he can use in his
reply to Alice.
Asymmetric ratchet stage. For Bob to send a message to Alice, he ck 00 , mk 00 ← KDF(rk, DH(rchpkA B
1 , rchpk1 ))
generates and sends a fresh ephemeral ratchet public key, derives NewEncryptedMessagemk00 , rchpkB1
chaining and message keys, and encrypts his message.

When Alice replies to Bob, she completes the asymmetric ratchet

stage by generating and sending a fresh ephemeral ratchet public rk 0 , ck 000 , mk 000 ← KDF(ck 00 , DH(rchpkA B
2 , rchpk1 ))
key, derives chaining and message keys, and encrypts her message. NewEncryptedMessagemk000 , rchpkA 2

Symmetric ratchet stage. Suppose Alice wants to send another

ck 0000 , mk 0000 ← KDF(ck 000 )
message to Bob but has not yet received any reply from him. She
uses the symmetric ratchet to derive a new message key. She also NextEncryptedMessagemk0000 , rchpkA 3
sends Bob a fresh ephemeral ratchet public key he can use in his
reply to Alice.

Figure 2: Message flow of an example Signal execution between two clients A and B via a server S . Notation and some
operations have been simplified for clarity compared to later use.

Figure 1 shows a tree of stages from one example execution of Signal, represented as a graph. The session setup
is the stage labelled 0. The asymmetric-ratchet update stages are labelled asym-ri:1, asym-ir:1, and so on,
depending on whether a reply from the responder (ri) or initiator (ir) triggers the stage. The symmetric-ratchet
stages are labelled sym-ir:0,1, sym-ir:0,2, sym-ri:1,1, and so on, depending on whether they are derived
from an initiator-triggered asymmetric stage (ir) or a responder-triggered asymmetric stage (ri). Each node in
the graph in Figure 1 shows a session key k derived by the key exchange at each stage, which is the message
key mk used to encrypt the application messages sent during that stage.
We call this entire execution a single session of a multi-stage AKE protocol. In fact, Alice and Bob can run
many simultaneous sessions between them or with other parties, each admitting an arbitrary sequence of stages
consisting of symmetric and asymmetric ratcheting.
Starting to look at the protocol messages, Figure 2 shows a simplified form of the message flow for an
example execution of the Signal protocol. (Simplifications include omission of some intermediate values and
collapsing several KDF applications into a single application. A detailed version will be given in Figure 6.)
Already we can see a few additional characteristics. At each asymmetric ratchet stage, the sending party sends a
fresh ephemeral Diffie–Hellman public key. Each asymmetric ratchet stage derives its keying material from a DH
pair (consisting the sending party’s new ephemeral DH public key and the receiving party’s previous ephemeral
DH public key) and the root key rk from the previous asymmetric ratchet stage (or the initial handshake). Each
symmetric ratchet stage derives its keying material from the chaining key ck, from the previous symmetric stage
(or the asymmetric stage which started this symmetric ratchet).
In the rest of this section, we state the cryptographic core of the Signal protocol that we analyze. We begin
with some notation, including a list of the various keys used in the protocol, then examine how each stage of
the protocol works.

2.2. Notation – cryptographic primitives

Let g denote the generator of a group G of prime order q ; we write the group multiplicatively. Signal uses
one of two elliptic curves to implement X3DH: curve X25519 [12] or curve X448 [42].

6
 ipkA ikA A’s long-term identity key pair

asymmetric
B B
prepk prek B ’s medium-term (signed) prekey pair
eprepkB eprekB B ’s ephemeral prekey pair (for the initial handshake)
A A
epk ek A’s ephemeral key pair (for the initial handshake)
rchpkA
x rchkA
x A’s xth ratchet key pair (for the xth asymmetric ratchet)

ckir
x,y y th chaining key in the xth initiator–responder symmetric ratchet chain
symmetric

ckri
x,y y th chaining key in the xth responder–initiator symmetric ratchet chain
mkir
x,y y th message key in the xth initiator–responder symmetric ratchet chain
mkri
x,y y th message key in the xth responder–initiator symmetric ratchet chain
rkx xth root key on the asymmetric ratchet

TABLE 1: Keys used in the Signal protocol. Asymmetric key pairs show public and private components.

Signal uses key derivation functions in two different ways, as shown in Figure 7, applying either HMAC-SHA256
[6] or HKDF [49] using SHA256 as indicated.
AEAD denotes an authenticated encryption scheme with associated data [68]. In Signal, this is an encrypt-then-
MAC scheme: encryption is AES256 in CBC mode with PKCS#5 padding, and the MAC is HMAC-SHA256.
This is the same combination originally used in TextSecure v3, which was shown by Frosch et al. [37] to have
standard authenticated encryption security properties. Since our focus is on the key exchange portion, we omit
details of the AEAD and treat it in a black-box fashion.
Sign is a signature scheme based on Ed25519 [13, 62]. We treat it as a black-box signature.

2.3. Notation – sessions and stages

i
We denote A’s ith session by πA . Note that a session refers to an execution of a protocol at a party, so in
the normal run of the protocol between Alice and Bob, there will be two sessions: one at Alice, one at Bob.
Within a session, Signal admits a tree of various different stages, as shown in Figure 1 on page 5. We refer
to stages using a term in [square brackets]. Each stage corresponds to the establishment of a new message
encryption key.
The initial stage is [0]; the initiator retrieves the responder’s pre-key bundle of public keys from the key
distribution server, then sends a flow to the responder.
Alice and Bob assign different roles to the stages they complete: Alice may consider some stage s as
generating a sending key, while Bob considers his version of the same stage as generating a receiving key. To
avoid persistent case distinctions, we adopt a role-agnostic naming scheme, describing stages as “-ir” if they
are used for the initiator to send to the responder, and as “-ri” if they are used for the responder to send to the
initiator. This maintains the invariant that stages with the same name generate the same key(s).
The asymmetric ratchet chain builds from the initial stage using alternating stages of two types. First,
there is a flow from the responder to the initiator, denoted [asym-ri:1]. Upon receiving this flow, the initiator
completes the asymmetric ratchet in a stage denoted [asym-ir:1]. They continue to alternate: [asym-ri:2],
[asym-ir:2], and so on.
Symmetric ratchet chains are built from each stage of the asymmetric ratchet chain (including the initial
stage), any time a party wants to send an additional application message before having received a response.
Symmetric ratchet chain stages built from [asym-ri:x], for x ≥ 1, are denoted [sym-ri:x,1], [sym-ri:x,2],
and so on. Symmetric ratchet chain stages [sym-ir:x,1], [sym-ir:x,2], and so on are built from [asym-ir:x],
for x ≥ 1, and [0] for x = 0.

2.4. Notation – keys

Signal distinguishes between at least ten different classes of key, which are summarized in Table 1.
Our convention is that keys are written in italics and end with the letter k. For asymmetric key pairs, the
corresponding public key ends with the letters pk, and is always computed by group exponentiation with base g
and the private key as the exponent: pk = g k . If the identity of the agent A who generates a key is unclear we
mark this in superscript (i.e. kA ), but omit this where it is clear.
Every stage derives new keys. To identify these keys uniquely, we write the type of the stage deriving a key
k in superscript, and the index of that stage in subscript. For example, mkri x,y is the message key derived in
stage [asym-ri:x,y]. Not all stages derive all keys: for example, there is no rksym-ri:x,y , since root keys are
not affected by symmetric updates.

7
 initiator responder intended use
A B
signed prekey prek prek medium-term, reused across sessions

identity key ikA ikB long-term, bound to identity

A B
one-time (pre)key ek eprek unique to each session, never reused

Figure 3: Diffie–Hellman keys used in the initial handshake. The dashed line is optional: it is omitted from the session key
derivation if eprekB is not sent. Note the asymmetry: when Alice initiates a session with Bob, her signed prekey is not
used at all. Our freshness conditions in Section 4.3 on page 16 will be partially based on this graph.

For the purposes of modelling key exchange, the “session key” of each stage is the message key derived
during that stage. The exact mapping of session keys to stages is shown in Table 2.
The naming scheme for keys is also role-agnostic: in intended operation, keys will be equal if and only if
they have the same name. As with stages, agents have different intended uses for the same key: for example,
the initiator would use the key mkirx,y for encrypting messages to send, and the responder would use the same
key for decrypting received messages.
In our model, there are technically no stages [sym-ir:x,0] or [sym-ri:x,0], but there are keys with these
indexes, since the first entry in each sending and receiving chain is created by the asymmetric update starting
that chain (see Figure 1). We could equivalently think of Signal only deriving message keys in symmetric stages
and allowing y = 0, in which case asymmetric stages would not derive message keys. Our formulation simply
renumbers keys, so that every stage derives a message key.

2.5. The protocol

We now proceed to describe each stage of the protocol in detail. The full description of the protocol is
given in Figure 6, but we deliberately do not show that figure right away, instead using alternative diagrams
which we hope provide greater clarity for specific parts of the protocol. However, each stage in the subsequent
subsections corresponds to the portion of Figure 6 as indicated.

2.6. Registration Stage—Figure 6(a)

Upon installation (and periodically afterwards), all agents generate a number of cryptographic keys and
register themselves with a key distribution server.
Specifically, each agent P generates the following DH private keys:
(i) a long-term “identity” key ikP ;
(ii) a medium-term “signed prekey” prekP ; and
(iii) multiple short-term “one-time prekeys” eprek.
The public keys corresponding to these values are then uploaded to the server, together with a signature on
prek using ik. These are collectively called the “pre-key bundle”.

2.7. Session Setup Stage—Figure 6(b)

In the session-setup stage, public keys are exchanged and used to initialise shared secrets. The underlying
key exchange protocol is a one-round DH protocol called the Signal Key Exchange or X3DH4 , comprising
an exchange of various DH public keys, computation of various DH shared secrets as in Figure 3, and then
application of a key derivation function.
While many possible variants of such protocols have been explored in-depth in the literature (HMQV [50],
Kudla-Paterson [51], NAXOS [52] among many others), the session key derivation used here is new and not
based on one of these standard protocols, though it draws some inspiration from [51].
Recall that for asynchronicity Signal uses prekeys: initial protocol messages which are stored at an
intermediate server, allowing agents to establish a session with offline peers by retrieving one of their cached
messages (in the form of a DH ephemeral public key).
In addition to this ephemeral public key, agents also publish a “medium-term” key, which is shared between
multiple peers. This means that even if the one-time ephemeral keys stored at the server are exhausted, the
session will go ahead using only a medium-term key. This form of key reuse is studied in [57] and will be
modelled in this paper. Thus, session setup in the Signal protocol consists of two steps: first, Alice obtains
4. The key exchange protocol was previously referred to as TripleDH, from the three DH shared secrets always used in the KDF
(although in most configurations four shared secrets are used). The name QuadrupleDH has also been used for the variant which includes
the long-term/long-term DH value, not as might be expected the variant which includes the one-time prekey.

8
 Identity Key Prekey Ephemeral Key Ratchet Key0

Alice ikA / ipkA ekA / epkA rchkA A

0 / rchpk0

ms = (prepkB )ikA k (ipkB )ekA k (prepkB )ekA k (eprepkB )ekA

Bob ikB / ipkB prekB / prepkB eprekB / eprepkB

A
(prepkB )rchk0

KDFr

KDFm
ckir
0,0
Message Key mkir
0,0

Figure 4: A key schedule diagram for the initial X3DH key exchange of the Signal protocol. In this caption, the terminology
“sending” and “receiving” refers to Alice’s point-of-view. Note that denotes DH values that are used in multiple X3DH
exchanges, denotes DH values that are are used only in a single X3DH exchange, and denotes DH values that
are also used in the Double Ratchet protocol. This example key schedule captures an initial X3DH key exchange, in which
Alice uses the standard cryptographic data from Bob’s prekey bundle (plus a one-time ephemeral pre-key eprepkB ) to
compute the first root key rk1 , the first sending chain key ckir ir
0,1 , and the first message key mk0,0 .

ephemeral values from Bob (usually via a key distribution server); second, Alice treats the received values as
the first message of a Signal key exchange, and completes the exchange in order to derive a master secret.

2.7.1. Receiving ephemerals. The most common way for Alice to receive Bob’s session-specific data is for
her to query a semi-trusted server for pre-computed values (known as a PreKeyBundle).
When Alice requests Bob’s identity information, she receives his identity public key ipkB , his current signed
prekey prepkB , and a one-time prekey eprepkB if there are any available. Signed pre-keys are stored for the
medium term, and therefore shared between everyone sending messages to Bob; one-time keys are deleted by
the server upon transmission. Alice’s initial message contains identifiers for the prekeys so that Bob can learn
which were used.

2.7.2. Computing the shared secrets. Figure 4 shows the key schedule for the initial handshake in greater
detail. (This is a subset of Figure 5.)
Once Alice has received the above values, she generates her own ephemeral key ekA , and computes a
session key by performing three or four group exponentiations as depicted in Figure 3. She then concatenates
the resulting shared secrets and passes them through a key derivation function (KDFr , see Figure 7a) to derive
an initial root key rk1 and sending chain key ckir 0,0 . (No DH value is passed to KDFr for this initial invocation.)
For modelling purposes, we also have Alice generate her initial sending message key mkir 0,0 (which is this
stage’s session key output) and the next sending chain key ckri 1,0 . Finally, she generates a new ephemeral DH
key rchkA 0 known as her ratchet key.
For Bob to complete5 the key exchange, he must receive Alice’s public ephemeral key epkA and public
ratchet key rchpkA 0 . In the Signal protocol, Alice attaches these values to all messages that she sends (until
she receives a message from Bob, since from such a message she can conclude that Bob received epkA and
rchpkA A A
0 ). To disentangle the stages of the model, we have Alice send epk , rchpk0 in a separate message; thus,
once the session-construction stage is complete, both Alice and Bob have derived their root and chain keys.
When Bob receives epkA and rchpkA 0 , he first checks that he currently knows the private keys corresponding
to the identity, signed pre-, and one-time pre-key which Alice used. If so, he performs the receiver algorithm
for the key exchange, deriving the same root key rk1 and chain key (which he records as ckir 0,0 ). For modelling
purposes, we also have Bob generate his initial receiving message key mkir 0,0 (which is this stage’s session key
output) and the next receiving chain key ckir 0,1 .
The specific key derivation functions used are shown in Figure 7.

2.8. Symmetric-Ratchet Stage—Figure 6(c)

Two sequences of symmetric keys will be derived using a PRF chain, one for sending and one for receiving.
The symmetric chains—to the top and the bottom in Figure 1— may be advanced for one of two reasons:
either Alice wishes to send a new message, or she wishes to decrypt a message she has just received.
5. If the initial message from Alice is invalid, Bob will in fact not complete a session. This does not affect our analysis, which considers
only secrecy of session keys, but may become important if e.g. analysing deniability.

9
 Identity Key Prekey Ephemeral Key Ratchet Key0 Ratchet Key1

Alice ikA / ipkA ekA / epkA rchkA A

0 / rchpk0 rchkA A
1 / rchpk1

ms = (prepkB )ikA k (ipkB )ekA k (prepkB )ekA k (eprepkB )ekA (rchpkB

0 )
A
rchk0
(rchpkB
0 )
rchk1A
(rchpkB
1 )
A
rchk1

Bob ikB / ipkB prekB / prepkB eprekB / eprepkB rchkB B

0 / rchpk0 rchkB B
1 / rchpk1

A
(prepkB )rchk0
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr
Root Key rk1 rk2
KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Chaining Key ckir
0,0 ckir
0,1 ckir
0,2 ckri
1,0 ckri
1,1 ckir
1,0

Message Key mkir

0,0 mkir
0,1 mkri
1,0

Figure 5: A key schedule diagram for an example session of the Signal Protocol. In this caption, the terminology “sending”
and “receiving” refers to Alice’s point-of-view. Note that denotes DH values that are used in multiple X3DH exchanges,
denotes DH values that are are used only in a single X3DH exchange, and denotes public keys that are used in
two asymmetric ratchets in a single Double Ratchet protocol. This example key schedule captures an initial X3DH key
exchange, in which Alice uses the standard cryptographic data from Bob’s prekey bundle (plus a one-time ephemeral pre-key
eprepkB ) to compute the first root key rk1 , the first sending chain key ckir ir
0,1 , and the first message key mk0,0 . Additionally,
Alice has sent another message before receiving a message from Bob, which requires a symmetric ratchet of the first sending
chain to derive the next message key mkir B
0,1, . Afterwards, Bob has sent a new ratchet public key rchpk0 , that he combines
with Alice’s ratchet key rchpk0 to compute the first receiving chain key ck1,0 , used to derive the next chain key ckri
A ri
1,1
and the first receiving message key mkri A
1,0 . Finally, Alice has sent a new ratchet key rchpk1 that is combined with Bob’s
previous ratchet public key rchpkB 0 to compute the next root key rk2 .

In the former case, Alice takes her current sending chain key ckir
x,y and applies the message key derivation
function KDFm to derive two new keys: an updated sending chain key ckir x,(y+1) and a sending message key
mkir
x,y . Alice uses the sending message key to encrypt her outgoing message, then deletes it and the old sending
chain key. This process can be repeated arbitrarily.
An example of the symmetric ratchet is shown in the bottom of Figure 5. Specifically, on the lines labelled
“chaining key” and “message key”, there is one symmetric ratchet stage shown: stage [sym-ir:0,1] which
computes mkir 0,1 .
When Alice receives an encrypted message, she checks the accompanying ratchet public key to confirm
that she has not yet processed it, and if not she then performs an asymmetric ratchet update, described below.
Regardless, she then reads the metadata in the message header to determine the index of the message in the
receiving chain, and advances the receiving chain as many steps as is necessary to derive the required receiving
message key; by construction, Alice’s receiving message keys equal Bob’s sending keys. Unlike for the sending
case, Alice cannot delete receiving message keys immediately; she must wait to receive a message encrypted
under each one. (Otherwise, out-of-order messages would be undecryptable since their keys would have been
deleted.)
This means that Alice can retain any particular receiving chain for as long as she wants. Moreover, along
any given chain, chain keys can be ratcheted forward to produce message keys in such a way that message
keys are independent of each other so retaining them while waiting for late messages to arrive should not
compromise other messages. This means that along a receiving chain, Alice can produce the message key for
delayed message 2, while still symmetrically ratcheting forward to decrypt received messages 3, 4, 5, etc., safe
in the knowledge that retaining message key 2 while waiting for the message to arrive should not endanger
other message keys along the chain. The two core concepts of the root key producing chain keys, and the
chain keys producing message keys, means that messages can arrive in arbitrary order while Alice and Bob can
continue to asymmetrically and symmetrically ratchet forward.
The open source implementation of Signal has a hard-coded limit of 2000 messages or five asymmetric
updates, after which old keys are deleted even if they have not yet been used.

