Re: [TLS] TLS and hardware security modules

Bill,

In short, I concur. Though some hardware is known to be more secure than the other. ;)
--
Regards,
Uri               <uri@ll.mit.edu>


On Sep 17, 2013, at 20:21 , Bill Frantz <frantz@pwpconsult.com> wrote:

> On 9/17/13 at 8:45 AM, msj@nthpermutation.com (Michael StJohns) wrote:
> 
>> Um.  No, not if you designed things properly.  It should be 
>> possible for any protocol the IETF designs to do all the crypto 
>> operation inside a hardware module and not depend on the weak 
>> security of a general purpose computer.
> 
> While I have no objections to this requirement, I'm not sure 
> that hardware is more secure than software if your attacker is a 
> large country national crypto agency or sophisticated criminal 
> gangs. I worry about Russia, England, China, France etc. as well 
> as the USA.
> 
> Without taking the chips apart, even validated hardware can be 
> replaced at the chip foundry with a different implementation 
> which leaks keys via paths such as IVs or uses bogus random numbers.
> 
> These attacks can be minimized by using forward security -- more 
> keys to attack/leak; making IVs deterministic based on the plain 
> text and checked; using a cypher in counter mode for IVs, 
> calculating them separately at each end, and not transmitting 
> them etc.
> 
> There is no real safe heaven these days.
> 
> Cheers - Bill
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: [TLS] TLS and hardware security modules - some issues related to PKCS11

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