41–50 of 139 posts
As I understand it, the u2f zero acts as an HID device and not as a smartcard provider, but could one modify the firmware to do that? Isn't this basically an open source yubikey you can make yourself for 1. https://github.com/conorpp/u2f-zero
HSMs are shit. In a previous role we used a major vendor's HSM to protect our private keys. VERY expensive kit, more expensive than the load balancers and servers combined. We needed to use Elliptic Curve keys for a particular customer - so it got even more expensive as we had to buy: 1. A license from the LB vendor to use the HSM 2. A licence from the HSM vendor to use EC with the LB. ... even though they trumpeted…
Want to (please) name the vendor?
Odd -- JavaCard smartcards are available for under $5, have crypto co-processors, and certainly support general-purpose code. See for example my project for KeePass, http://code.lardcave.net/2016/08/06/1/ . After programming, you can choose to lock down the card (which means you can only erase the card, not modify it). I'm using NXP chips and although I haven't investigated completely I would be highly surprised if i…
I tried to do something like this last summer. I found little to zero intersection between the cards that GlobalPlatformPro can personalize, and the cards that you can just buy in low volume at reasonable cost. I think I did buy one "$5" JavaCard but the shipping was like $50. As much as I admire GlobalPlatformPro, staking your small company's security infrastructure on 1) a hobby project maintained by one guy (Marti…
The author brings up many reasonable points but seems to mix issues of HSMs & Smart Cards not providing a generic open hardware platform with possible security problems of a platform. There is no question that there would be value in having a hardware platform that has certain security features, but that alone doesn't meet the requirements of most users of HSMs and Smart cards. The primary use cases I've seen are all…
A hardware platform alone solves less than half the problem for many HSM buyers, myself included. There's also software, then there's support. HSMs, at least the kind we use, are niche products because relatively few people have reasons to operate them (they're not cheap either). There aren't a lot of people who know how to use them well. We need to be able to get support on the phone 24/7/365 to deal with problems that come up because like most people who own HSMs, they are critical to the functioning of our systems.
Just throwing this out there to remind people interested in open HSMs (a fine idea) that at least when it comes to most people buying HSMs today, there needs to be an organization backing the product with good support. Otherwise it's probably a non-starter for critical systems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Intel has done something similar to what you are looking for: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-tech...
No, that's different. The crypto is done in hardware, yes, but keys and plaintext are still seen in software, and software is inherently untrusted. Our aim is to support use cases where you do not want software to handle anything. I think Intel's SGX is a better solution for hardware-supported software isolation, but it still isn't widespread and has a number of weaknesses.
It's not really usable at all right now, but I'm cautiously optimistic that a version of Linux coming soon will support it on a CPU coming eventually.
(The relevant CPU feature is IA32_SGXLEPUBKEYHASH. Until that feature is available, SGX is every bit as worthlessly locked down as the worst GlobalPlatform gadgets IMO.)
Kaby Lake does not appear to have this feature.
Odd -- JavaCard smartcards are available for under $5, have crypto co-processors, and certainly support general-purpose code. See for example my project for KeePass, http://code.lardcave.net/2016/08/06/1/ . After programming, you can choose to lock down the card (which means you can only erase the card, not modify it). I'm using NXP chips and although I haven't investigated completely I would be highly surprised if i…
The statement that "all HSMs and smartcards are the same" shows limited understanding. High-end HSMs can take 1000s of hits per second, a smartcard only a few.
Odd -- JavaCard smartcards are available for under $5, have crypto co-processors, and certainly support general-purpose code. See for example my project for KeePass, http://code.lardcave.net/2016/08/06/1/ . After programming, you can choose to lock down the card (which means you can only erase the card, not modify it). I'm using NXP chips and although I haven't investigated completely I would be highly surprised if i…
The OP states: "Smartcards and HSMs are essentially two “brands” for the same thing: a chip which guards access to the data stored within it, and will only allow that data to be accessed in certain ways or under certain conditions. HSMs are the “enterprise” label for such devices, whereas smartcards are essentially the same thing, only cheaper." Yubikey(mentioned in the title) is a TOTP card that works with the HSM o…
An HSM consists of some secure memory to store a secret and a program, and a processor to run the program to perform computations using the secret. A Yubikey consists of some secure memory to store a secret and a program, and a processor to run the program to perform computations using the secret. The programs are different but they are basically the same thing. The author wonders why there isn't a simple general pur…
I'd like to address the difference between a SmartCard and an HSM as I feel like the author doesn't acknowledge some of the practical differences. While at the core they are both "hardware security", i.e. a physical chip that implements security, an "HSM" as I have commonly seen the term used is a completely different thing in most other ways. An HSM is typically a 1-2U server, that is designed to provide high throug…
Both Smart Cards and HSMs can (and frequently do) contain FIPS validated cryptographic modules and can be USB devices. What seems to set them apart is content capacity and speed. A "HSM" can usually store dozens, hundreds, or even tens of thousands of keys and can do numerous cryptographic operations per second. Most "smart cards" can only store a few keys and frequently 1-2 operations per second. Many HSMs also add…
How does this work? Can an attacker buy an identical HSM, back up the key, and restore it onto the new HSM?