2.9. Asymmetric-Ratchet Stage—Figure 6(d)

The final top-level stage of Signal is the asymmetric-ratchet update. In this stage, Alice and Bob take turns
generating and sending new DH ratchet public keys and using them to derive new shared secrets. This behaviour

10
occurs strictly in a ping-pong fashion, i.e. Bob will continue to use the same ratchet key until he sees a new
ratchet key from Alice. In Figure 6(d) these newly generated keys are denoted by rchpkix , where i refers to
the identity of the sending party (either A or B for Alice and Bob respectively) and x refers to the numbered
asymmetric stage i.e. [asym-ir:x] or [asym-ri:x]. These are accumulated in the asymmetric ratchet chain,
from which new (symmetric) message chains are initialized.
When Alice receives a message from Bob, it may be accompanied by a new (previously unseen) ratchet
public key rchpkB x−1 . If so, this triggers Alice to enter her next asymmetric ratchet stage [asym-ir:x]. Note
that Alice already has stored a previously generated private ratchet key rchkA x−1 . Before decrypting the message,
Alice updates her asymmetric ratchet as per Figure 6(d). This consists of two steps:
• In the first step, denoted [asym-ri:x] in Figure 6(d), Alice derives three secret values: an intermediate
secret value tmp, a receiving chain key ckri ri
x,1 and a receiving message key mkx,0 . Alice computes first a
B
DH shared secret (between the newly-received ratchet public key rchpkx−1 and her old ratchet private key
rchkAx−1 ), and combines this with the previously computed root chain key rkx to derive an intermediate
secret value tmp and a new receiving chain key ckri x,0 by applying KDFr . Afterwards, Alice uses the new
chain key ckrix,0 as input to KDF m to compute the next receiving chain key ckri
x,1 and receiving message
key mkx,0 . Alice generates a new DH ratchet private key rchkA
ri
x .
• In the second step, denoted [asym-ir:x] in Figure 6(d), Alice computes a second DH shared secret
(between the received ratchet public key rchpkB A
x−1 and her new ratchet private key rchkx ), and combines
this with the intermediate secret value tmp by applying KDFr to compute the next root chain key rkx+1
and a new sending chain key ckir x,0 . Alice then uses the new sending chain key as input to KDFm to
generate the next sending chain key ckir ir
x,1 and receiving message key mkx,0 .
The message keys in the first and second steps have slightly different security properties, so they are recorded
in our model as belonging to distinct stages [asym-ri:x] and [asym-ir:x].
Alice then sends her new ratchet public key rchpkA x along with future messages to Bob, and the process
continues indefinitely. An example key schedule diagram can be found in Figure 5.
Figure 5 shows the key schedule for multiple stages of an example session of the Signal protocol. Two
examples of the asymmetric ratchet are shown in the right of Figure 5: stage [asym-ri:1] which computes
mkri ir ir ir
1,0 , and part of stage [asym-ir:1] which computes mk1,0 from ck1,0 (the computation of mk1,0 did not fit in
the figure, but indeed is the output of that stage).
Bob does the corresponding operations shown in Figure 6 to compute the same DH shared secrets and
the corresponding root, chain, and message keys. While symmetric updates can be triggered either by Alice
(the session initiator) or Bob (the session responder) and thus could be as in Figure 6(c) or its horizontal flip,
asymmetric updates can only be triggered by Alice (the session initiator) receiving a new (previously unseen)
ratchet key from Bob (the session responder) and not the other way around, so Figure 6(d) will never be
horizontally flipped. This means that the transmission of new ratchet keys between Alice and Bob will always
occur in a strictly ping-pong fashion.

2.10. Memory Contents

Signal is a stateful protocol, and a number of different values are available in Alice’s memory at any time.
Alice’s global state—shared between all of her sessions—contains four different collections of values: identity
keys (Alice’s own identity private key, and the identity public keys of all her peers), signed prekeys, ephemeral
keys, and a list of all sessions.
Furthermore, each session in the collection of sessions above contains the keys used by the protocol.
Specifically, a session always has its agent’s identity private key and its peer’s identity public key, a current
root and sending chain key, and a current ratchet key. In addition, it has some number of receiving chain and
message keys, corresponding to out-of-order messages not yet received from the peer.
In Section 4, we will need to address specific values in the memory of specific sections, which detailed in
Table 2.

11
 (a) Each party’s registration phase (at install time), over an authentic channel (Section 2.6)
Party P Server S
$
ikP , prekP ← Zq
$ P, ipkP , prepkP , SignikP (prepkP ), multiple eprepkP
multiple eprekP ← Zq

(b) Alice’s session (Initiator) setup with peer Bob (Responder), over an authentic channel (Section 2.7)
i
Initiator A instance πA , stage [0] Server S
B
ipkB , prepkB , SignikB (prepkB )[, eprepkB ]

$ i
ekA ← Zq Responder B instance πB , stage [0]
rchkA
$ epkA , key identifier for prepkB , rchpkA B
0 [, eprepk ]
0 ← Zq
(in practice attached to initial encrypted message)
confirm possession of prekB [, eprekB ]
A A A B B B
ms ← (prepkB )ik k(ipkB )ek k(prepkB )ek ms ← (ipkA )prek k(epkA )ik k(epkA )prek
A B
if eprepkB then ms ← msk(eprepkB )ek if eprepkB then ms ← msk(epkA )eprek
rk0 , ⊥ ← KDFr (ms) rk0 , ⊥ ← KDFr (ms)
B rchkA prekB
rk1 , ckir
0,0 ← KDFr ((prepk )
0 krk )
0 rk1 , ck0,0 ← KDFr ((rchpkA
ir
0) krk0 )
ir ir ir
ck0,1 , mk0,0 ← KDFm (ck0,0 ) ckir ir
0,1 , mk0,0 ← KDFm (ck0,0 )
ir

(c) Symmetric-ratchet communication: Alice sends a message to Bob (Section 2.8)

i i
Initiator A instance πA , stage [sym-ir:x,y], x ≥ 0, y ≥ 1 Responder B instance πB , stage [sym-ir:x,y], x ≥ 0, y ≥ 1

AEADmkir (message, AD = ∅), rchpkA A B

x , ipk , ipk , y
x,(y−1)

(in practice (rchpkA A B

x , ipk , ipk , y) are included in the associated data of this message)

ckir ir ir
x,y+1 , mkx,y ← KDFm (ckx,y ) ckir ir ir
x,y+1 , mkx,y ← KDFm (ckx,y )

(d) Asymmetric-ratchet updates: Alice and Bob start new symmetric chains with new ratchet keys (Section 2.9)
i i
Initiator A instance πA , stage [asym-ri:x], x ≥ 1 Responder B instance πB , stage [asym-ri:x], x ≥ 1

$
rchkB
x ← Zq
rchkB
tmp, ckri
x,0 ← KDFr (rkx , (rchpkA
x−1 )
x )

rchpkB
x ckx,1 , mkx,0 ← KDFm (ckri
ri ri
x,0 )
(in practice in the associated data of a later message encrypted with mkri
x,0 )
A
tmp, ckri B rchkx−1
x,0 ← KDFr (rkx , (rchpkx ) )
ri ri ri
ckx,1 , mkx,0 ← KDFm (ckx,0 )

i i
Initiator A instance πA , stage [asym-ir:x], x ≥ 1 Responder B instance πB , stage [asym-ir:x], x ≥ 1

$
rchkAx ← Zq
B rchkA
rkx+1 , ckir
x,0 ← KDFr (tmp, (rchpkx )
x )

ir ir ir
ckx,1 , mkx,0 ← KDFm (ckx,0 ) rchpkA
x

(in practice in the associated data of a later message encrypted with mkir
x,0 )
B
rkx+1 , ckir A rchkx
x,0 ← KDFr (tmp, (rchpkx ) )
ckx,1 , mkx,0 ← KDFm (ckir
ir ir
x,0 )

Figure 6: Signal protocol including preregistration of keys. Local actions are depicted in the left and right columns, and
messages flow between them. We show only one step of the symmetric and asymmetric ratchets; they can be iterated
arbitrarily. Variables storing keys are defined in Table 1, KDFr and KDFm in Figure 7, and session identifiers in Table 2.
Dark red text indicates reordered actions in our model, as discussed in Section 5. Each stage derives message keys with
the same index as the stage number, and chaining/root keys with the index for the next stage; the latter is passed as state
from one stage to the next. State info st in asymmetric stages is defined as the root key used in the key derivation, and
for symmetric stages st is defined as the chain key used in key derivation. Symmetric stages always start at y = 1 and
increment. When an actor sends consecutive messages, the first message is a DH ratchet and then subsequent messages use
the symmetric ratchet. When an actor replies, they always DH ratchet first; they never carry on the symmetric ratchet.

12
 cki,j
rki
HMACcki,j (0) HMACcki,j (1)

dh HKDF(rki , dh, const2 ) x

se
st
ha
lf co
n d
ha
HKDF(x, const1 )
fir lf
rki+1 ckir
i+1,0

(a) KDFr , the KDF for asymmetric ratchet chain updates. dh cki,j+1 mki,j
is the DH value derived for this stage update, and the result is
a new root key as well an output chain key. (b) KDFm , the KDF for symmetric ratchet chain updates.
Figure 7: Key derivation functions for root keys, chaining keys, and message keys in Signal.

3. Threat Models
We will analyse Signal in the context of a fully adversarially-controlled network. The high-level properties
we aim to prove are secrecy and authentication of message keys. Authentication will be implicit (only the
intended party could compute the key) rather than explicit (proof that the intended party did compute the key).
Forward secrecy and “future” secrecy are not explicit goals; instead, derived session keys should remain secret
under a variety of compromise scenarios, including if a long-term secret has been compromised but a medium or
ephemeral secret has not (forward secrecy) or if state is compromised and then an uncompromised asymmetric
stage later occurs (“future” or post-compromise secrecy [24]). We assume out-of-band verification of identity
keys and medium-term keys, and do not consider side channel attacks.
The finer details of our threat model are ultimately encoded in the so-called freshness predicate, specified
in Section 4.3 on page 16, where we provide further information on our threat model design choices.

On Our Choice of Threat Model. Because at the time of writing Signal did not claim any formally-
specified security properties, as part of our analysis we had to decide which threat model to assume. The
README document accompanying the source code [55] states that Signal “is a ratcheting forward secrecy
protocol that works in synchronous and asynchronous messaging environments”. A separate GitHub wiki page
[61] provides some more goals (forward and future secrecy6 , metadata encryption and detection of message
replay/reorder/deletion) but to the best of our knowledge no mention of message integrity or authentication is
made other than the use of AEAD cipher modes.
We believe that the threat model we have chosen is realistic, although we discuss later some directions in
which it could be strengthened. Parallels can be drawn, for example, with the TLS 1.3 standard [67, Appendix
D], which discusses the following properties (where the network is fully adversarially-controlled, and where the
adversary may compromise the keys of some participants).

Correctness If Alice and Bob complete an exchange together then they should derive the same keys; distinct
exchanges should derive distinct keys.
Secrecy If Alice and Bob complete an exchange to generate a key k , nobody other than Alice and Bob should
be able to learn anything about k .
(Implicit) Authentication If Alice believes that she shares the key k with Bob, nobody other than Bob should
be able to learn anything about k . Note that this property is implied by secrecy.
Forward secrecy An attacker who compromises Alice’s long-term secret after a session is complete should
not be able to learn anything about the keys derived in that session.
Identity hiding A passive adversary should not learn the identity of partners to a session.

It is common in the authenticated key exchange literature to assume a trusted public key infrastructure (PKI),
though some models allow the adversary more control [18]. In Signal the PKI is combined with the network, in
the sense that the same server distributes identity and ephemeral keys. Thus, in some sense assuming a trusted
PKI also restricts the attacker’s control over particular sessions.
Some claims have been made about privacy and deniability [72] in Signal, but these are relatively abstract. In
general, signatures are used but only for the signed pre-key in the initial handshake, meaning that an observer can
prove that Alice sent a message [29, full deniability] to someone but perhaps not to Bob [26, peer deniability].
Additionally, one might consider a threat model that includes imperfect ephemeral random number generators.
Since no static-static DH shared secret is included in Signal’s KDF, an adversary who knows all ephemeral
6. Future secrecy means “a leak of keys to a passive eavesdropper will be healed by introducing new DH ratchet keys” [61].

13
values can compute all secrets. However, Signal continuously updates state with random numbers, so we capture
in our threat model the fact that it is possible to make some security guarantees, if some, but not all, random
numbers are compromised.
The trust assumptions on the registration channel are not defined; Signal specifies a mandatory method for
participants to verify each other’s identity keys through an out-of-band channel, but most implementations do
not require such verification to take place before messaging can occur. Without it, an untrusted key distribution
server can impersonate any agent.
Signal’s mechanisms suggest a lot of effort has been invested to protect against the loss of secrects used in
specific communications. If the corresponding threat model is an attacker gaining (temporary) access to the
device, it becomes crucial if certain previous secrets and decrypted messages can be accessed by the attacker or
not: generating new message keys is of no use if the old ones are still recoverable. This, in turn, depends on
whether deletion of messages and previous secrets has been effective. This is known to be a hard problem,
especially on flash-based storage media [66], which are commonly used on mobile phones.

4. Security Model
In this section we present a security model for multi-stage key exchange, which we then apply to model
Signal’s initial key exchange as well as its ratcheting scheme. Our model allows multiple parties to execute
multiple, concurrent sessions; each session has multiple stages. For Signal, the session represents a single chat
between two parties, and each stage represents a new application of the ratchet. Figure 6 depicts, roughly, a
single session. There are three types of stage in Signal: the initial key exchange, asymmetric ratcheting, and
symmetric ratcheting. In addition, ratcheting stages differ based on whether they are used for generating keys
for the initiator to send to the responder (denoted -ir) or vice versa (denoted -ri). For our purposes, every stage
generates a session key; depending on the stage, this will be either the sending or the receiving message key.
On the choice of model. We choose to study the security of Signal in the traditional key exchange notion of key
indistinguishability [7, 8] (albeit a multi-stage variant), as opposed to a monolithic secure channel notion such
as authenticated and confidential channel establishment (ACCE) [43]. It is often preferable to analyze the key
exchange portion independently from the message transport layer, and then compose this with authenticated
encryption to establish a secure channel [22]. Monolithic notions like ACCE are necessary for protocols such
as TLS, which use the session key (or values derived from it) in the channel establishment and thus prevent a
clean separation for composition. As indicated by the parenthetical comments under message arrows in Figure 6,
Signal uses message keys to authenticate not just data (which is omitted from our key exchange model) but also
handshake messages. In our proof, we therefore modify the protocol to instead send these handshake messages
in the clear, with authentication enforced via our freshness predicate. We discuss these modifications further in
Section B.1.
Another subtlety compared to the multi-stage key exchange model of Fischlin and Günther is that QUIC
and TLS 1.3 demand a linear sequence of stages, whereas for our model of Signal we use a tree of stages, as
seen in Figure 1.
Model notation. We present our model as a pseudocode experiment where the primitive in question (the
multi-stage key exchange protocol) is modelled as a tuple of algorithms, and then an adversary interacts with the
experiment. This approach is commonly used in many other areas of cryptography, but less so in key exchange
papers. Compared with models and experiments presented in textual format, we argue that our approach makes
it easier to understand some precise details, and easier to see subtleties in variations.
We adopt the following notational and typographic conventions. Monotype text denotes constants; serif text
denotes algorithms and variables associated with the actual protocol (variables are italicized); and sans-serif
text denotes algorithms, oracles, and variables associated with the experiment. Algorithms and Oracles start
with upper-case letters; variables start with lower-case letters. We use object-oriented notation to represent
collections of variables. In particular, we will use πui to denote the collection of variables that party u uses in its
ith protocol execution (“session”). To denote the variable v in stage s of party u’s ith session, we write πui .v[s];
note s is not (necessarily) a natural number. For Signal, s is [0] for the session setup stage; [sym-ir:x,y] or
[sym-ri:x,y] for symmetric sending or receiving stages; or [asym-ri:x] or [asym-ir:x] for the 1st and 2nd
portions of the xth asymmetric stage. (See also Figure 1 and Figure 6.)
DH protocols conventionally use both ephemeral keys (unique to a session) and long-term keys (in all
sessions of an agent). Signal’s prekeys do not fit cleanly into this separation, and in order to follow the
conventions of the field we refer to the reused DH keys as “medium-term keys”.
Generality of our model. Some aspects of our model are quite general, and others are very specific to Signal.
Our formulation of a multi-stage key exchange protocol as a tuple of algorithms, as well as the main experiment
and oracles in Figure 8, should be applicable to any multi-stage key exchange protocol that includes semi-static
(medium term) keys. However, our freshness definition is highly customized to Signal via our clean clauses,
since we aim to precisely characterize the security properties of Signal’s keys.

14
 The level of generality is an important decision when designing a security model for a protocol like Signal:
on one hand, a general model allows analysis of and comparison to other protocols; on the other, of necessity it
does not allow fine-grained statements about the specific protocol under consideration. Our model lies towards
the centre of this spectrum: we aim to keep the overall structure relatively independent of Signal (though of
necessity we added support for medium-term keys), while the cleanness predicates described later allow us to
make fine-grained assertions which capture as much as possible.
Medium-term key authentication. Signal’s medium-term keys are signed by the same identity key used for
DH, breaking key separation. Although there has been some analysis of this form of key reuse [28, 60], it is
nontrivial to prove secure. We instead enforce authentication by fiat, allowing the adversary to select any of the
medium-term keys owned by an agent, but not to inject their own. In the game, this is implemented as an extra
argument when the adversary creates a new session.

4.1. Multi-Stage Key Exchange Protocol

Definition 1 (Multi-stage key exchange protocol). A multi-stage key exchange protocol Π is a tuple of algorithms,
along with a keyspace K and a security parameter λ indicating the number of bits of randomness each session
requires. The algorithms are:
$
• KeyGen() 7→ (ipk , ik ): A probabilistic long-term key generation algorithm that outputs a long-term public
key / secret key pair (ipk , ik ). In Signal, these are called “identity keys”.
$
• MedTermKeyGen(ik ) 7→ (prepk , prek ): A probabilistic medium-term key generation algorithm that takes
as input a long-term secret key ik and outputs a medium-term public key / secret key pair (prepk , prek ).
In Signal, these are called “signed prekeys”; in the key exchange literature, they are sometimes called
“semi-static keys”.
$ 0 0
• Activate(ik , prek , role, peerid) 7→ (π , m ): A probabilistic protocol activation algorithm that takes as input
a long-term secret key ik, a medium-term secret key prek, a role role ∈ {init, resp}, and optionally an
identifier of its intended peer peerid, and outputs a state π 0 and (possibly empty) outgoing message m0 .
$ 0 0
• Run(ik , prek , π, m) 7→ (π , m ): A probabilistic protocol execution algorithm that takes as input a long-term
secret key ik, a medium-term secret key prek, a state π , and an incoming message m, and outputs an
updated state π 0 and (possibly empty) outgoing message m0 .
Definition 2 (State). A state π is a collection of the following variables:
• π.role ∈ {init, resp}: the instance’s role
• π.peerid: the identifier of the alleged peer
• π.peeripk: the peer’s long-term public key
• π.peerprepk: the peer’s medium-term public key
• π.status[s] ∈ {ε, active, accept, reject}: execution status for stage s, set to active upon start of a
new stage, and set to accept or reject by computation of the stage’s ratchet key.
• π.k[s] ∈ K: the session key output by stage s
• π.st[s]: any additional protocol state values that a previous stage gives as input to stage s (defined as part
of the protocol).
• π.sid[s]: the identifier of stage s of session π ; this is view the actor has of the session π in stage s, as
defined in Figure 6.
• π.type[s]: the type of freshness required for this stage to have security. For Signal, this is triple,
triple+DHE, asym-ir, asym-ri, sym-ir or sym-ri.
The state of an instance π in our experiment models “real” protocol state that an implementation would keep
track of and use during protocol execution. We will supplement this in the experiment with additional variables
that are artificially added for the experiment. These are administrative identifiers, used to formally reason about
what is happening in our security experiment, e.g., to identity sessions and partners.

