[openssl-users] Regarding the security of the keys

[Frank Thater]

Hi,

I my opinion the only way to securely handle your keys is the usage of
some kind of Hardware Security Module, e.g.

www.smartcard-hsm.com
www.yubico.com

These lightweight HSMs provide a PKCS#11 interface which can be
integrated using the PKCS#11 engine of OpenSSL. In addition the
SmartCard-HSM supports key replication to build some kind of
load-balancing cluster where all HSMs share the same key.

Depending on the load of the server these "small" HSMs might be
suitable. Otherwise you should spent some money for a complete and full
HSM solution.

Regards,

Frank

Am 21.07.2015 um 09:53 schrieb Mike Mohr:
> Securing a system against this kind of attack can be done in several
> ways, depending on the level of assurance you desire.  You might start
> out with Tripwire:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Tripwire
> http://www.tripwire.org/
> 
> You could also implement mandatory access control and ACLs using either
> grsecurity or SELinux:
> 
> http://grsecurity.net/
> http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~jcg8f/SELinux%20grsecurity%20paper.pdf
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux
> 
> Personally I prefer grsecurity, but it is not supported in mainline by
> any major distribution that I am aware of.  You'll have to patch, build,
> and and support your own kernel image in order to use it.  SELinux is
> supported out of the box on CentOS 6 and 7, so it would probably be a
> good place to start.
> 
> If your concern is solely in the realm of protecting your RSA keys, you
> might consider some HSM product from e.g. Yubico:
> 
> https://www.yubico.com/
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_security_module
> 
> These tiny USB keys store the RSA keys on a secure element which is
> physically tamper-resistant.  The key material never leaves the hardware
> token.  However, you'd probably have to write a custom provider for
> OpenSSL, and the throughput would probably only be sufficient for a very
> small amount of traffic.  If you need something that can handle a higher
> load, you might consider purchasing one of Cavium's cards:
> 
> http://www.cavium.com/overview.html
> 
> However, they are 10 gigabit passthrough devices and will unwrap /
> re-wrap the SSL session in hardware.  They are not cheap.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 11:46 PM, James <james.arivazhagan at gmail.com
> <mailto:james.arivazhagan at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi there, 
>     I have a concern regarding the private keys we use in the https (say
>     apache) server. 
>     The https server links with openssl.so file, and uses the APIs
>     provided by it. 
>     If some one build their own openssl and add few lines to print the
>     keys during encrypt and decrypt and put in the library in the
>     LD_LIBRARY_PATH, may result in compromising the security of the keys.
> 
>     Does any of you faced this problem and if you could share the
>     solution it would be helpful. 
> 
>     regards,
>     James Arivazhagan Ponnusamy  
> 
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> 
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-- 

Thater & Schwier Consulting GbR
Frank Thater
M.Sc. in Applied IT Security,
Dipl.-Wirt.-Inf.
Schülerweg 38
32429 Minden, Germany
Phone +49 160 6316655
http://www.tscons.de

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