7 ms·
Apple iMac Pro and Secure Storage
- exabrial 8y agoWe've had hardware accelerated AES FDE on SSDs forever, I think since the Samsung 840pro...
- spunker540 8y agoThese use-cases for specialized processors are prime examples of how Apple's software-hardware bundling can give their products some really cool advantages over competitors. I'm not a security specialist though -- so I'm curious how valuable these extra hardware protections are to the security community at-large.
- klodolph 8y agoI know of at least one place where the MacBook Pro fingerprint sensor is approved for authentication, but the only other approved devices are dedicated hardware (security tokens).
- gruez 8y ago>MacBook Pro fingerprint sensor is approved for authentication does the fingerprint sensor API return a signed response from the fingerprint sensor or SE? or is it a simple yes/no?. if it's the latter, the whole thing is security theater.
- extra88 8y agoThe MacBook Pro's TouchID works like it does on iPhones, with the Secure Enclave.
- pudquick 8y agoWhy does that make a difference? If it's a signed response, at some point there's another piece of code that checks that the signature is valid and returns a yes/no. I think the reason Apple's sensor was mentioned in this instance was due to how Apple handled storage and usage of biometrics as described in here https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf Compare that to, say, other laptop vendors: https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/len-15999 https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/len-15999
- Buge 8y agoIt depends on where you're authenticating to. If you're authenticating to yourself, then sure a signature is will just be converted to a yes/no and be no better. But if you're authenticating to a server, the server can do the signature verification, whereas a server looking at a yes/no that a client sends would be mostly useless.
- wmf 8y agoI wonder what software they're using, because AFAIK the enclave doesn't provide attestation. So Touch ID is really secure but there's no way to prove to the server that you're using Touch ID. But I guess most hardware tokens don't have attestation either.
- willstrafach 8y agoYou can generate a key pair on the secure enclave which never leaves it, so could be that, same as a smart card.
- izacus 8y agoI think you forgot about Pixelbooks ;)
- klodolph 8y agoNo, I definitely did not forget about Pixelbooks. They're not approved (and not for a lack of people interested in getting them approved).
- userbinator 8y agoThe unique pairing here provides some very important security properties that prevent the memory chips that comprise the SSD itself from being physically removed from the system and connected to a different system, or from having their contents extracted from the chips and flashed onto SSD chips in another system. Yet more sadness for data recovery companies and those who've lost files and want their services. Full disk encryption has been around for a long time and, well-implemented, will let you recover the encrypted data to transfer to new media (so the DR company can't see your secrets either, but you haven't lost anything.) IMHO encryption should be opt-in --- contrary to what those advocating it think, not every piece of data I have needs to be encrypted, and I certainly have plenty more personal files that I would rather have become publicly accessible than lost forever. It's a tradeoff between "if someone hacks in, they can read my data too" and "if something goes wrong, no one can read my data, including myself" and I think this tradeoff needs to be a more explicit choice.
- nvk 8y agoPut that data in a separate drive then, all the rest should be encrypted by default.
- chejazi 8y agoIn general, lack of encryption enables passive surveillance. I think a better solution than opt-in encryption could be on-by-default, with a multi-party recovery scheme.
- eli 8y agoDoesn't Windows have an option to have Microsoft keep a key in escrow? Seems like a reasonable compromise for most people.
- eat_veggies 8y agoYes, you can attach your Bitlocker recovery keys to your Microsoft account. I trust them well enough, since my threat model doesn't include state actors or MS themselves--if they really wanted my data, they could just ship an update to my machine while everything's decrypted anyway.
- gruez 8y agofeels over engineered to me. a TPM + OS FDE (with AES acceleration) probably gets the same performance without the need for special parts.
- amluto 8y agoI assume the goal is to prevent the OS from needing to know the key.
- gruez 8y agowhat's the problem with letting the OS know the key? it already has access to all the files! the only use i can think of is some sort of multi-user system where you can't trust the kernel, but if you can't trust the kernel, it's already game over.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mehrdada 8y ago> what's the problem with letting the OS know the key? it already has access to all the files! How about when your device is locked in sleep mode. The main processor should lose the key to a certain set of files, as does on iOS.
- gruez 8y agothat's more of an argument for encrypting filesystem instead of full disk encryption (which I agree would help in that situation), not an argument for having a custom security co-processor. you can accomplish the same thing with TPM: by using PCR sealed keys for the OS files, PCR + password sealed keys for private/personal files, and wiping the second set of keys every time you lock the computer.
- mbreese 8y agoI'd assume the goal would be to allow macOS to support secure data access with a processor that doesn't necessarily have a TPM. (Assuming you could do the exact same things with a TPM) As for what kind of hardware that might be (ahem ARM) would just be speculation... The dedicated T2 chip gives Apple more flexibility for the future and control over the present. Both of these things Apple values.
- pimlottc 8y agoI'd like to know if this will help enable support for more authentication methods at boot time for unlocking full disk encryption, such as Yubikey challenge-response or smartcard PKCS #11. Sort of a drag if you're using token-based login but you still need to memorize a password for FDE.
- HillaryBriss 8y agoIn order to understand Apple’s decision to switch from the older Serial ATA (SATA) interface to the higher-performing Non-Volatile Memory Express or NVMe, we recommend reading Ramtin Amin’s excellent deep-dive into its implementation. The main advantages of using NVMe to provide SSD storage access are that by using all the available parallel operations possible with modern flash-based storage over a four-lane PCIe connection, much better I/O speeds can be achieved compared to older HDD-specific interfaces. Kinda surprised that this needed an Apple-specific explanation. I mean, didn't all board manufacturers move toward NVMe simply because it's faster than ATA?
- codebook 8y agoIn these days, a lot of SSD makers have AES engine inside, it encrypts and decrypts on-the-fly. I don't understand the usage of AES in T2.
- foobarbazetc 8y agoYeah it’s a strange re-implementation of SEDs.
- Twisell 8y agoBecause this way you have to put your trust in only one company instead of all it’s suppliers? PS: And for the company one less dependency to manage?
- gumby 8y agoThe NVMe storage doesn't look like an SSD and doesn't have a traditional disk controller.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- thisacctforreal 8y agoThe Secure Enclave in the T1 and all iPhones since the 5s has a unique key in the AES engine's silicon, that cannot be read even from the Secure Enclave's firmware. This key is "tangled" with user-supplied keys for per-device access to data. I assume the T2 offers this same feature. See UID in the glossary (page 80) or under Hardware security features (page 12) of the iOS 11 Security Guide https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf
- jwr 8y agoHow do you know it encrypts and decrypts on-the-fly? Is there a way to verify it? [and before someone says it, yes, in the iMac Pro you can read the data off the NVMe lanes to check if it indeed is encrypted]