4.1.1. Instantiating Signal in terms of Definition 1. The KeyGen and MedTermKeyGen algorithms corre-
spond to the first two lines of Figure 6(a).
Activate sets each party’s intended role, as well as optionally specifies the identifier of their intended peer.
The Run algorithm incorporates the rest of Figure 6; a state machine within the Run algorithm can
straightforwardly decide which stage to execute based on the current state of the session as well as identifiers
within the incoming real-world protocol messages that unambiguously distinguish stages.
The initiator and responder each learn and set peeripk and peerprepk during the execution of Run in
Figure 6(b); the responder also learns and sets peerid during execution. In remaining calls to the Run algorithm,
additional variables are set for each stage. Each stage’s state type (type) is set when the stage begins, and the
stage’s status is set to active at the same time. The stage’s session identifier (sid) and state (st) are set within
the stage as soon as the values indicated in Table 2 have been derived. When the stage computes its message
key mk, , it saves that as the session key (k ) and sets the stage’s status to accept.

15
4.2. Key Indistinguishability Experiment
Having defined a multi-stage key exchange protocol, we can now set up the experiment for key indistin-
guishability. As is typical in key exchange security models, the experiment establishes long-term keys and then
allows the adversary to interact with the system. The adversary can direct parties to start sessions with particular
medium-term keys, and can control the delivery of messages to parties (including modifying, dropping, delaying,
and inserting messages). The adversary can learn various long-term or per-session secret information from
parties via reveal queries, and at any point can choose a single stage of a single session to “test”. They are then
given either the real session key from this stage, or a random key from the same keyspace, and asked to decide
which was given. If they decide correctly, we say they win the experiment. This is formalized in the following
definition and corresponding experiment.
Definition 3 (Multi-stage key indistinguishability). Let Π be a key exchange protocol. Let nP , nM , nS , ns ∈ N.
Let A be a probabilistic algorithm that runs in time polynomial in the security parameter. Define
h i
Advms-ind
Π,nP ,nM ,nS ,ns (A) = |2 · Pr Expms-ind
Π,nP ,nM ,nS ,ns (A) = 1 − 1|

where the security experiment Expms-ind

Π,nP ,nM ,nS ,ns (A) is as defined in Figure 8. Note nS and ns are upper bounds
on the number of sessions per party and number of stages per session that can be established. We call an
adversary efficient if it runs in time polynomial in the security parameter.
Note that Expms-ind includes the following global variables:
• b: a challenge bit
• tested = (u, i, s) or ⊥: recording the inputs to the query Test(u, i, s) or ⊥ if no Test query has happened
Furthermore, Expms-ind extends the per-session state πui with the following experiment variables:
i λ i
• πu .rand[s] ∈ {0, 1} : random coins for πu ’s sth stage
i
• πu .preid ∈ {1, . . . , nM }: the index of the owner’s medium-term key to use
i
• πu .peerpreid ∈ {1, . . . , nM }: the index of the alleged peer’s medium-term key
i
• πu .rev_session[s] ∈ {true, false}: whether RevSessKey(u, i, s) was called or not; default false
i
• πu .rev_random[s] ∈ {true, false}: whether RevRand(u, i, s) was called or not; default false
i
• πu .rev_state[s] ∈ {true, false}: whether RevState(u, i, s) was called or not; default false

We are working in the post-specified peer model, where the peer’s identity can be learned by the actor during
the execution of the protocol, by virtue of learning the peer’s public key; and similarly for the peer’s semi-static
key. (In Signal, the initiator will be activated with the identifier of their intended peer, but the responder will
only learn the identity of their intended peer during protocol execution.) Certain aspects of the experiment
require the administrative index of the corresponding key, and thus, we assume that πui .peerid is set to the
corresponding identity upon πui .peeripk being set; and similarly for the semi-static key index πui .peerpreid upon
πui .peerprepk being set. (Recall that experiment-only variables are in sans-serif .)

4.2.1. Session identifiers. We define the session identifiers sid[s] for each stage [s] of Signal in Table 2. It is
important to note that these session identifiers only exist in our model, not in the protocol specification itself.
We use them to we define restrictions on the adversary’s allowed behaviour in our model, so that we can make
precise security statements: we will generally restrict the adversary from making queries against any session
with the same session identifier as the Test session. If two sessions have equal session identifiers we say that
they are “matching”.
The precise components of the session identifiers are crucial to our definition of security: the more information
is included in the session identifier, the more specific the restriction on the adversary and hence the stronger
the security model. In particular, we do not include identities, because they are not included in Signal’s key
derivation or associated data of encrypted messages. This means that the unknown key share attack against
TextSecure [37] is not considered an attack in our model: Alice’s session with Eve will have the same session
identifier as Bob’s session with Alice.

4.3. Freshness
From a key exchange perspective, the novelty of Signal is the different security goals of different stages’
session keys. The subtle differences between those security goals are captured in the details of the threat model.
Previously, we provided the adversary with powerful queries with which it can break any protocol. We now
define the so-called freshness predicate fresh to constrain that power, effectively specifying the details of the
threat model.
Our goal when defining fresh is to describe the best security condition that might be provable for each of
Signal’s message keys based on the protocol’s design; here, “best” is with respect to the maximal combinations
of secrets learned by the adversary. That is, we use the structure of the protocol to infer which attacks cannot
possibly be prevented, and rule them out by restricting the adversary. Our goal is to prove that, working from

16
 ms-ind
ExpΠ,n P ,nM ,nS ,ns
(A): RevSessKey(u, i, s):
i
1:
$
b ← {0, 1} 1: πu .rev_session[s] ← true
i
2: return πu .k[s]
2: tested ← ⊥
3: // generate long-term and semi-static keys RevLongTermKey(u):
4: for u = 1 to nP do 1: rev_ltku ← true
5:
$
(ipku , iku ) ← KeyGen() 2: return iku
6: for preid = 1 to nM do RevMedTermKey(u, preid):
$
7: (prepkupreid , prekupreid ) ← MedTermKeyGen(iku ) 1: rev_mtkpreid
u ← true
8: pubinfo ← (ipk , . . . , ipk , prepk11 , . . . , prepknnPM )
1 nP 2: return preku preid
$
9: b0 ← ASend,Rev∗,Test (pubinfo) RevRand(u, i, s):
10: if (tested 6= ⊥) ∧ fresh(tested) ∧ b = b0 then i
1: πu .rev_random[s] ← true
i
11: return 1 // the adversary wins 2: return πu .rand[s]
12: else RevState(u, i, s):
13: return 0 // the adversary loses i
1: πu .rev_state[s] ← true
i
2: return πu .st[s]
Send(u, i, m):
i
1: if πu = ⊥ then Test(u, i, s):
2: // start new session and record intended peer
1: // can only call Test once, and only on accepted stages
3: parse m as (peerid, preid, role)
−−→ $ 2: if (tested 6= ⊥) or (πui .status[s] 6= accept) then
4: πui .rand ← {0, 1}ns ×λ 3: return ⊥
5: (πu , m0 ) ← Activate(iku , prekupreid , role, peerid; πui .rand[0])
i
4: tested ← (u, i, s)
5: // return real or random key depending on b
6: return m0 if b = 0 then
6:
7: else return πui .k[s]
7:
8: s ← πui .stage else 8:
9: (πui , m0 ) ← Run(iku , prekuπi .preid , πui , m; πui .rand[s]) $
k0 ← K9:
u
10: return m0 return k0
10:
Figure 8: Security experiment for adversary A against multi-stage key indistinguishability security of protocol Π.

the design choices made, Signal indeed achieves the best it can (without introducing further elements in the key
derivation function).
We must define fresh separately for the initial stages and for subsequent ones, since additional secrets are
introduced in later asymmetric stages. In the initial stages, our choices are based on Figure 3 on page 8. In the
graph, the edges can be seen as the individual secrets established between initiator and responder, on which the
secrecy of the session keys is based. If the adversary cannot learn the secret corresponding to one of these
edges, it cannot compute the session key. The adversary can learn the secret corresponding to an edge if it can
compromise one of the two endpoints; thus, if an adversary can learn, e.g., the initiator A’s ikA and ekA , it can
derive the secrets corresponding to all edges. A similar observation can be made for the responder.
A vertex cover7 of Figure 3 gives a way for the adversary to compute the relevant session key directly. We
can think of our freshness predicate as excluding all such vertex covers; if all DH pairs were included in the
KDF, this would yield the standard eCK freshness predicate.
In stages after the initial ones, we define modified freshness conditions to capture Signal’s post-compromise
security properties. These conditions are recursive: either the stage was fresh already, or it becomes fresh
through the introduction of new secrets.
The freshness predicate fresh for our experiment works hand-in-hand with a variety of sub-predicates
(cleantriple , cleantriple+DHE , cleanasym-ir , cleanasym-ri , cleansym-ir and cleansym-ri ) which are highly specialized
to Signal to capture the exact type of security achieved in Signal’s different types of stages. In turn, each of
these sub-predicates are themselves based on a variety of underlying predicates (for example, cleanEL , cleanEM ,
and cleanEE ). These sub-predicates are introduced in Sections 4.3.1 and 4.3.2, and 4.3.3.
Definition 4 (Validity and freshness). Let s be a stage in the ith session at agent u, and let τ = πui .type[s]
be its type (e.g. triple, triple+DHE, . . . ) as specified in Table 2. It is is valid if it has accepted and the
adversary has not revealed either its session key or the session key of any session with the same identifier, and
fresh if it additionally satisfies cleanness:
cleanτ (u, i, s) is defined in the following sections
valid(u, i, s) = (πui .status[s] = accept) ∧ ¬πui .rev_session[s]
∧ ∀ j : πui .sid[s] = ππj i .peerid .sid[s] =⇒ ¬ππj i .peerid .rev_session[s]


u u

fresh(u, i, s) = valid(u, i, s) ∧ cleanτ (u, i, s)

7. A vertex cover of a graph is a set of nodes incident to every edge.

17
 stage session id input state session key output state(s) randomness
s π.sid[s] π.st[s] π.k[s] π.rand[s]
†
mkir π.st[sym-ir:0,1] ← ckir
 i
0, type[0] = triple (triple : ipki , ipkr , prepkr , ⊥ 0,0 0,1 ek , rchki0
†
π.st[asym-ri:1] ← rk1 , rchpki0
i

epk , rchpki0 )

†
mkir eki , rchki0

0, type[0] = triple+DHE (triple+DHE : ipki , ipkr , prepkr , ⊥ 0,0 as for type[0] = triple
‡
eprekr

epki , eprepkr , rchpki0 )

‡
mkri π.st[sym-ri:1,1] ← ckri rchkr1

asym-ri:1 sid[0] k (asym-ri : rchpki0 , rchpkr1 ) rk1 1,0 1,1
‡
π.st[asym-ir:1] ← tmp, rchkr1


‡
mkri π.st[sym-ri:x,1] ← ckri rchkrx

asym-ri:x, x ≥ 2 sid[asym-ir:x − 1] rkx x,0 x,1
‡
π.st[asym-ir:x] ← tmp, rchkrx

k (asym-ri : rchpkrx )

†
mkir π.st[sym-ri:x,1] ← ckri rchkix

asym-ir:x, x ≥ 1 sid[asym-ri:x] k (asym-ir : rchpkix ) tmp x,0 x,1
†
π.st[asym-ri:x + 1] ← rkx+1 , rchkix


sym-ri:x,y , x ≥ 1, y ≥ 1 sid[asym-ri:x] k (sym-ri : y) ckri

x,y mkri
x,y π.st[sym-ri:x,y + 1] ← ckri
x,y+1 ⊥

sym-ir:0,y , y ≥ 1 sid[0] k (sym-ir : y) ckir

0,y mkir
0,y π.st[sym-ir:0,y + 1] ← ckir
0,y+1 ⊥

sym-ir:x,y , x ≥ 1, y ≥ 1 sid[asym-ir:x] k (sym-ir : y) ckir

x,y mkir
x,y π.st[sym-ir:x,y + 1] ← ckir
x,y+1 ⊥

TABLE 2: Values that Signal assigns to the per-stage variables in the security model. [. . . ]† denotes something that applies
only to the initiator; [. . . ]‡ applies only to the responder.

fresh and its sub-clauses have access to all variables in the experiment (global, user, session, and stage).

4.3.1. Session Setup Stage [0]. The session key derived from a triple key exchange is derived from the
concatenation of three DH shared secrets, combined with one more DH shared secret; thus, it will be secret
as long as at least one of the four input secrets is. The cleanness predicate in a stage of this type is thus the
disjunction of several predicates, each encoding the secrecy of one DH pair: a long-term/medium-term pair, an
ephemeral/long-term pair, and an ephemeral/medium-term pair.8
Definition 5 (cleantriple ). Let
cleantriple (u, i, [0]) = cleanLM (u, i) ∨ cleanEL (u, i, 0) ∨ cleanEM (u, i, 0)
For a generic sub-clause cleanXY , our convention is that initiator’s key is of type X and the responder’s key
of type Y, where the possible types are L, M, and E for long-term (ik), medium-term (prek), and ephemeral (ek)
keys respectively, as in Figure 3.
For the session key derived from a triple+DHE key exchange, there is an additional DH shared secret
from an ephemeral/ephemeral pair:
Definition 6 (cleantriple+DHE ). Let
cleantriple+DHE (u, i, [0]) = cleantriple (u, i, [0]) ∨ cleanEE (u, i, 0, 0)
We now define each of the sub-clause of Definitions 5 and 6. Each of these sub-clause is defined differently
depending on whether it is evaluated for an initiator or responder session.
For the long-term/medium-term sub-clause, we simply need to check that neither the initiator’s long-term
key nor the responder’s medium term-key has been revealed:
π i .peerpreid
(
¬rev_ltku ∧ ¬rev_mtkπui .peerid πui .role = init
cleanLM (u, i) = u
i
πu .preid
¬rev_ltkπui .peerid ∧ ¬rev_mtku πui .role = resp
For sub-clauses involving ephemeral keys, we have to consider more subtle aspects. For responder sessions,
the difficult part is that the ephemeral key is now the peer’s, not the session owner’s: to ensure that it is not
known by the adversary, we have to ensure first that it was actually generated by the intended peer (meaning
that the peer session must exist), and second that it was not subsequently revealed (identifying the peer session
using session identifiers); this will be what the clause cleanpeerE does.
A A
8. In our model, there are two ephemeral/medium-term pairs: (prepkB )ek and (prepkB )rchk0 . Our security model treats ekA and rchkA
0
as being revealed by the same query, so one predicate covers both terms.

18
 For the ephemeral/long-term and ephemeral/medium-term sub-clauses, we check that the initiator’s ephemeral
key and the responder’s long-term or medium-term key has not been revealed, using cleanpeerE to address the
issue in the previous paragraph:
(
¬πui .rev_random[0] ∧ ¬rev_ltkπui .peerid πui .role = init
cleanEL (u, i, [0]) =
cleanpeerE (u, i, [0]) ∧ ¬rev_ltku πui .role = resp
π i .peerpreid
(
¬πui .rev_random[0] ∧ ¬rev_mtkπui .peerid πui .role = init
cleanEM (u, i, [0]) = i
u

cleanpeerE (u, i, [0]) ∧ ¬rev_mtkπuu .preid πui .role = resp

When the session πui is the responder, if the medium-term key of the responder is corrupted then we do not
permit an attack impersonating Alice to Bob: since the only randomness in the initial key exchange phase is
from the initiator (and there is no static-static DH secret), such an attack will succeed, and hence an adversary
that corrupts the medium-term key of the responder can easily impersonate Alice to Bob.
For the ephemeral/ephemeral sub-clauses, we check that neither party’s ephemeral key has been revealed,
again using cleanpeerE to ensure that the peer session actually exists:
(
0 ¬πui .rev_random[s] ∧ cleanpeerE (u, i, s0 ) πui .role = init
cleanEE (u, i, s, s ) =
cleanpeerE (u, i, s) ∧ ¬πui .rev_random[s0 ] πui .role = resp
Since we reveal randomness instead of specific keys, this final predicate applies to both the ephemeral keys
and the ratchet keys, a fact which we shall use later when defining cleanness of asymmetric stages.
The cleanpeerE (u, i, s) sub-clause that we relied on to deal with the issue of the ephemeral key at the peer
is given below. However, there is a special case: a session πui with πui .role = init, in stage s = 0 with
type[0] = triple+DHE. Specifically, we need to confirm an honest responder exists that has generated the
ephemeral prekey eprepkr that was received by πui . The reason why we treat this separately is that all other
ephemeral-ephemeral (i.e. ratchet) keys are separated into distinct stages, which is not the case for stage s = 0
with type[0] = triple+DHE. In the other cases, the cleanpeerE (u, i, s) predicate determines whether there exists
a partner session that has generated the received ephemeral key rchpkix−1 from the previous stage, and whether
that rchkix−1 has been compromised via a RevRand query. This is trickier to determine for the initial stage,
since the session identifier sid is set when the session keys are derived, and thus we cannot use sid to determine
if an honest session ππj i .peerid .role = resp has generated the ephemeral prekey without also requiring that the
u
responder has received the first message from the initiator. Instead, we use rand[s] to determine if there exists an
honest responder ππj i .peerid that has generated the ephemeral prekey eprepkj that the initiator has received. For
u
readability reasons, in what follows we denote the public key eprepk associated with the ephemeral randomness
j
eprekj = ππj i .peerid .rand[s] as eprepkj (i.e. eprepkj = g eprek ). We also use x ⊂ y to denote “x is a substring of
u
y ”. 
j

 ∃ j : eprepk
 ⊂ πui .sid[s] πui .role = init, and

∧ ∀ j : eprepkj ⊂ πui .sid[s] =⇒




 type[0] = triple+DHE
 
j
¬ππi .peerid .rev_random[s]




 u

cleanpeerE (u, i, s) =
∃ j : πui .sid[s] = ππj i .peerid .sid[s]


u

 
= ππj i .peerid .sid[s] =⇒ otherwise
 i
∧ ∀ j : π . sid[s]



 u u
 
¬ππj i .peerid .rev_random[s]



u

Excluded attacks. Recall that a vertex cover of Figure 3 on page 8 gives an attack which we rule out. Any
cover must include one of prekB and ekA to meet the edge between them, so the only (minimal) vertex
covers for a triple handshake are the full state of B (prekB , ikB ), the full state of A (ekA , ikA ), or the pair
(prekB , ekA ). The former two are trivial: an agent must be able to compute its own session key, so learning
all their secrets also allows the adversary to compute it. The final pair exists because of the lack of an edge
in Signal between ikA and ikB , and means that an adversary who learns prekB and ekA can learn the session
key. In particular, since the ephemeral key is not authenticated, the adversary can generate their own ekA and
successfully impersonate A. This is the key compromise impersonation (KCI) attack of [46]; it is ruled out in
our model because cleantriple is false if both prekB and ekA have been revealed.
Since a vertex cover for a triple+DHE handshake must be a superset of the above, the only non-trivial one
is again (prekB , ekA ); this means that the KCI attack succeeds even against a triple+DHE handshake.

4.3.2. Asymmetric Stages[asym-ir:x]/[asym-ri:x]. In Signal, keys are updated via either symmetric or
asymmetric ratcheting. Asymmetric ratcheting introduces new DH shared secrets into the state, whereas

19
symmetric ratcheting solely applies a KDF to existing state. During asymmetric ratcheting, there are actually
two substages, in which keys with slightly different properties are derived.
In the first substage, of type [asym-ri:x], the parties apply a KDF to two pieces of keying material: a DH
shared secret derived from both parties’ ratcheting public keys (the initiator’s previous ratcheting key and the
responder’s new ratcheting key), and the root key derived at the end of the previous asymmetric stage. Keys
from this substage should be secure if either of the two pieces is unrevealed. However there are two ways that
the root key from the end of the previous asymmetric stage could be considered revealed: either by revealing
the state passed from one stage to the next (captured by the cleanstate sub-clause following Definition 7), or by
the previous stage itself been compromised, which is why we have a conjunction.
Definition 7 (cleanasym-ri ). Let sri = [asym-ri:x] and s0ir = [asym-ir:x − 1]. Define
  
cleanEE (u, i, [0], [asym-ri:1]) ∨ cleanstate (u, i, sri ) ∧ cleanπi .type[0] (u, i, [0]) x=1
u
cleanasym-ri (u, i, sri ) =  
cleanEE (u, i, sri , s0 ) ∨ cleanstate (u, i, sri ) ∧ cleanasym-ir (u, i, s0 ) x≥2
ir ir

Note that to capture that the state passed from one stage to the next is not revealed, we use the following
clause, which considers revealing the state at the session or at any of its peers, since those peers would have
the same state:
 
cleanstate (u, i, s) = ¬πui .rev_state[s] ∧ ∀ j : πui .sid[s] = ππj i .peerid .sid[s] =⇒ ¬ππj i .peerid .rev_state[s]
u u

In the second asymmetric ratchet substage, of type [asym-ir:x], the parties effectively apply a KDF to two
sources of keying material: the temporary value tmp, computed during the previous substage, and a DH shared
secret derived from one party’s previous ratcheting public key and the other’s new ratcheting public key. Keys
from this substage should be secure if at least one of the two sources is unrevealed.
Definition 8 (cleanasym-ir ). Let sir = [asym-ir:x] and sri = [asym-ri:x]. Define
 
cleanasym-ir (u, i, sir ) = cleanEE (u, i, sir , sri ) ∨ cleanstate (u, i, sir ) ∧ cleanasym-ri (u, i, sri )

Together, the cleanasym-ir and cleanasym-ri clauses capture the “future secrecy” or “post-compromise security”
goal of Signal: if a device had been compromised at some prior time, (i.e., the party’s long-term key, past states
and keys are compromised, and thus the second disjuncts are not satisfied), but the current ephemeral keys
of both parties are uncompromised and honest (the cleanEE sub-clause is satisfied) then the session is clean.
Similarly, vice versa the session can be clean even if the current ephemeral exchange is compromised, just so
long as the previous prior secrets are uncompromised. This captures post-compromise security.

4.3.3. Symmetric Stages [sym-ir:x,y] and [sym-ri:x,y]. For stages with only symmetric ratcheting, new
session keys should be secure only if the state is unknown to the adversary: this demands that all previous
states in this symmetric chain are uncompromised, since later keys in the chain are computable from earlier
states in the chain. Thinking recursively, this means that the previous stage’s key derivation should have been
secure, and that the adversary has not revealed the state linking the previous stage with the current one.
While the symmetric sending and receiving chains derive independent keys and are triggered differently
during Signal protocol execution, their security properties are identical and captured by the following predicate;
the different forms of the predicate are due to needing to properly name the “preceding” stage. There are
different freshness conditions depending on whether the symmetric stage is used for a message from initiator to
responder or vice versa. Moreover, the symmetric stages arising from the initial handshake (x = 0) and from
subsequent asymmetric stages (x > 0) are subtly different.
Definition 9 (cleansym ). Writing s = [sym-ir:x,y],

cleanπui .type[0] (u, i, [0])
 x = 0, y = 1
cleansym-ir (u, i, s) = cleanstate (u, i, s) ∧ cleanasym-ir (u, i, [asym-ir:x]) x ≥ 1, y = 1

sym-ir (u, i, [sym-ir:x,y − 1]) x ≥ 0, y ≥ 2
clean

There is no stage of type sym-ri with x = 0, so (writing now s = [sym-ri:x,y])

(
cleanasym-ri (u, i, [asym-ri:x]) x ≥ 1, y = 1
cleansym-ri (u, i, s) = cleanstate (u, i, s) ∧
cleansym-ri (u, i, [sym-ri:x,y − 1]) x ≥ 1, y ≥ 2
We may write cleansym to denote cleansym-ir or cleansym-ri where it is clear which one we mean.

Excluded attacks. Since no additional secrets are included in message keys derived from symmetric ratchet
stages, these predicates simply require that the adversary has not compromised any previous state along the
chain: neither the asymmetric stage which created the chain, nor any of the intermediate symmetric stages, are

20
permitted targets for queries. In other words, we exclude the attack in which the adversary corrupts a chain key
and computes subsequent messages keys from it.

5. Security Analysis
In this section we prove that Signal is a secure multi-stage key exchange protocol in the language of
Section 4, under standard assumptions on the cryptographic building blocks.
The algorithms comprising the Signal protocol are given in Definition 1, and we summarise some key points
below.
We have made a few minor reorganizations in Figure 6 compared to the actual implementation of Signal.
We consider Signal to generate the first message keys for each chain at the same time that it initialises the
chain, allowing us to consider these message keys as the session keys of the asymmetric stages. Similarly, we
consider Bob to send his own one-time prekey eprepkB instead of relaying it via the server. We mark these
extra steps in Dark red in Figure 6.
KeyGen and MedTermKeyGen consist of uniform random sampling from the group.
Activate depends on the invoked role. Our prekey reorganization described above means that the roles of
initiator and responder are technically reversed: although intuitively Alice initiates a session in our presentation,
in fact Bob sends the first message, namely his prekeys (first right-to-left flow of Figure 6(b). Thus, the activation
algorithm for the responder (Bob) outputs a single one-time prekey and awaits a response. The activation
algorithm for the initiator (Alice) outputs nothing and awaits incoming prekeys.
Run is the core protocol algorithm. It admits various cases, which we briefly describe. If the incoming message
is the first, Run builds a session as described previously: for Alice, it operates as in the left side of Figure 6(b)
and outputs a message containing epkA ; for Bob, it operates as in the right side of Figure 6(b) and outputs
nothing.
After that, there are two cases: Run is either invoked to process an incoming message, or to encrypt an
outgoing one. We distinguish between incoming ratchet public keys (causing asymmetric updates) and incoming
messages (causing symmetric updates).
(i) Outgoing message. Perform a symmetric sending update, modifying the current sending chain key and
using the resulting message key as the session key (left side of Figure 6(c)).
(ii) Incoming ratchet public key. If this ratchet public key has not been processed before, perform an asymmetric
update using it to derive new sending and receiving chain keys as in Figure 6(d). Advance both chains by
one step, and output the message keys as the session key for the two asymmetric sub-stages as indicated
in the figure.
(iii) Incoming message. Use the message metadata to determine which receiving chain should be used for
decryption, and which position the message takes in the chain. Advance that chain (according to the right
side of Figure 6(c)) as many stages as necessary (possibly zero), storing for future use any message keys
that were thus generated. Return as the session key the next receiving message key.
In the Signal protocol, old but unused receiving keys are stored at the peer for an implementation-dependent
length of time, trading off forward security for transparent handling of outdated messages. This of course
weakens the forward secrecy of the keys, though their other security properties remain the same. We choose
not to model this weakened forward secrecy guarantee, passing only the latest chaining key from stage to stage.
With these definitions, we can consider the advantage of an adversary in a multi-stage key exchange security
game against our model of the Signal protocol:
Theorem 1. The Signal protocol is a secure multi-stage key exchange protocol under the GDH assumption
and assuming all KDFs are random oracles. That is, if no efficient adversary can break the assumptions
with non-negligible probability, then no efficient adversary can win the multi-stage key indistinguishability
security experiment for Signal (and thereby distinguish any fresh message encryption key from random) with
non-negligible probability.
Proof (sketch). We give here a proof sketch. The full details and definitions of the security assumptions can be
found in the Appendix. The proof considers of each stage type and sub-clause exhaustively, and is structured
using the sequence-of-games technique.
A high-level overview of the proof with its main game sequences and case distinctions is given in the
Appendix in Figure 9. In addition, the full proof is given in Appendix B.3.
Signal has many different types of stages, and we analyse each of them separately. Formally, we start with
a sequence of generic game hops which apply to all cases, ruling out for instance the low-probability event that
two randomly-generated DH keys collide. We then guess which session the adversary will choose as the Test
session; since there can be only polynomially-many sessions this guess succeeds with non-negligible probability.
This, we emphasise, is the source of the looseness in the proof.

21
 We then make a case distinction based on the stage type of the Tested session. Each stage type has its
own cleanness predicate, and we deal with them in subcases. For example, if the adversary issues a query
Test(u, i, [0]), then we are analysing stage [0], and if the stage type is triple, then we consider in turn the
subcases where cleanLM (u, i), cleanEL (u, i, [0]), or cleanEM (u, i, [0]) are true.
For each subcase, we perform an additional game hop, relying on one of the security assumptions in the
statement of the theorem. The initial game will be the standard multi-stage indistinguishability game ms-ind,
and in the final games the session key will be replaced by a uniformly random value. By summing up the
advantages along the way, we can obtain an overall bound on the success probability of the adversary.
The game hops in each of the subcases all build on a core type of reduction to GDH: the simulator queries
for challenge values from the GDH oracle, inserting them into the game in place of certain DH public values
and simulating the responses. We then intercept all adversarial calls to the random oracle, extracting the value
taking the place of the GDH solution, and apply the DDH oracle to decide whether this value is indeed a
solution. If it is then the simulator has broken GDH; if not, we continue the simulation. We will show that
replacing the keys is not detectable by the adversary, and that violations of key indistinguishability imply
solutions of the GDH challenge.
The challenger does not know in advance which adversary behaviour it is up against—only at the end of
the game will the challenger know which of the clean predicates were satisfied. That is, the adversary might
decide on the fly which session to Test and which clean predicate to satisfy. As such, no global reduction can
be given. This is not a problem: in our proof, we are ultimately just ruling out classes of attacks. If an attack
exists, it corresponds to some specific adversary, which is covered by one of our cases.

Cases. We begin by considering the case that the Test(u, i, s) query was issued on the first stage (s = [0]). We
break this up into two separate cases:
(i) the initial key exchange had stage type triple (so 3 separate pairs of DH shared secrets were used to
compute the master secret ms), or
(ii) the initial key exchange had stage type triple+DHE (so 4 separate pairs of DH shared secrets were used
to compute the master secret ms).
Case 1: triple. In the first case, where Test(u, i, [0]) and πui .type[0] = triple, we see by Definition 5 that
the following condition must be satisfied:
cleanLM (u, i) ∨ cleanEL (u, i, [0]) ∨ cleanEM (u, i, [0])

Case 2: triple+DHE. In the second case, where Test(u, i, [0]) and πui .type[0] = triple+DHE, we see by
Definition 6 that there is an additional disjunct cleanEE (u, i, [0]), and we must have
cleanLM (u, i) ∨ cleanEL (u, i, [0]) ∨ cleanEM (u, i, [0]) ∨ cleanEE (u, i, [0])
We consider each of these cases in turn, and by a game-hopping argument replace the relevant keys by random
values, allowing us subsequently to replace the session keys with random values.
Case 3: Asymmetric ratchet, initial stage. Next, we consider the security of the case that the Test(u, i, s)
query was issued on the initial responder-to-initiator asymmetric stage s = [asym-ri:1]. We partition this
into two cases corresponding to Definition 7: either the adversary has not issued queries that would break the
cleanness of the root key from the first stage s = [0]; or the adversary did not inject malicious DH shares in the
ephemeral shares used in the stage (which in particular, were generated in stage s = [0]). That is, we consider
the case that Test(u, i, s = [asym-ri:1]) where πui .type[s] = asym-ri, and apply Definition 7 to conclude that
 
cleanπui .type[0] (u, i, [0]) ∧ cleanstate (u, i, [asym-ir:1]) ∨ cleanEE (u, i, 0, 0)

In a similar fashion to the argument for the initial handshake, we replace certain DH values by values from a
GDH challenger, reducing indistinguishability of the session key of this stage to hardness of GDH.
Case 4: Asymmetric ratchet, non-initial stages. We continue, considering the security of the case that the
Test(u, i, s) query was issued in the xth asymmetric responder-to-initiator stage s = [asym-ri:x]. That is, we
consider the case that Test(u, i, s = [asym-ri:x]), where x ≥ 2 and πui .type[s] = asym-ri. By Definition 7,
we conclude:
 
cleanasym-ri (u, i, [asym-ri:x − 1]) ∧ cleanstate (u, i, [asym-ir:x]) ∨ cleanEE (u, i, x − 1, x − 1)

and a similar argument holds.

We must also consider the case that the Test query was issued against an asymmetric stage of type asym-ir
i.e. a stage used to derive keys for the initiator to encrypt for the responder. The argument in this case is
analogous but the cleanness predicates are subtly different and again vary depending on whether the stage is the
first of its type. However, the core argument remains the same: we replace certain keys in the Tested session

22
with values from the GDH challenger, in such a way that distinguishing session keys from random would give
a GDH advantage.
Case 5: Symmetric ratchet. Finally, we consider symmetric stages. We partition into two cases:
(i) the first symmetric stage y = 1, where security follows from the asymmetric stage before it (which could
be either the initial handshake or an asymmetric stage)
(ii) a later symmetric stage y > 1, where security follows from cleanness of the previous symmetric update
Conclusion. The theorem follows by summing probabilities.

6. Limitations
As a first analysis of a complex protocol, we have chosen (some) simplicity over a full analysis of all of
Signal’s features. We hope that our presentation and model can serve as a starting point for future analyses.
We discuss here some of the features included in Signal which we have explicitly chosen not to model and
observe limitations of our results.

Protocol Components. Non-Signal library components. The open-source libraries contain various sections of
code which are not considered part of the Signal protocol. For example, the “header encryption” variant of the
Double Ratchet is used by Pond and included in the reference implementation, but not used by Signal itself.
Likewise, there is support for online key exchanges instead of via the prekey server. As these components are
not intended to be part of the Signal protocol, we do not analyse them.
Out-of-band key verification. To reduce the trust requirements on the prekey server, Signal supports a fingerprint
mechanism for verifying public keys through an out-of-band channel. We simply assume that long-term and
medium-term public key distribution is honest, and do not analyse the out-of-band verification channel.
Same key for Ed25519 signing and Curve25519 DH. Signal uses the same key ik for DH agreement and for
signing the medium-term prekeys9 . [28, 60] prove security of a similar scheme under the Gap-DH assumption,
effectively showing that the signatures can be simulated using the hashing random oracle. We conjecture a
similar argument could apply here, but do not prove it; instead, we omit the signatures from consideration and
enforce authentication of the prekeys in the game. This enforced authentication means we do not capture the
class of attacks in which the adversary corrupts an identity key and then inserts a malicious signed pre-key.
Out-of-order decryption. To decrypt out-of-order messages, users must store message keys until the messages
arrive, reducing their forward security. As discussed in Section 5 we do not consider this storage.
Simultaneous session initiation. Signal has a mechanism to deal silently with the case that Alice and Bob
simultaneously initiate a session with each other. Roughly, when an agent detects that this has happened they
deterministically choose one party as the initiator (e.g. by sorting identity public keys and choosing the smaller),
and then complete the session as if the other party had not acted. This requires a certain amount of trial and
error: agents maintain multiple states for each peer, and attempt decryption of incoming messages in all of
them. We do not consider this mechanism.

Other Security Goals and Threats. Our model describes key indistinguishability of two-party multi-stage key
exchange protocols. There are other security and functionality goals which Signal may address but which we do
not study, including: group messaging properties10 , message sharing across multiple devices, voice and video
call security, protocol efficiency (e.g. 0-round-trip modes), privacy, and deniability.
Implementation-specific threats. We make various assumptions on the components used by the protocol. In
particular, we do not consider specific implementations of primitives (e.g. the particular choice of curve), instead
assuming standard security properties. We also do not consider side-channel attacks.
Tightness of the security reduction. As pointed out in [2], a limitation of conventional game hopping proofs
for AKE protocols is that they do not provide tight reductions. The underlying reason is that the reductions
depend on guessing the specific party and session under attack. In the case of a widely deployed protocol with
huge amounts of sessions, such as Signal, this leads to an extremely non-tight reduction. While [2] develops
some new AKE protocols with tight reductions, their protocols are non-standard in their setup and assumptions.
In particular, there is currently no known technique for constructing a tight reduction that is applicable to the
Signal protocol. As a result, our analysis has a significantly large factor in the non-tightness of our security
reduction. Specifically, we lose at minimum a factor of (nP 2 · nS ) to our reduction to the Gap Diffie-Hellman
assumption. Unfortunately, attempting to instantiate the Signal protocol with parameter sizes that our analysis
suggests would be secure would not be compatible with parameter sizes that Signal implementations currently
9. This is done in practise by reinterpreting the Curve25519 point as an Ed25519 key, and computing an EdDSA signature.
10. The implementation of group messaging is not specified at the protocol layer. If it is implemented using multiple pairwise sessions,
its security may follow in a relatively straightforward fashion—however, there are many other possible security properties which might be
desired, such as transcript consistency.

23
use. Indeed, implementing Signal with such parameter sizes would incur significantly more computational cost,
a difficult proposition for mobile devices. One might argue about the practical relevance of such an analysis,
however the current proof does provide quantitative statements about the security of the Signal protocol, as
well as a qualitative indicator of the general soundness of the design; moreover, the structure of the proof itself
may be useful in future research as a starting point to increase the tightness of the security reduction.

Application Variants. Popular applications using Signal tend to change important details as they implement or
integrate the protocol, and thus merit security analyses in their own right. For example, WhatsApp implements
a re-transmission mechanism: if Bob appears to change his identity key, clients will resend messages encrypted
under the new value. Hence, an adversary with control over identity registration can disconnect Bob and replace
his key, and Alice will re-send the message to the adversary.

7. Conclusions and Future Work

In this work we provided the first formal security analysis of the cryptographic core of the Signal protocol.
While any first analysis for such a complex object will be necessarily incomplete, our analysis leads to several
observations.
First, our analysis shows that the cryptographic core of Signal provides useful security properties. These
properties, while complex, are encoded in our security model, and which we prove that Signal satisfies under
standard cryptographic assumptions. Practically speaking, they imply secrecy and authentication of the message
keys which Signal derives, even under a variety of adversarial compromise scenarios such as forward security
(and thus “future secrecy”). If used correctly, Signal could achieve a form of post-compromise security, which
has substantial advantages over forward secrecy as described in [24].
Our analysis has also revealed many subtleties of Signal’s security properties. For example, we identified six
different security properties for message keys (triple, triple+DHE, asym-ir, asym-ri, sym-ir and sym-ri).
One can imagine strengthening the protocol further. For example, if the random number generator becomes
fully predictable, it may be possible to compromise communications with future peers. We have pointed out to
the developers that this can be solved at negligible cost by using constructions in the spirit of the NAXOS
protocol [52] or including a static-static DH shared secret in the key derivation.
We have described some of the limitations of our approach in Section 6. Furthermore, the complexity and
tendency to add “extra features” makes it hard to make statements about the protocol as it is used. Examples
include the ability to reset the state [24], encrypt headers, or support out-of-order decryption. Cohn-Gordon and
Cremers [23] discuss these limitations in more detail.
As with many real-world security protocols, there are no detailed security goals specified for the protocol,
so it is ultimately impossible to say if Signal achieves its goals. However, our analysis proves that several
standard security properties are satisfied by the protocol, and we have found no major flaws in its design, which
is very encouraging.
Our security model itself is quite general, and is well-suited for the analysis of other messaging protocols.
In particular, we see our novel extensions to multi-stage key-exchange models that capture medium-term keys
to be applicable to communication protocols outside of Signal. This is in comparison to our freshness definition,
which is tailored specifically to the structure of the Signal protocol. Our presentation of the Signal protocol itself
as well as the approach taken in our analysis may be of independent interest and help guide future investigation
of the Signal protocol, and other cryptographic protocols of similar complexity.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge helpful discussions with Marc Fischlin and Felix Günther and valuable comments
from Chris Brzuska and Trevor Perrin. Thanks to Xavier Bultel for carefully reading through the proof. Thanks
to Mang Zhao for identifying a missing DH operation in the session setup phase.
K. C-G. and L.G. were supported by the Oxford CDT in Cyber Security. B.D was supported by EPSRC
grant EP/L018543/1. D.S. was supported by Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant
DP130104304, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery grant
RGPIN-2016-05146, and NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement grant RGPIN-2016-05146.

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26
Appendix A.
On Hardness Assumptions and the Random Oracle Model (ROM)
When performing a game-hopping security proof in an extended Canetti-Krawczyk-style model, after each
hop we must show that the resulting game is similar to the original. If certain values have been changed, the
queries whose results differ must be simulated in an indistinguishable manner.
In particular, the eCK family of models all contain a query RevSessKey which reveals the session key
derived by a targeted session. This models for example cryptanalysis of a large volume of encrypted traffic,
or the ability to read certain locations in memory. When replacing certain DH keys with random values, we
must ensure that the resulting game is similar to its original. For protocols using only ephemeral DH values g x
and g y to compute session keys from g xy , replacing g x and g y by random does not affect other sessions, and
thus other RevSessKey queries are not affected. However, for more complex protocols (such as NAXOS and
HMQV) in which the long-term keys are also included in the session key derivation, this game hop becomes
more complex. Specifically, when the long-term keys are modified, all RevSessKey queries are affected, and
their simulation is no longer trivial.
There is a proof obligation to show that the simulation of these queries does not allow an adversary to
distinguish the two games. One way to do this is by using Gap-DH in the random oracle model, assuming that
the KDF is a random oracle. In the simulation, whenever the adversary makes a query to the random oracle,
the challenger tests the relevant part of the argument using the DDH oracle to determine whether the adversary
has successfully derived the DH secret. If so, the simulation can terminate and the challenger uses this value in
the Gap-DH game. This is the approach we take.
There are known issues with the ROM. An alternative to Gap-DH is to take a PRF-ODH (pseudorandom
function with oracle DH) assumption, which effectively provides an oracle for session key computations, and
(roughly) asserts that it is hard to solve computational DH even with access to the oracle. The game hop then
takes the computational DH values from the PRF-ODH game, and answers RevSessKey queries by querying
the oracle. The probability jump over the game is thus bounded by the PRF-ODH advantage.
There is a further complication in the case of Signal. In most normal DH protocols, there is only one method
to compute a session key given a collection of secret inputs; such a method could be called a “combinator”. For
example, in NAXOS the combinator hashes one long-term key and uses that as a DH exponential. In Signal, on
the other hand, there are many different combinators, and the oracle we use must be sufficiently flexible to
simulate all of them. Thus, we have the following options:
(i) Define a PRF-ODH game parameterised by the combinator K used to assemble secrets into the arguments
to the KDF. For each different type of key in Signal, assume hardness of this game and use this assumption
to justify a game hop.
(ii) Assume that the KDF is a random oracle, and justify the game hop directly from the ROM and Gap-DH.
We choose the latter option, since we believe that the former hardness assumption is not necessarily justified.
However, we conjecture that a carefully-formulated PRF-ODH game could be proven hard in the ROM, and
therefore that one proof could effectively take either option depending on the reader’s opinions. We leave such
a game for future work.

Definitions of Hardness Assumptions

Our proof of security relies on standard cryptographic hardness assumptions related to DH key exchange. Let
$
G = hgi be a cyclic group of prime order q generated by g , let α, β, γ ← Zq , and let ODDH be an efficient black
box algorithm (oracle) that, on input (g x , g y , g z ), outputs 1 if g z = g xy and 0 otherwise. For any algorithm D
let
h i
$
DDH (D) := Pr D(G, q, g, g α , g β , g αβ ) = 1 : α, β ← Zq
h i
$
− Pr D(G, q, g, g α , g β , g γ ) = 1 : α, β, γ ← Zq
h i
$
CDH (D) := Pr D(G, q, g, g α , g β ) = g αβ : α, β ← Zq
h i
$
GDH (D) := Pr DODDH (G, q, g, g α , g β ) = g αβ : α, β ← Zq
We make use of the following cryptographic hardness assumptions:
(i) Decisional Diffie-Hellman (DDH): it is hard to distinguish (g α , g β , g αβ ) from (g α , g β , g γ ), i.e., DDH (D)
is negligible in log(q) for any efficient D.
(ii) Computational Diffie-Hellman (CDH): it is hard to compute the value g αβ from (g α , g β ), i.e., CDH (D) is
negligible in log(q) for any efficient D.

27
(iii) Gap Diffie-Hellman (GDH) [59]: it is hard to compute the value g αβ from (g α , g β ) even when given black
box access to a DDH oracle, i.e., GDH (D) is negligible in log(q) for any efficient D.
We also make use of the random oracle model (ROM), instantiating all KDFs as black boxes which return a
uniformly-random output for any given input.

Appendix B.
Security Proof
The proof considers different cases corresponding to the possible behaviour of an adversary. We first describe
modifications to the Signal protocol made for our proof in B.1. We then recall the main theorem and provide
the actual proof in B.3.

B.1. Protocol Modifications for Key Indistinguishability

In order to apply a Bellare-Rogaway style key indistinguishability model for key exchange, in our proof we
make two modifications to the Signal protocol. First, we remove all data messages from the protocol, considering
only the key exchange messages. Second, we consider handshake messages as being sent in plain text instead
of inside the associated data of the AEAD encryption of a message. Without this change, an adversary could
distinguish a Tested message key from random by using it to verify the authentication of a handshake message.

B.2. Proof Structure Overview

Security in this sense means that no efficient adversary can break the multi-stage key-indistinguishability
game for the two-party protocol Signal, parametrised by freshness condition fresh, with non-negligible probability.
Suppose for contradiction that such an adversary A exists. Whatever the behaviour of the adversary, trivially
(by the definition of the security experiment in Figure 8) it can only succeed when the Tested session [s] is
fresh. By Definition 4, this means that the Test(u, i, s) query satisfies:
(i) πui .status[s] = accept,
(ii) ¬πui .rev_session[s],
(iii) for all j such that πui .sid[s] = πvj .sid[s], ¬πvj .rev_session[s], and
(iv) cleanπui .type[s] (u, i, s)
where v denotes πui .peerid, the identity of the intended peer to the Tested session, and cleanπui .type[s] (u, i, s) is
a cleanness clause as referenced in Definition 4 and subsequent definitions, further restricting the adversary’s
behaviour. In the following overview, we consider the case that the Tested session is the initiator; the responder
is analogous.

High-Level Overview of the Case Distinction

A high-level overview of the proof with its main game sequences and case distinctions is given in Figure 9.
Stage 0. We start by proving the security of the stage 0 key that is output by the triple key-exchange during
session setup. We show this via taking cases over the disjuncts in the cleantriple clause—over the different ways
the session could be clean—noting that one of cleanLM (u, i), cleanEL (u, i, 0), cleanEM (u, i, 0) must be upheld.
We bound each of these probabilities in turn by the advantage of reduction algorithms to the security
experiments of our primitives—to DH security using the GDH and ROM assumptions.
Asymmetric stages. Next we consider the security of a stage s key such that stage s has stage type asym-ir or
asym-ri. Again, we take cases over the different ways to satisfy the cleanness predicate, depending on the type
of the stage. Most cases are of the form cleanEE , and for these we obtain a probability bound by replacing the
DH ratchet keys and shared secrets with values from a GDH challenger.
The only case not of this form involves cleanstate , which describes a scenario where both recent ratchet
keys were compromised but the previous stage was still secure. Secrecy here is intuitive, and the bound follows
from an inductive argument: if an adversary could win in this manner, then, assuming GDH and ROM security,
there is an adversary which could win against the previous stage.
Symmetric stages. Finally, we consider the security of stage s keys of type sym. Here there is no disjunction in
the cleanness predicate and hence only one case to consider. We replace the keys used to initialise the current
sending chain with uniformly random values, since an adversary who could detect this could win against that
previous stage.

28
 C1.1: cleanLM G4 G5 G6 G7
C1: triple C1.2: cleanEL Like C1.1
C1.3: cleanEM Like C1.1

C2.1: cleanLM Same as C1.1

C2.2: cleanEM Same as C1.2
C2: triple+DHE
C2.3: cleanEL Same as C1.3
C2.4: cleanEE Like C1.1

C3: Asymmetric ratchet, C3.1: cleanEE Like C2.4

G0 G1 G2 G3 initial stages C3.2: not cleanEE G70

C4.1.1: clean prev. Like C3.2

C4.1: asym-ir
C4: Asymmetric ratchet, C4.1.2: clean curr. Like C3.1
non-initial stages
C4.2.1: clean prev. Like C3.2
C4.2: asym-ri
C4.2.2: clean curr. Like C3.1

C5.1.1: x = 0, y = 1 Like C3.2

C5.1: i → r C5.1.2: x > 0, y = 1 Like C3.2
C5.1.3: x ≥ 0, y > 1 Like C3.2
C5: Symmetric ratchet

C5.2: r → i Like C5.1

Figure 9: High-level overview of the proof structure. Games are identified by G0, G1, . . . , and main case distinctions by
C1, C2, . . . ; G0 denotes the multi-stage security experiment from Section 4.2. In the PDF version of this document, such
identifiers can be clicked to jump to the corresponding part of the proof.

B.3. Proof of the Main Theorem

Conventions. We remark on a few conventions which we adopt during the proof.

Many cases technically differ based on whether the actor of the Test session has the initiator or responder
role. For example, the first session key derived by the initiator is from a sending chain, while the first one
derived by the responder is from a receiving chain. Where the security arguments are identical except for
obvious symmetries, we just consider the case of the initiator and leave the responder as analogous.
Signal uses HMAC and HKDF within the KDF invocations. We assume that the KDF invocations themselves
(as defined in Figure 7) are random oracles, and thus need not make any assumptions on HMAC and HKDF
specifically.
By breaki we mean the event that the adversary wins game Gi . By Advi we mean the advantage of the
adversary against game Gi ; that is,
Advi := |2 Pr(breaki ) − 1|
We aim to show that Adv0 is a negligible function of the security parameter. To avoid overfilling our subscripts,
we overload where it is obvious which game is meant.
Theorem 1. The Signal protocol is a secure multi-stage key exchange protocol under the GDH assumption
and assuming all KDFs are random oracles. That is, if no efficient adversary can break the assumptions
with non-negligible probability, then no efficient adversary can win the multi-stage key indistinguishability
security experiment for Signal (and thereby distinguish any fresh message encryption key from random) with
non-negligible probability.
Proof. We begin by performing a series of game hops that affect all potential cases. After these, the game
hops diverge depending on which case we are considering. See Figure 9 for a high-level overview of the proof
structure and the case distinctions.

29
Game Hops for all Cases

Game 0. This game equals the multi-stage security experiment described in Section 4.2. As such the advantage
of the adversary against this game is Adv0 .

Game 1. In this game we ensure no collision of honestly generated DH public keys. Specifically, the challenger
C maintains a list L of all DH private values (for ik , prek , ek , eprek , rchk ) honestly generated during the game.
If a DH private value appears twice, C aborts the simulation and the adversary automatically loses. For an
adversary’s execution during the game, let nP denote the total number of parties, nS the maximum number of
sessions, nM the maximum number of medium-term keys per party, and ns the maximum number of stages. We
note that there are nP long-term keys in the game, a maximum of nM medium-term keys generated for each of
the nP parties for a maximum of nM nP medium-term keys, and a maximum of ns ephemeral/ratchet keys per
session for a total maximum of nS ns ephemeral/ratchet keys. This means a
total maximum of nP + nP nM + nS ns
DH keys in the list L, every pair of which must not collide. There are |L| 2 such pairs of DH keys to consider in
the game. Each DH key in L is in the same group of order q so collides with another key in L with probability
1/q . Therefore we have the following bound:

nP +nP nM +nS ns


2
Adv0 ≤ + Adv1
q
We now know that from this game onwards each honestly generated DH public key is unique. In future game
hops we will replace certain DH values with ones sampled by a GDH challenger; this means that if these
replacement values collide, we must abort the game and will therefore be unable to answer the GDH challenge.
This will appear in game G4. Luckily, the probability of the GDH challenger producing colliding GDH challenge
values is negligible (probability 1/q), as we will see.

Game 2. In this game, the challenger guesses in advance the session πui against which the Test(u, i, s) query
is issued: the challenger guesses a pair of indices (u∗ , i∗ ) ∈ [1..nP ] × [1..nS ]. Let T be the event that the
adversary issues a Test query Test(u, i, s) where (u, i) 6= (u∗ , i∗ ). In this game, we abort if event T occurs; it
is a transition based on a large failure event.
T will occur with probability 1/nS nP , and hence:
Adv1 = nS nP Adv2
We remark that the bound we prove in this hop is not tight, and refer the reader to [3] for further discussions
and impossibility results regarding tightness.

Game 3. In this game, the challenger guesses an index v ∗ ∈ [nP ] and aborts if there exists a session πvj that
matches the Test session πui but v 6= v ∗ . Note that it might be the case that no such matching πvj exists, but
this game ensures that if such a πvj does exist, v is unique and known in advance by the challenger.
We must first show that there can exist at most one identity v with the same session identifier as πui (note v
may have multiple sessions that match πui as the responder does not contribute freshness in the Triple-DH case).
Alice’s session identifier for stage [0] contains ipkv (the identity public key of the peer). In G1 we ensured that
all DH values were unique, and hence the claim holds.
It follows that the challenger’s guess is correct with probability 1/nP , and so (large failure event):
Adv2 ≤ nP Adv3
In this game, we do not guess the partner session because the responder does not always contribute an
ephemeral key. As such, it is perfectly possible for v to have multiple sessions that match the test πui because
the adversary may replay πui ’s ephemeral key to multiple sessions of v , which only uses the same public key
and medium term key. Only in triple+DHE does v contribute a ephemeral key (that is unique due to Game 1)
and indeed in this case we will do another game hop to guess the unique partner session in advance.
Currently, we have derived the following probability bound:

nP +nP nM +nS ns


Adv0 ≤ 2
+ nS nP 2 · Adv3
q
At this point, we need to partition our analysis for individual cases, with the ultimate aim of bounding
Adv3 above. Once we have bounded Adv3 , then we have bounded Adv0 and we are done. Since this is G3,
each different case begins with a hop to some G4. Given there are five cases, it is clear that:

Adv3 ≤ AdvC1 C2 C3 C4 C5
3 + Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3

30
 Diagram legend

Proved secure

Assumed secure

One secret assumed secure, the rest A may reveal

A may reveal

Irrelevant for analysis

Figure 10: Legend for the boxes in the following diagrams. Red boxes indicate secrets that the adversary may gain access
to via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query), green boxes indicate secrets that are
replaced based on the challenge, and blue boxes indicate secrets that the challenger is able to replace with random, thus
ensuring security.

Identity Key Prekey Ephemeral Key Ratchet Key0 Ratchet Key1

A A A A
Alice ik / ipk ek / epk rchkA
0 / rchpkA
0 rchkA A
1 / rchpk1

ms = (prepkB )ikA k (ipkB )ekA k (prepkB )ekA k (rchpkB

0 )
rchk0 A
(rchpkB
0 )
rchk1A
(rchpkB
1 )
A
rchk1

Bob ikB / ipkB prekB / prepkB rchkB B

0 / rchpk0 rchkB B
1 / rchpk1

A
Root Key (prepkB )rchk0
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr
Chaining Key rk1 rk2
KDFm

KDFm

KDFm

Message Key ckir

0,0 ckir
0,1 ckir
0,2 ckri
1,0 ckri
1,1 ckir
1,0

mkir
0,0 mkir
0,1 mkri
1,0

Figure 11: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 6 of Case 1.1. In particular, denotes secrets that the
adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query); denotes
secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets that the
challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this case.

C1: Initial key exchange: type[0] = triple

First, we consider the security of Signal in the multi-stage key-indistinguishability game against an adversary
A that issues a Test(u, i, [0]) query with πui .type[0] = triple. By construction, the only way for the adversary
to win (with non-negligible probability) is if cleantriple (u, i, [0]) is true. We partition these scenarios into
subcases. Note also that a RevState(u, i, [0]) or RevState(v, j, [0]) (where πvj is a session matching πui if one
exists) query will reveal nothing to the adversary, as there exists no previous state. Moreover, after our game
hops, we will have replaced the Tested message key with a uniformly random value that is independent to all
other keys, so other issued RevState queries will only reveal independent root keys and chain keys. As the
state will be independent from the Tested session key, it will not help the adversary distinguish the Test session
key from random. How to simulate reveal queries will be dealt with formally in the game hops.
We now begin to separate our analysis based on sub-clauses of the cleanness predicate. Let E triple
be the event that an adversary A wins the ms-ind game by issuing a Test query Test(u, i, [0]), such that
triple triple triple
πui .type = triple, and let EcleanLM (resp. EcleanEL , EcleanEM ) be the sub-case in which additionally cleanLM (u, i)
(resp. cleanEL (u, i, [0]), cleanEM (u, i, [0])) is true. By definition of cleantriple :
C1,cleanLM (u,i) C1,cleanEL (u,i,0) C1,cleanEM (u,i,0)
AdvC1
3 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3

C1.1: Case type[0] = triple and cleanLM (u, i):

In this case Atriple issued a Test(u, i, [0]) query such that cleanLM (u, i) is upheld. For Test sessions where
πui .role = init, this requires that Atriple has not issued RevLongTermKey(u) or RevMedTermKey(v, n) where

31
πui .peerpreid = n. Since we do not consider the signatures over the medium-term prekeys in our model, we
may assume that πui has received prepkvn without modification. u v u v u v
Recall that an honest session derives a master secret ms = g ik ·prekn kg ek ·ik kg ek ·prekn , and then assigns
rk1 k ckir
0,0 ← HKDF(ms).
Our goal will be to replace the session key with a random value so that the adversary cannot guess the
hidden bit (Game 7). Since we are working in the random oracle model and the session key is the output of a
call to the random oracle, this means the adversary must query the random oracle on the exact input (Game 6).
We embed a Gap Diffie–Hellman challenge into one of the components of the input to the random oracle. For
this particular case (C1.1), which depends on the cleanLM (u, i) condition, we embed the GDH challenge into
the long-term key of party u and one of the medium-term keys of the peer v (hop from Game 5 to Game 6). In
order do this embedding, we must guess which of the medium-term keys of the peer is actually used (Game 4).
(There is also a minor technicality covered in Game 5, described below.)

Game 4. In this game, the challenger guesses the index n ∈ [1..nM ] of the signed prekey of the peer (prekvn )
that the Test session will use in the execution of the protocol, and aborts if the guess is wrong. This yields (via
large failure event) that
Adv3 ≤ nM Adv4

Game 5. In this game, the experiment does not abort if ipku and prepkvn are the same. (Recall that in Game 1,
we added an abort event if any DH values were the same. We will soon want to employ a GDH challenger, but
the two challenge public keys in a GDH challenger may (with small probability) be the same, so we need to
re-allow that in our game hops.) Since the keys are elements of a group of order q , the probability that one of
them equals the other is 1/q and thus
Adv4 ≤ 1/q + Adv5
u v
Game 6. In this game the experiment aborts if the adversary queries g ik ·prekn = CDH(ipku , prepkvn ) as the
first component of a call to the HKDF random oracle; denote this event abort6 . Thus, by a hop via small
failure event,
Adv5 ≤ Adv (break6 ) + Adv6
We now need to bound Adv6 . To do so, we show that, whenever event abort6 occurs, we can construct an
algorithm B0 that can win the Gap Diffie–Hellman problem. In the GDH experiment, B0 receives as input a
DH pair (g α , g β ) (for α and β unknown to B0 ), and has access to an oracle ODDH that on input (g x , g y , g z )
returns 1 if and only if g xy = g z .
B0 will simulate Game 5, except that it replaces ipku with g α and prepkvn with g β . Because certain keys
have been replaced with public keys whose corresponding private values are unknown to B0 , we must define
the actions that should be taken when these private values would normally be used in a computation. Cleanness
implies that ¬rev_ltku ∧ ¬rev_mtknv , so B0 will not need to answer any Reveal queries from A on these values.
However, since B0 has replaced the long-term identity key and a medium-term public key of two parties, if A
decides to direct parties u or v to execute the protocol in a non-Tested session, then B0 may need to perform
simulations of concrete computations with the private keys α and β , despite not knowing them. There are three
distinct types of sessions in which B0 may lack the private keys needed to compute the master secret ms of
that session:
(i) a non-Tested session between user u and user v using prekvn where u is the initiator;
(ii) a non-Tested session between user u and some other user (possibly v or not) where u is the responder;
(iii) a session between a user other than u and user v using prekvn where v is the responder.
In session type (i), the simulator does not know CDH(g α , g β ) which would be an input to the KDF
computation of the session key (in fact this is the value that the simulator needs to find in the GDH game). In
session type (ii), the simulator does not know CDH(g α , g e ) for unknown, potentially maliciously chosen, e. In
session type (iii), the simulator does not know CDH(g β , g e ) for unknown, potentially maliciously chosen, e.
In each of these types of sessions, B0 will pick random keys rk1 , ckir 0,0 rather them deriving than via
HKDF(ms). B0 maintains a list of all sessions in which random keys have been substituted: the list contains
the random session keys as well as the public keys that should have been used to compute each component
of the master secret. B0 must also ensure that key values used are consistent with any queries that A makes
to the random oracle HKDF. We are concerned about queries of the form g x1 kg x2 kg x3 . Before answering
any such query, B0 goes through each entry in the above list of sessions: for each entry in the list, it uses its
DDH oracle to check if the public keys that should have been used to compute each component of the master
secret match the corresponding component (g x1 , g x2 or g x3 ) of this random oracle query. For example, for
session type (i) this amounts to querying the DDH oracle ODDH (g α , g β , g x1 ) and possibly ODDH (g e , g β , g x2 ).
If all components, when queried in the DDH oracle, return 1, then B0 uses the randomly chosen keys from that

32
 Identity Key Prekey Ephemeral Key Ratchet Key0 Ratchet Key1

Alice ikA / ipkA ekA / epkA rchkA A

0 / rchpk0 rchkA A
1 / rchpk1

ms = (prepkB )ikA k (ipkB )ekA k (prepkB )ekA k (rchpkB

0 )
A
rchk0
(rchpkB
0 )
rchk1A
(rchpkB
1 )
A
rchk1

Bob ikB / ipkB prekB / prepkB rchkB B

0 / rchpk0 rchkB B
1 / rchpk1

A
Root Key (prepkB )rchk0
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr
Chaining Key rk1 rk2
KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Message Key ckir
0,0 ckir
0,1 ckir
0,2 ckri
1,0 ckri
1,1 ckir
1,0

mkir
0,0 mkir
0,1 mkri
1,0

Figure 12: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 5 of Case 1.2. In particular, denotes secrets that the
adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query); denotes
secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets that the
challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this case.

element of the list as the random oracle response; otherwise, B0 samples a new random value as the random
oracle response. Similarly session types (ii) and (iii) can be simulated.
(While the explanation above starts from B0 picking random session keys when simulating a session and
then ensuring random oracle queries are answered consistently, B0 must also do the reverse: when simulating a
session, before picking random keys B0 analogously use its DDH oracle to check if this matches a previous
random oracle query, to ensure correct simulation.)
Note the session type (i) is special: if ODDH (g α , g β , g x1 ) = 1, then the adversary has found the solution to
the GDH problem for us, and B0 can use g x1 as its answer to the GDH challenger. Moreover, this is exactly
when the event abort6 occurs.
Adv (break6 ) = GDH (B0 )

Game 7. In this game, the experiment replaces the session key in the Test session with a uniformly random
key from the same space. Because of the event abort6 in Game 6, we know that the adversary never queried
the random oracle HKDF on the input ms that was used to compute the session key rk1 k ckir 0,0 of the Test
session. Thus, in the random oracle model,
Adv6 = Adv7 = 0
since the session key is uniformly random and independent of the hidden bit, and hence the adversary has no
advantage in guessing the hidden bit and winning the experiment. We conclude that
C1,cleanLM (u,i)
Adv3 ≤ nM (1/q + GDH (B0 ) + 0)

C1.2: Case type[0] = triple and cleanEL (u, i, 0)

In this case the adversary Atriple has issued a Test query Test(u, i, [0]) such that cleanEL (u, i, [0]) is upheld.
For Test sessions such that πui .role = init, this means that Atriple has not issued RevRand(u, i, [0]) and
RevLongTermKey(v) where v = πui .peeripk. For Test sessions such that πui .role = resp, this means that
Atriple has not issued RevLongTermKey(u) and a RevRand(v, j, [0]) such that πvj .sid[0] matches the Test
session πui .sid[0].

Game 4, 5, 6. The argument for this case is almost identical to that of the previous subcase, except we no
longer need to guess the index of the long-term key of the responder or the ephemeral key of the initiator. The
GDH challenge values g α , g β are inserted into the simulation in Game 5 in place of the ephemeral key of the
initiator and the long-term key of the responder. Thus

C1,cleanEL (u,i,0)
Adv3 ≤ 1/q + GDH

33
 Identity Key Prekey Ephemeral Key Ratchet Key0 Ratchet Key1

Alice ikA / ipkA ekA / epkA rchkA A

0 / rchpk0 rchkA A
1 / rchpk1

ms = (prepkB )ikA k (ipkB )ekA k (prepkB )ekA k (rchpkB

0 )
rchk0A
(rchpkB
0 )
rchk1A
(rchpkB
1 )
A
rchk1

Bob ikB / ipkB prekB / prepkB rchkB B

0 / rchpk0 rchkB B
1 / rchpk1

A
Root Key (prepkB )rchk0
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr
Chaining Key rk1 rk2
KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Message Key ckir
0,0 ckir
0,1 ckir
0,2 ckri
1,0 ckri
1,1 ckir
1,0

mkir
0,0 mkir
0,1 mkri
1,0

Figure 13: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 6 of Case 1.3. In particular, denotes secrets that the
adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query); denotes
secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets that the
challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this case.

C1.3: Case type[0] = triple and cleanEM (u, i, [0])

Game 4, 5, 6, 7. In this case, the adversary Atriple has issued a Test query Test(u, i, [0]) such that
cleanEM (u, i, [0]) is upheld. For Test sessions such that πui .role = init, this means that Atriple has not
issued a RevRand(u, i, 0) and RevMedTermKey(v, πui .peerpreid). For Test sessions such that πui .role = resp,
this means that Atriple has not issued a RevRand(v, j, [0]) such that πvj .sid[0] matches the Test session πui .sid[0]
and RevMedTermKey(u, πui .prepk ).
Again, this is analogous to before. We begin by guessing the index of the signed prekey of the responder,
incurring a factor of nM . By the definition of the cleanness predicate cleanEM (u, i, [0]), since both the ephemeral
key of the initiator and the first ratchet key of the initiator are generated during the initial key exchange and
used to derive the first message key, we might use either the ratchet key or the ephemeral key of the initiator
as the basis for our game hop. We choose to embed the Gap-DH challenge values g α , g β into the simulation in
Game 6 in place of the ephemeral key of the initiator and the particular medium-term key of the responder
used in the Test session. Thus

C1,cleanEM (u,i,0)
Adv3 ≤ nM · (1/q + GDH )

C2: Initial key exchange: type[0] = triple+DHE

Recall that the initial key exchange can also have type triple+DHE, in which case cleanness requires that
cleanLM (u, i) ∨ cleanEL (u, i, [0]) ∨ cleanEM (u, i, [0]) ∨ cleanEE (u, i, [0])
We now consider the case that the adversary has issued a Test query Test(u, i, [0]) where the stage πui .type[0] =
triple+DHE. We note that three of the subcases are the same as previously, with the additional subcase
cleanEE (u, i, [0]). As before, we define
triple+DHE
• Eclean LM
to be the event that an adversary wins the multi-stage key-indistinguishability game where A
has issued a Test query Test(u, i, [0]) and cleanLM (u, i) is upheld,
triple+DHE
• Eclean EM
where A has issued a Test query Test(u, i, [0]) and cleanEM (u, i, [0]) is upheld,
triple+DHE
• EcleanEL where A has issued a Test query Test(u, i, [0]) and cleanEL (u, i, [0]) is upheld, and
triple+DHE
• EcleanEE where A has issued a Test query Test(u, i, [0]) and cleanEE (u, i, [0], [0]) is upheld.
By definition of cleantriple+DHE :
C2,cleanLM (u,i) C2,cleanEL (u,i,[0])) C2,cleanEM (u,i,[0])) C2,cleanEE (u,i,[0],[0])
AdvC2
3 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3
The bounds above are proved to be negligible under our cryptographic assumptions exactly as above, yielding
the inequalities as desired. As before, the crucial proof step in each case is the Gap-DH assumption. However,

34
 Identity Key Prekey Ephemeral Key Ratchet Key0 Ratchet Key1

Alice ikA / ipkA ekA / epkA rchkA A

0 / rchpk0 rchkA A
1 / rchpk1

ms = (prepkB )ikA k (ipkB )ekA k (prepkB )ekA k (eprepkB )ekA (rchpkB

0 )
A
rchk0
(rchpkB
0 )
rchk1A
(rchpkB
1 )
A
rchk1

Bob ikB / ipkB prekB / prepkB eprekB / eprepkB rchkB B

0 / rchpk0 rchkB B
1 / rchpk1

A
Root Key (prepkB )rchk0
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr
Chaining Key rk1 rk2
KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Message Key ckir
0,0 ckir
0,1 ckir
0,2 ckri
1,0 ckri
1,1 ckir
1,0

mkir
0,0 mkir
0,1 mkri
1,0

Figure 14: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 6 of Case 2.4. In particular, denotes secrets that the
adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query); denotes
secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets that the
challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this case.

for this case it will also make a game hop like Game 3, where we additionally know Bob’s unique matching
session in advance. We can do this now because Bob has freshness in the handshake.

C2.4: Case type[0] = triple+DHE and cleanEE

triple+DHE
Game 4, 5, 6, 7. The final ephemeral-ephemeral case Eclean EE
is analogous to previous cases except that
triple+DHE
in Game G6 (EcleanEE ), we need to replace the ephemeral values of both the initiator and the responder.
(Since the simulator in G4 will never reuse ephemeral values in a different session, the simulation in this case
is simpler and will not need to use its DDH oracle to maintain consistency.) We have to consider that the
responder party generates a list of one-time ephemeral keys that new sessions (used in sessions executed by the
responder) may use, and thus G4 now incurs a factor of nS . Thus

C2,cleanEE (u,i,[0],[0])
Adv3 ≤ nS · (1/q + GDH )

C3: Asymmetric ratcheting, initial stage

We have now proved security of the initial key exchange, optionally including the ephemeral-ephemeral
DH computation. We next move on to the asymmetric-ratcheting stages, in which Bob and Alice take turns
generating new DH ephemeral values and updating their root keys. The first asymmetric-ratcheting stage differs
slightly from its successors since it immediately follows the initial handshake, and we deal with it here now.
Recall it is of type asym-ri, since it is performed when Bob wishes to send a message to Alice.
We consider an adversary A that issues a Test(u, i, s = [asym-ri:1]) query, where stage s must have
type = asym-ri. Note that the initial asymmetric stage is always of type asym-ri (messages from Alice to
Bob before this stage are sent using the symmetric chain derived from the initial handshake), and thus in this
section we do not need to consider initial stages of type asym-ir. We define
• E asym-ri to be the event that an adversary A wins the multi-stage key-indistinguishability game by issuing
a Test(u, i, s = [asym-ri:1]) query,
asym-ri
• EcleanEE (u,i,[0]) to be the sub-event of E asym-ri satisfying cleanEE (u, i, [0], [0]), and
asym-ri asym-ri
• Eclean i (u,i,[0]) to be the sub-event of E satisfying
πu .type[0]

cleanπui .type[0] (u, i, [0]) ∧ cleanstate (u, i, [asym-ri:1]).

It follows from our definition of freshness that

C3,cleanEE (u,i,[0],[0]) C3,cleanπi .type[0] (u,i,[0])
AdvC3
3 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3 u
(1)
and we consider these two cases in turn, beginning with the case that cleanEE (u, i, [0], [0]) is upheld.

35
 Identity Key Prekey Ephemeral Key Ratchet Key0 Ratchet Key1

Alice ikA / ipkA ekA / epkA rchkA A

0 / rchpk0 rchkA A
1 / rchpk1

ms = (prepkB )ikA k (ipkB )ekA k (prepkB )ekA k (eprepkB )ekA (rchpkB

0 )
A
rchk0
(rchpkB
0 )
rchk1A
(rchpkB
1 )
A
rchk1

Bob ikB / ipkB prekB / prepkB eprekB / eprepkB rchkB B

0 / rchpk0 rchkB B
1 / rchpk1

A
Root Key (prepkB )rchk0
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr
Chaining Key rk1 rk2
KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Message Key ckir
0,0 ckir
0,1 ckir
0,2 ckri
1,0 ckri
1,1 ckir
1,0

mkir
0,0 mkir
0,1 mkri
1,0

Figure 15: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 6 of Case 3.1. In particular, denotes secrets that the
adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query); denotes
secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets that the
challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this case.

C3.1: Case s = [asym-ri:1], type[s] = asym-ri and cleanEE (u, i, [0], [0])

Game 4, 5, 6, 7. This case is dealt with similarly to subcase 2.4, with the only substantial differences being
[0] [0]
that the GDH challenge values are substituted into the ratchet keys g rchku and g rchkv and we do not need to
guess the index of the ratchet keys. Since the adversary reveals secret ephemeral values for specific stages using
the RevRand query (as opposed to querying specific secret values), the predicate cleanEE covers secrecy both of
the initiator’s initial key exchange ephemeral value, and the initiator’s first ratchet key, which are generated at
the same time. Thus
C3,cleanEE (u,i,[0],[0])
Adv3 ≤ 1/q + GDH

C3.2: Case s = [asym-ri:1], type[s] = asym-ri and cleanπui .type[0] (u, i, [0])

In this case, cleanness comes from the initial key exchange (i.e., from one of its three or four disjuncts),
and the fact that the adversary has not revealed the state linking the initial key exchange to this stage. The
initial key exchange derives rk1 : we perform one game hop to replace that value with a uniformly random
value; the game hop is indistinguishable assuming the security of rk1 , which follows from Cases 1 and 2. Game
70 is indicated below.

Game 70 . In this game we replace the root key rk1 derived in stage [0] by both the Test session and any
matching peers with a uniformly random value.
An adversary which can distinguish G70 from its predecessor game can distinguish the root key from
a random value. The root key was derived in the initial triple (or triple+DHE) handshake by applying
KDFr to the master secret ms. In Case 1 (or Case 2), we argued that all values derived from ms using
HKDF were indistinguishable from random. Thus, an adversary that wins here contradicts the security of
Case 1 (or Case 2). Recall that we denote with AdvC1 3 the adversary’s advantage in breaking the key-
indistinguishability of Case 1, and with AdvC2 3 we denote the adversary’s advantage in breaking the key-
indistinguishability of Case 2. Given that only one of Case 1 or Case 2 applies (given how the initial key exchange
is either of type triple or type triple+DHE), then the adversary’s probability in distinguishing this change
C1,cleanLM (u,i) C1,cleanEL (u,i,0) C1,cleanEM (u,i,0)
is max{AdvC1 C2 C1
3 , Adv3 }. Note that Adv3 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3 and
C2 C2,cleanLM (u,i) C2,cleanEL (u,i,0) C2,cleanEM (u,i,0) C2,cleanEE (u,i,[0],[0])
Adv3 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3 Adv3 , and that the upper
bounds on the first three subcases of both Case 1 and Case 2 are identical.
After replacing the root key rk1 , it is straightforward to see that it is impossible for the adversary to
differentiate keys derived in this stage—chaining keys ckri ri ri
x,0 and ckx,1 , messaging key mkx,0 , and intermediate
value tmp from random: these are derived by applying KDFr to rk1 and then KDFm to that result. Since both
KDFs are modelled as random oracles, and the input to KDFr is an independent uniformly random value, the

36
 Identity Key Prekey Ephemeral Key Ratchet Key0 Ratchet Key1

Alice ikA / ipkA ekA / epkA rchkA A

0 / rchpk0 rchkA A
1 / rchpk1

ms = (prepkB )ikA k (ipkB )ekA k (prepkB )ekA k (eprepkB )ekA (rchpkB

0 )
A
rchk0
(rchpkB
0 )
rchk1A
(rchpkB
1 )
A
rchk1

Bob ikB / ipkB prekB / prepkB eprekB / eprepkB rchkB B

0 / rchpk0 rchkB B
1 / rchpk1

A
Root Key (prepkB )rchk0
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr
Chaining Key rk1 rk2
KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Message Key ckir
0,0 ckir
0,1 ckir
0,2 ckri
1,0 ckri
1,1 ckir
1,0

mkir
0,0 mkir
0,1 mkri
1,0

Figure 16: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 7’ of Case 3.2. In particular, denotes secrets that
the adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query);
denotes secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets
that the challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this
case; and denotes secrets one of which is assumed uncompromised but the rest may be revealed by A.

adversary has no advantage is distinguishing this stage’s session key from random. For readability, we define
C3,cleanπi .type[0] (u,i,[0])
Adv3 u
= Adv3C3.2 . Thus
AdvC3.2
3 ≤ max{AdvC1 C2
3 + Adv3 }

C4: Asymmetric ratcheting, non-initial stages

At this point we move on to arbitrary subsequent asymmetric stages. We assume that the initial handshake
was of type triple, but the case of triple+DHE is analogous. The intuition for this part of the proof is
essentially induction and post-compromise security:
• root keys provide security because they come from previous stages which are secure; or
• shared secrets derived from pairs of ephemeral keys provide security even if the root key at the time is
compromised.
We first make a case distinction on the direction (Case 4.1: asym-ir vs. Case 4.2: asym-ri), and then deal
with these cases in turn. Thus AdvC43 ≤ Adv3
C4.1
+ AdvC4.2
3 .

C4.1: Asymmetric ratcheting, s = [asym-ir:x], x ≥ 1, type[s] = asym-ir

Definition 8 requires that one of the following conditions must be satisfied if cleanasym-ir (u, i, [asym-ir:x])
is to hold.
asym-ir
• event Eclean-prev : cleanasym-ri (u, i, [asym-ri:x − 1]) ∧ cleanstate (u, i, [asym-ir:x])
asym-ir
• event Eclean-cur : cleanEE (u, i, x − 1, x − 1)
Thus:
C4.1,cleanprev C4.1,cleanEE (u,i,x−1,x−1)
Adv3C4.1 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3
asym-ir
C4.1.1: Case s = [asym-ir:x], x ≥ 1, type[s] = asym-ir and Eclean-prev

This case follows inductively like Case 3.2. This stage’s message key (as well as the next root and chaining
key) is derived by applying KDFr to tmp, which was derived during stage [asym-ri:x], and then KDFm to
the result. By an argument similar to Case 3.2, we can replace tmp with a random key. Treating the KDF
as a random oracle, this stage’s message key, as well as the next root key rkx+1 and the symmetric chaining
C4.1,cleanprev
keys ckir ir
x,0 and ckx,1 , are then indistinguishable from random. For readability, we denote Adv3 =
C4.1.1 C2,clean LM (u,i) C2.1 C2,clean EL (u,i,[0])) C2.2 C2,clean EM (u,i,[0])) C2.3
Adv3 , Adv3 = Adv3 , Adv3 = Adv3 , Adv3 = Adv3 ,
C2,cleanEE (u,i,[0],[0])
Adv3 = Adv3C2.4 . Thus:

37
 Ratchet Keyx−1 Ratchet Keyx Ratchet Keyx+1

Alice rchkA A
x−1 / rchpkx−1 rchkA A
x / rchpkx rchkA A
x+1 / rchpkx+1

A A
(rchpkB rchkx−1
(rchpkB rchkx A
(rchpkB
A
rchkx
(rchpkB rchkx+1 ...
x−1 ) x−1 ) x) x)

Bob KDFr rchkB B

x−1 / rchpkx−1 rchkB B
x / rchpkx

KDFr

KDFr
Root Key rkx tmp rkx+1 tmp ...

KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Chaining Key ckri
x,0 ckri
x,1 ckir
x+1,0 ckir
x+1,1 ckir
x+1,2 ckri
x+1,0

Message Key mk, ri][x][0] mkir

x+1,0 mkir
x+1,1

Figure 17: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 7’ of Case 4.1.1. In particular, denotes secrets that
the adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query);
denotes secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets
that the challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this
case.

Ratchet Keyx−1 Ratchet Keyx Ratchet Keyx+1

Alice rchkA
x−1 / rchpkA
x−1 rchkA
x / rchpkA
x rchkA A
x+1 / rchpkx+1

A A
(rchpkB rchkx−1
(rchpkB rchkx A
(rchpkB
A
rchkx
(rchpkB rchkx+1 ...
x−1 ) x−1 ) x) x)

Bob rchkB B
x−1 / rchpkx−1 rchkB B
x / rchpkx
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr
Root Key rkx tmp rkx+1 tmp ...
KDFm

KDFm

KDFm

Chaining Key ckri

x,0 ckri
x,1 ckir
x+1,0 ckir
x+1,1 ckir
x+1,2 ckri
x+1,0

Message Key mk, ri][x][0] mkir

x+1,0 mkir
x+1,1

Figure 18: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 7’ of Case 4.1.2. In particular, denotes secrets that
the adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query);
denotes secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets
that the challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this
case.

AdvC4.1.1
3 ≤ 1/q + Adv3C2.1 + AdvC2.2
3 + AdvC2.3
3 + AdvC2.4
3 + GDH
asym-ir
C4.1.2: Case s = [asym-ir:x], x ≥ 1, type[s] = asym-ir and Eclean-cur

This case is analogous to Case 3.1, with key indistinguishability following from secrecy of the DH shared
secret derived from ratchet keys. We first replace the ratchet public keys with challenge values from the Gap-DH
game, noting that cleanEE implies the existence of a unique session at Bob with the same sid as that of Alice’s
session. As before, an adversary which could distinguish this game from its predecessor allows us to answer
the Gap-DH challenge, violating that assumption. Indistinguishability of this stage’s message key, as well as the
next root and chaining keys enumerated in Case 4.4.1, then follows from applying the (random oracle) KDF to
the (now independent) DH shared secret. Thus

38
 Ratchet Keyx−1 Ratchet Keyx Ratchet Keyx+1

Alice rchkA A
x−1 / rchpkx−1 rchkA A
x / rchpkx rchkA A
x+1 / rchpkx+1

A A
(rchpkB rchkx−1
(rchpkB rchkx A
(rchpkB
A
rchkx
(rchpkB rchkx+1 ...
x−1 ) x−1 ) x) x)

Bob KDFr rchkB B

x−1 / rchpkx−1 rchkB B
x / rchpkx

KDFr

KDFr
Root Key rkx tmp rkx+1 tmp ...

KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Chaining Key ckri
x,0 ckri
x,1 ckir
x+1,0 ckir
x+1,1 ckir
x+1,2 ckri
x+1,0

Message Key mk, ri][x][0] mkir

x+1,0 mkir
x+1,1

Figure 19: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 7’ of Case 4.2.1. In particular, denotes secrets that
the adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query);
denotes secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets
that the challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this
case.

C4.1,cleanEE (u,i,x−1,x−1)
Adv3 ≤ 1/q + GDH

C4.2: Asymmetric ratcheting, s = [asym-ri:x], x > 1, type[s] = asym-ri

Now we come to the case of non-initial asymmetric stages of type asym-ri. The proof here is nearly
the same as in Case 4.1, except there is an extra KDF application: session keys derived by these stages are
computed by first applying a KDF to derive an intermediate value tmp, and second applying another KDF to
derive from tmp a session key.
Similarly, we partition our analysis into the following cases.
asym-ri
• event Eclean-prev : cleanasym-ir (u, i, [asym-ir:x])
asym-ri
• event Eclean-cur : cleanEE (u, i, x, x − 1)

asym-ri
C4.2.1: Case s = [asym-ri:x], x > 1, type[s] = asym-ri and Eclean-prev

Once again the inductive argument here is analogous to Case 3.2: secrecy follows from the root key,
and so we begin by replacing the root key with a random value. Detecting this change would violate the
security properties of the previous stage, but after it the session key is easily proven indistinguishable from
random. This stage’s message key mkri ri ri
x,0 as well as symmetric chaining keys ckx,0 and ckx,1 and intermediate
C4.2,cleanprev
value tmp, are all also then indistinguishable from random. For readability, we denote Adv3 =
C2,cleanLM (u,i) C2,cleanEL (u,i,[0])) C2,cleanEM (u,i,[0]))
AdvC4.2.1
3 , Adv3 = AdvC2.1
3 , Adv3 = AdvC2.2
3 , Adv3 = AdvC2.3
3 ,
C2,cleanEE (u,i,[0],[0])
Adv3 = Adv3C2.4 . Thus:

AdvC4.2.1
3 ≤ 1/q + Adv3C2.1 + AdvC2.2
3 + AdvC2.3
3 + AdvC2.4
3 + GDH

asym-ri
C4.2.2: Case s = [asym-ri:x], x > 1, type[s] = asym-ri and Eclean-cur

For this case, we proceed similarly to Case 3.1. The DH shared secret can be shown indistinguishable
under the Gap-DH assumption by replacing the ratchet public keys rchkux , rchkvx−1 of the Test session and its
matching peer with values from a GDH challenger. Indistinguishability of the stage’s message key, symmetric
chaining keys, and intermediate value tmp (as enumerated in case 4.2.1) all follow in turn from applying a
(random oracle) KDF to (now independent) secret values. Thus

C4.2,cleanEE (u,i,x−1,x−1)
Adv3 ≤ 1/q + GDH

39
 Ratchet Keyx−1 Ratchet Keyx Ratchet Keyx+1

Alice rchkA A
x−1 / rchpkx−1 rchkA A
x / rchpkx rchkA A
x+1 / rchpkx+1

A A
(rchpkB rchkx−1
(rchpkB rchkx A
(rchpkB
A
rchkx
(rchpkB rchkx+1 ...
x−1 ) x−1 ) x) x)

Bob KDFr rchkB B

x−1 / rchpkx−1 rchkB B
x / rchpkx

KDFr

KDFr
Root Key rkx tmp rkx+1 tmp ...

KDFm

KDFm

KDFm
Chaining Key ckri
x,0 ckri
x,1 ckir
x+1,0 ckir
x+1,1 ckir
x+1,2 ckri
x+1,0

Message Key mk, ri][x][0] mkir

x+1,0 mkir
x+1,1

Figure 20: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 3 of Case 4.2.2. In particular, denotes secrets that
the adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query);
denotes secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets
that the challenger is able to replace with random, thus ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this
case.

C5: Symmetric ratcheting: type[s] ∈ {sym-ir, sym-ri}

We finally arrive at the case of Signal in the multistage key-indistinguishability game against an adversary
A that issues a Test(u, i, [sym-ir:x,y]) or Test(u, i, [sym-ri:x,y]) query against some some symmetric stage.
Thus:
C5,sym-ir C5,sym-ri
AdvC5
3 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3
In all subcases, we will show that the probability of winning is 1/2.

C5.1: Symmetric ratcheting, s = [sym-ir:x,y], type[s] = sym-ir

We partition into the three different freshness conditions for the case [sym-ir:x,y]. We then cover the case
of [sym-ri:x,y] similarly. The intuition is that for the first stage, the symmetric keys are derived from an

Ratchet Keyx−1 Ratchet Keyx Ratchet Keyx+1

Alice rchkA
x−1 / rchpkA
x−1 rchkA
x / rchpkA
x rchkA A
x+1 / rchpkx+1

A A
(rchpkB rchkx−1
(rchpkB rchkx A
(rchpkB
A
rchkx
(rchpkB rchkx+1 ...
x−1 ) x−1 ) x) x)

Bob rchkB B
x−1 / rchpkx−1 rchkB B
x / rchpkx
KDFr

KDFr

KDFr

Root Key rkx tmp rkx+1 tmp ...

KDFm

KDFm

KDFm

Chaining Key ckri

x,0 ckri
x,1 ckir
x+1,0 ckir
x+1,1 ckir
x+1,2 ckri
x+1,0

Message Key mk, ri][x][0] mkir

x+1,0 mkir
x+1,1

Figure 21: A diagram showing the replacement of secrets in Game 7’ of Case 5.1.2. All other subcases follow a similar
replacement strategy. In particular, denotes secrets that the adversary may compromise via Reveal queries (or by
computing the secrets as a result of the Reveal query); denotes secrets that are replaced with the output of a Test
query from a Case 1 or Case 2 challenger; denotes secrets that the challenger is able to replace with random, thus
ensuring security; denotes secrets that are not relevant to this case; and denotes secrets one of which is assumed
uncompromised but the rest may be revealed by A.

40
asymmetric update and their secrecy follows from the previous cases. For subsequent stages, we have security
due to the recursive nature of the freshness condition: we can replace the chain key used to derive the message
key with randomness; if the simulation did not work, then the adversary could attack the previous stage, which
is a contradiction to security of previous cases because the previous stage is fresh. In all symmetric stages, no
new ephemeral keying material is introduced, so security depends solely on the chaining state not being leaked
(which is guaranteed for these cases by cleanstate ). Thus:
Adv3C5,sym-ir ≤ Adv3C5,sym-ir,x=0,y=1 + Adv3C5,sym-ir,x>0,y=1 + Adv3C5,sym-ir,x≥0,y>1
(Recall that the case y = 0 is performed as part of the message key derivation in the previous asymmetric
update, so that the first symmetric stage derives key number 1.)

C5.1.1: Case s = [sym-ir:x,y], x = 0, y = 1, type[s] = sym-ir

This stage’s messaging key is derived by applying a KDFm to ckir 0,1 , which was derived during the initial
triple or triple+DHE handshake. By Case 3.2, ckir 0,1 is indistinguishable from random. Like the argument in
Case 3.2, treating KDFm as a random oracle, this stage’s messaging key, as well as the next chaining key ckir0,2 ,
are thus indistinguishable from random. Thus:

C2,cleanLM (u,i) C2,cleanEL (u,i,[0])) C2,cleanEM (u,i,[0])) C2,cleanEE (u,i,[0],[0])

AdvC5,sym-ir,x=0,y=1
3 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3 + Adv3

C5.1.2: Case s = [sym-ir:x,y], x > 0, y = 1, type[s] = sym-ir

This stage’s messaging key is derived by applying a KDFm to ckir x,1 , which was derived during asymmetric-
second-stage [asym-ir:x]. By Case 4.1, ckirx,1 is indistinguishable from random. Like the argument in Case 2,
treating KDFm as a random oracle, this stage’s messaging key, as well as the next chaining key ckir x,2 , are thus
indistinguishable from random. Thus:
C4.1,cleanprev C4.1,cleanEE (u,i,x−1,x−1)
AdvC5,sym-ir,x>0,y=1
3 ≤ Adv3 + Adv3

C5.1.3: Case s = [sym-ir:x,y], x ≥ 0, y.1, type[s] = sym-ir

This stage’s messaging key is derived by applying a KDFm to ckir x,y , which was derived during symmetric
stage [sym-ir:x]y − 1. By Case 5.1.1, 5.1.2, or induction on Case 5.1.3, ckir x,y−1 is indistinguishable from
random. Like the argument in case 3.2, treating KDFm as a random oracle, this stage’s messaging key, as well
as the next chaining key ckir
x,y+1 , are thus indistinguishable from random. Thus:

AdvC5,sym-ir,x≥0,y>1
3 ≤ AdvC5,sym-ir,x=0,y=1
3 + AdvC5,sym-ir,x>0,y=1
3

C5.2: Symmetric ratcheting, s = [sym-ri:x,y], type[s] = sym-ri

These cases are analogous to Case 5.1, by symmetry: cleanness is defined in the same recursive manner for
both sym-ir and sym-ri stages, except that the base cases differ. The initial game hops are thus analogous to
those in the asym-ir and asym-ri respectively, and the subsequent inductive argument is analogous to Case
5.1.3. Thus:
AdvC5,sym-ri
3
C5,sym-ir
= Adv3

Appendix C.
Achieving a Standard Model proof of the Signal Protocol
One drawback of the proof as it currently stands is that it sits within the random oracle model. This is
an assumption which has received some criticism from parts of the cryptographic community because, while
it is a useful assumption for proofs, it can never be satisfied in reality [9, 40]. There are even pathological
constructions which are provably secure with random oracles, but which can never be secure when the random
oracle is replaced with any concrete primitive [5, 20]. While the use of the random oracle model does not
imply an attack, and in fact sometimes deliberately avoiding it can cause more severe problems [47], its use
may be unsettling for some.
Therefore, in this section, we outline the process in which one could attempt a standard model proof of
the Signal Protocol in our security model. This is not a straightforward task; a naive attempt would be by

41
retaining the current structure of our proof and replacing Gap-DH assumptions with a pair of DDH and PRF
security assumptions. However, this approach does not fit. Similarly to previous proofs of TLS [31, 43], we
find ourselves relying instead on the PRF-ODH assumption. There are many different variants of the PRF-ODH
assumption throughout the literature; see [19] for a detailed exposition of these variants. However, the crux of
the assumption is as follows. Given g u and g v , computing a function PRF(g uv , x) should be hard, even with
choice of x and an oracle that computes values like PRF(g uw , x0 ) and PRF(g wv , x0 ) for chosen w 6= u, v .
Roughly speaking, the reason a PRF-ODH assumption is required is that there are long-lived keys used in
key computations in Signal that must be simulated when they are substituted out in the game hops. Before, we
used a random oracle—which, by definition, gives random replies that the simulator could just choose randomly
but consistently—to simulate these key computations. Now, we need a Diffie-Hellman oracle from the PRF-ODH
assumption to carry out the simulation. Because Signal computes keys using a PRF on Diffie-Hellman values,
it seems at least plausible that some version of a PRF-ODH assumption may work for a proof.
Readers may ask why we cannot simply retain the current structure of our proof and replace the Gap-DH
assumptions with a single PRF-ODH step. As discussed in Section 2 (and wholly unlike TLS), the Diffie-Hellman
values used in Signal can be long-term, medium-term or ephemeral. These keys are also used in different
combinations in key derivations. This difference requires that we not use a single PRF-ODH assumption, but
a range of0 PRF-ODH assumptions
0
that are parameterized by how many times the challenger will generate0
PRF(g uv , x) and PRF(g u v , x) values upon being queried for a “left” or “right” PRF-ODH oracle (g v , x) or
0 0 0
(g u , x) (where g u and g v are not one of the DH challenge values (g u , g v ) given by the challenger). We give
a formal definition below from the work by Brendel et. al. [19].
Definition 10 (Generic PRF-ODH assumption). Let G be a cyclic group of order q with generator g . Let
PRF : G × {0, 1}∗ → {0, 1}λ be a pseudo-random function that takes as key input an element k ∈ G and an
arbitrary-length salt value x ∈ {0, 1}∗ as input, and outputs a value y ∈ {0, 1}λ .
We define a generalised security notion lr-PRF-ODH, which is parameterised by l, r ∈ {n, s, m}, indicating
how often the adversary is able to query a certain left oracle or right oracle (denoted ODHu and ODHv
respectively) where n indicates that no query is allowed, s indicates that a single query is allowed, and m
indicates that arbitrarily-many queries are allowed to the respective oracle. Consider the lr-PRF-ODH security
experiment depicted in Figure 22.
We say that the adversary A wins the lr-PRF-ODH game if b0 = b and define the following advantage
function:
1
Advlr -PRF-ODH
PRF,G
lr-PRF-ODH
(A) := | Pr(ExpPRF, G,g,q (A) = 1) − |
2
To add to the difficulty, these left-and-right generic PRF-ODH assumption variants do not allow the adversary
to query both sides of the DH keyshares multiple times before the challenger generates the secret value, which
would be the case in the replacement of the long-term and medium-term secrets (refer to Case 1.1), which
means that we would need to further modify the generic PRF-ODH assumption to the needs of our particular
Signal Protocol proof. We call this a symmetric generic PRF-ODH problem, which we define below.
Definition 11 (Symmetric PRF-ODH assumption). Let G be a cyclic group of order q with generator g . Let
PRF : G × {0, 1}∗ → {0, 1}λ be a pseudo-random function that takes as key input an element k ∈ G and an
arbitrary-length salt value x ∈ {0, 1}∗ as input, and outputs a value y ∈ {0, 1}λ .
We define a symmetric security notion lr-sPRF-ODH, which is parameterised by l, r ∈ {n, s, m}, indicating
how often the adversary is able to query a certain left oracle or right oracle (denoted ODHu and ODHv
respectively) where n indicates that no query is allowed, s indicates that a single query is allowed, and m
indicates that polynomially-many queries are allowed to the respective oracle. Consider the security game
Explr-sPRF-ODH 0
PRF,G,g,q (A) described in Figure 22. We say that the adversary A wins the lr -sPRF-ODH game if b = b
and define the following advantage function:
1
Advlr -sPRF-ODH
PRF,G,A (λ) := | Pr(Explr-sPRF-ODH
PRF,G,g,q (A) = 1) − |
2
However, Brendel et. al. [19] also show (via a algebraic reduction and meta-reduction argument) that the
existence of any efficient black-box reduction from the sn/ns-PRF-ODH problem to a decisional Diffie-Hellman-
augmented (DDHa) problem would imply that either the DDHa problem or the decisional-square Diffie-Hellman
problem is not hard. The DDHa assumption is a class of assumptions, roughly stating that the adversary cannot
efficiently win between either the decisional Diffie-Hellman problem or some other independent cryptographic
problem. This, the authors argue, shows that the existence of a standard-model instantiation of any generic
PRF-ODH problem (excepting nn-PRF-ODH) is impossible, assuming the aforementioned problems are indeed
hard. So constructing a standard model proof of the Signal Protocol using generic PRF-ODH based assumptions
could be moot.
There is however some advantage to this effort: it would bring clarity to which of the cases would be easier
for the adversary to break. In the work by Brendel et. al. the relations and separations between the variants of
lr-PRF-ODH are shown, and thus the security of each of the cases is able to be compared concretely. In our

42
Explr-PRF-ODH
PRF,G,g,q (A):
lr-sPRF-ODH
ExpPRF, G,g,q (A):
$ $
1: b ← {0, 1}, cu ← 0, cv ← 0 1: b ← {0, 1}, cu ← 0, cv ← 0
$ $
2: u ← Zq , X ← ∅ 2: u, v ← Zq , X ← ∅
3: if l = m then 3: if (l = m) ∧ (r = m) then
4: x∗ ← A(G, g, q, g u )ODHu 4: A(G, g, q, g u , g v )ODHu ,ODHv → x∗
5: else 5: if (l = m) ∧ (r 6= m) then
6: x∗ ← A(G, g, q, g u ) 6: A(G, g, q, g u , g v )ODHu → x∗
$ 7: if (l 6= m) ∧ (r = m) then
7: v ← Zq
8: if {g uv , x∗ } ∈ X then 8: A(G, g, q, g u , g v )ODHv → x∗
9: return ⊥ 9: else
10:
$
y0 ← PRF(g uv , x∗ ), y1 ← {0, 1}λ 10: A(G, g, q, g u , g v ) → x∗
11: X ← X ∪ {g uv , x∗ } 11: if (g uv , x∗ ) ∈ X then
12: b0 ← A(yb )ODHu ,ODHv 12: return ⊥
$
13: return (b0 = b) 13: y0 ← PRF(g uv , x∗ ), y1 ← {0, 1}λ
14: X ← X ∪ {g uv , x∗ }
15: b0 ← A(yb )ODHu ,ODHv
16: return (b0 = b)

ODHu (S, x, X, cu ):
1: if (l = n) ∨ ({S u , x} ∈ X) ∨ (S ∈
/ G) then
2: return ⊥
3: if (l = s) ∧ (cu > 0) then
4: return ⊥
5: cu ← cu + 1, X ← X ∪ {S u , x}
6: return PRF(S u , x)

ODHv (S, x, X, cv ):
1: if (r = n) ∨ ({S v , x} ∈ X) ∨ (S ∈
/ G) then
2: return ⊥
3: if (r = s) ∧ (cv > 0) then
4: return ⊥
5: cv ← cv + 1, X ← X ∪ {S v , x}
6: return PRF(S v , x)
Figure 22: The security experiments for the generic PRF-ODH assumption, and the symmetric PRF-ODH assumption.
Note that both experiments make use of identical ODHu and ODHv oracles.

current proof, the adversary seemingly does not have an advantage targeting one particular case over another.
Now we have all the tools we would require to consider how the security proof in each case would work. We
consider each case below and explain which flavour of PRF-ODH is required and why.
Case 1.1 In Game 6 of Case 1.1 we know that the long-term identity key of party u and the medium-term key
of the peer v have not been compromised by the adversary, and thus we can replace the key shares ipku ,
prepkv and the computed root key rk1 and first-stage chain key ckir 0,0 with PRF-ODH challenge values.
Since both of these Diffie-Hellman key shares can be used in multiple sessions, and (potentially) may be
used before the Test session has initialised, we require many ODHu and ODHv queries at the start of the
experiment before the challenge salt value x is computed. Thus we require the mm-sPRF-ODH assumption,
the strongest variant of the PRF-ODH problem. In this case, we treat the keys ipku and prepkv as the
keys to the PRF-ODH problem (which is now internal to the mm-sPRF-ODH game) and the following
(potentially revealed) secrets ipkv and eku values as the salt value x that is queried to the mm-sPRF-ODH
challenger. The challenge value yb output by the challenger is then used to replace the rk1 , ckir 0,0 values in
both the Tested session and its peer session that is used in computing the message key mkir 0,0 which was
ir
Tested by the adversary. In order to ensure that the message key mk0,0 is indistinguishable from random,
we need an additional PRF game to replace the computation of mkir 0,0 from KDFm , and use the output
from the PRF challenger to replace mkir 0,0 . Thus an adversary capable of distinguishing these changes would
also be capable of breaking the PRF security of KDFm , or the mm-sPRF-ODH security of HKDF, G.
Case 1.2 In Game 6 of Case 1.2 we know that the predicate cleanEL (u, i, [0]) is upheld, which means that
the ephemeral key of the initiator and the identity-key of the responder have not been compromised by
the adversary, and thus we can replace the key shares epku , ipkv , and the computed root key rk1 and
first-stage chain key ckir
0,0 with PRF-ODH challenge values. Since only the identity-key of the responder
can be used in multiple sessions, and (potentially) may be used before the Test session has initialised, we
require many ODHu queries at the start of the experiment before the challenge salt value x is computed.
Thus we require the mn-PRF-ODH assumption, a non-symmetric variant of the PRF-ODH problem. In
this case, we treat the values ipkv , eku as the keys to the PRF-ODH problem (which is now internal to the

43
 mn-PRF-ODH game) and the following (potentially revealed) secrets prepkv , iku as the salt value x that
is queried to the mn-PRF-ODH challenger. The challenge value yb output by the challenger is then used
to replace the rk1 , ckir 0,0 values in both the Tested session and it’s peer session that is used in computing
the message key mkir 0,0 which was Tested by the adversary. In order to ensure that the message key mk0,0
ir

is indistinguishable from random, we need an additional PRF game to replace the computation of mkir 0,0
from KDFm , and use the output from the PRF challenger to replace mkir 0,0 . Thus an adversary capable
of distinguishing these changes would also be capable of breaking the PRF security of KDFm , or the
mn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G.
Case 1.3 In Game 6 of Case 1.3 we know that the predicate cleanEM (u, i, [0]) is upheld, which means that the
ephemeral key of the initiator and the medium-term key of the responder have not been compromised by
the adversary, and thus we can replace the keyshares epku , prepkv and the computed root key rk1 and
first-stage chain key ckir 0,0 with PRF-ODH challenge values. Since only the signed-prekey of the responder
can be used in multiple sessions, and (potentially) may be used before the Test session has initialised, we
require many ODHv queries at the start of the experiment before the challenge salt value x is computed.
Thus we require the mn-PRF-ODH assumption, a non-symmetric variant of the PRF-ODH problem. In
this case, we treat the values prepkv , eku as the key to the PRF-ODH problem (which is now internal
to the mn-PRF-ODH game) and the following (potentially revealed) secrets ipkv , iku values as the salt
value x that is queried to the mn-PRF-ODH challenger. The challenge value yb output by the challenger
is then used to replace the rk1 , ckir 0,0 values in both the Tested session and it’s peer session that is used in
computing the message key mkir 0,0 which was Tested by the adversary. In order to ensure that the message
key mkir 0,0 is indistinguishable from random, we need an additional PRF game to replace the computation
of mkir0,0 from KDF m , and use the output from the PRF challenger to replace mkir 0,0 . Thus an adversary
capable of distinguishing these changes would also be capable of breaking the PRF security of KDFm , or
the mn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G.
Case 2.1 This is treated identically to Case 1.1, with the same bounds and game hops.
Case 2.2 This is treated identically to Case 1.2, with the same bounds and game hops.
Case 2.3 This is treated identically to Case 1.3, with the same bounds and game hops.
Case 2.4 In Game 6 of Case 2.4 we know that the predicate cleanEE (u, i, [0]) is upheld, which means that the
ephemeral key of the initiator and the ephemeral key of the responder have not been compromised by the
adversary, and thus we can replace the key shares epku , epkv and the computed root key rk1 and first-stage
chain key ckir 0,0 with PRF-ODH challenge values. Since both keys are ephemerally generated and only
used a single time, we require the sn-PRF-ODH assumption, the weakest non-standard model variant of
the PRF-ODH problem. In this case, we treat the epkv , eku as the key to the PRF-ODH problem (which
is now internal to the sn-PRF-ODH game) and the following (potentially revealed) secrets prepkv , ikv
and iku values as the salt value x that is queried to the sn-PRF-ODH challenger. The challenge value yb
output by the challenger is then used to replace the rk1 , ckir 0,0 values in both the Tested session and it’s
peer session that is used in computing the message key mkir 0,0 which was Tested by the adversary. In order
to ensure that the message key mkir 0,0 is indistinguishable from random, we need an additional PRF game
to replace the computation of mkir 0,0 from KDF m , and use the output from the PRF challenger to replace
ir
mk0,0 . Thus an adversary capable of distinguishing these changes would also be capable of breaking the
PRF security of KDFm , or the sn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G.
Case 3.1 In Game 6 of Case 3.1 we know that the predicate cleanEE (u, i, [asym-ri:1]) is upheld, which means
that the ratchet key of the initiator and the ratchet key of the responder have not been compromised by the
adversary, and thus we can replace the key shares rchpku0 , rchpkv0 and the computed temporary value x
and asymmetric-stage chain key ckri 1,0 with PRF-ODH challenge values. Since both keys are ephemerally
generated and only used a single time, we require the sn-PRF-ODH assumption, the weakest non-standard
model variant of the PRF-ODH problem. In this case, we treat the values rchpkv0 , rchku0 as the key to the
PRF-ODH problem (which is now internal to the sn-PRF-ODH game) and the (potentially revealed) root
key rk1 of the first stage as the salt value x that is queried to the sn-PRF-ODH challenger. The challenge
value yb output by the challenger is then used to replace the x, ckri 1,0 values in both the Tested session
and it’s peer session that is used in computing the message key mkri 1,0 which was Tested by the adversary.
In order to ensure that the message key mkri 1,0 is indistinguishable from random, we need an additional
PRF game to replace the computation of mkri 1,0 from KDFm , and use the output from the PRF challenger
to replace mkri 1,0 . Thus an adversary capable of distinguishing these changes would also be capable of
breaking the PRF security of KDFm , or the sn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G.
Case 3.2 In Game 6 of Case 3.2 we know that the predicate cleanπui .type[0] (u, i, [0]) is upheld, which means
that initial key-exchange stage has some Diffie-Hellman key share pair that has not been corrupted, and
that the adversary has not revealed the state linking the initial key-exchange to this stage. Depending on
which clean predicate that was upheld in the first stage, the replacement of Diffie-Hellman values is done
as in Case 1.1, Case 1.2, Case 1.3 or Case 2.4. We know from these case analysis that the root key rk1 is

44
 indistinguishable from random, and thus we are able to replace this value with a random value rk10 and
note that an adversary capable of distinguishing this change can break the security of Case 1.1, Case 1.2,
Case 1.3 or Case 2.4. We then use PRF game hops in a standard way to replace the derivation of the x,
ckri
1,0 values in both the Tested session and it’s peer session that is used in computing the message key
mkri ri
1,0 which was Tested by the adversary. In order to ensure that the message key mk1,0 is indistinguishable
ri
from random, we need an additional PRF game to replace the computation of mk1,0 from KDFm , and use
the output from the PRF challenger to replace mkri 1,0 . Thus an adversary capable of distinguishing these
changes would also be capable of breaking the PRF security of KDFm , or the mm-sPRF-ODH security
of HKDF, G (as in Case 1.1), or the mn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G (as in Cases 1.2 and 1.3), or
the sn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G (as in Case 2.4).
Case 4.1.1 In Game 6 of Case 4.1.1 we know that the predicate cleanasym-ri (u, i, [asym-ri:x − 1]) is upheld,
which means that either:
• the previous stage’s ratchet keys have not been compromised by the adversary (in which case analysis
follows from Case 3.1)
• the previous stage’s state has not been compromised by the adversary (in which case analysis follows
from Case 3.2)
In a similar way, then, we follow those cases to replace the appropriate uncompromised Diffie-Hellman key
shares with challenge values from a PRFODH game. Thus an adversary capable of distinguishing these
changes would also be capable of breaking the PRF security of KDFm , or the mm-sPRF-ODH security
of HKDF, G (as in Case 1.1), or the mn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G (as in Cases 1.2 and 1.3), or
finally the sn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G (as in Cases 2.4 and 3.1).
Case 4.1.2 In Game 6 of Case 4.1.2 we know that the predicate cleanEE (u, i, x − 1, x − 1) is upheld, which
means that the previous stages ratchet keys have not been compromised by the adversary and analysis
follows from Case 3.1, with the same bounds and game-hops. In particular, this means that the adversary’s
advantage in breaking the key-indistinguishability of the Tested session key is bound by the PRF security
of KDFr and KDFm , or the sn-PRF-ODH security of HKDF, G.
Case 4.2.1 In Game 6 of Case 4.1.1 we know that the predicate cleanasym-ri (u, i, [asym-ir:x − 1]) is upheld.
Note that similarly to the proof of Case 4.2.1, this follows identically to Case 4.1.1 with an additionally
application of a PRF game to account for the intermediate computation of a tmp value.
Case 4.2.2 In Game 6 of Case 4.2.2 we know that the predicate cleanEE (u, i, x−1, x−1) is upheld, which means
that the previous stages ratchet keys have not been compromised by the adversary and analysis follows
identically to Case 4.1.2, with an additional PRF game to account for the intermediate computation of a
tmp value. In particular, this means that the adversary’s advantage in breaking the key-indistinguishability
of the Tested session key is bound by the PRF security of KDFr and KDFm , or the sn-PRF-ODH security
of HKDF, G.
Case 5 In this Case, and all subcases, analysis follows from Case 4, with additional PRF game hops to
inductively replace chaining keys that (via the cleanness predicate cleansym have not been compromised by
the adversary, and thus follows from the security of the appropriate asymmetric stage.
From this vantage point, we can now compare the cases concretely. For instance, it is clear that the
adversary’s advantage of breaking Case 1.1 (where the long-term identity key of the initiator and the medium-
term signed prekey of the responder have not been compromised by the adversary) is quantitatively higher than
the adversary’s advantage in breaking Case 2.4 (where the ephemeral key of the initiator and the one-time
prekey of the responder have not been trivially compromised by the adversary). This is due to the fact that Case
1.1 (and identically, Case 2.1) require the strong symmetric variant of PRFODH (i.e. mm-PRF-ODH) whereas
Case 2.4 (and similarly, Case 3.1) require the weak non-symmetric variant of PRFODH (i.e. sn-PRF-ODH).
Cases 1.2, 1.3, 2.2 and 2.3 sit between these two, requiring multiple queries an ODHu oracle, but no queries to
the ODHv oracle, as it simulates a long-term Diffie-Hellman key and a single-use ephemeral Diffie-Hellman
key using a mn-PRF-ODH challenger.
In addition, this supplemental proof also allows us to consider any future work that examines the computational
hardness of the generic and symmetric PRF-ODH assumptions in relation to the security of the Signal protocol.

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Appendix D.
Version History
V1.0 (2016-10-27) Original release.
V1.1 (2016-10-31) Minor updates.
• Clarified description of UKS attack in related work.
• Remarked that in the implementation, one-time keys can be updated after registration.
• Added reference to XEddsa signature specification and full/peer deniability.
• Removed references to header encryption and online key exchange, which are not part of Signal proper.
V2.0 (2017-10-09) Major updates.
• Added simplified protocol flow diagram to aid intuition.
• Clarified and further explained the freshness predicates.
• Clarified and further explained how our model relates to key indistinguishability and ACCE-like
definitions.
• Made substantial clarifications and expansions to the proof.
• Added illustrative figures to the proof.
• Wrote Section C on the use of the PRF-ODH assumption to replace GapDH + ROM.
V2.1 (2018-06-27) Minor updates.
• Fixed proof to use advantages instead of probabilities.
V3.0 (2019-07-04) Major updates.
• Fixed an omission in the description of initial X3DH handshake, as we did not capture ratchet key/signed
prekey DH computation. Thanks to Mang Zhao for identifying this omission.
• Simplified and improved consistency of notation in how session stages are named.
• Reorganized figures in introduction to improve presentation and intuition, including adding key schedule
diagrams to main body (Figure 4, Figure 5).
• Fixed cleanness predicate cleanpeerE that required a responder to have received an honest message in
the initial X3DH key exchange.
• Reordered and simplified some cleanness predicates to improve clarity.
• Local session state is now explicitly defined in Table 2.

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