3 ms·

The top answer writes enthusiastically about how difficult it is, but without providing any real details. The crazy epoxy stuff he writes about is not specified

The top answer writes enthusiastically about how difficult it is, but without providing any real details. The crazy epoxy stuff he writes about is not specified in the FIPS requirements but rather a lazy hack some people do when they want to run non-FIPS certified consumer hardware. Remarkably he even hypothesizes the solution that they almost certainly are using here, without realizing how trivial it is: > Guess: maybe there are tiny wires in the casing and an "intrusion detection" chip with its own battery that is never powered off so that it can monitor for breakage of the wires and trigger a wipe? This is very likely what they are doing. And it's both simple and cheap to manufacture and implement at scale. Basically the inner-side of the metal casing is conductive and etched to be a big wire looping around the device, forming a circuit. Any attempt to drill or decase it will break the circuit and trigger a wipe. The wipe itself is done by a small 16-bit microcontroller powered off a watch battery or large capacitor. All the parts cost less than a dollar, and the case etching machine is something a company like Kingston would have on hand for other purposes. At my last job we had to roll our own physical security solution for protecting keys because the off-the-shelf FIPS level 3 stuff was so brain-dead stupid and easy to defeat that it didn't meat our security needs.

manigandham 6y ago
How would you defeat that if it's supposed to be so easy?
- garmaine 6y ago
  Many options. Drill through the conductive portion of the USB connector itself, which obviously can't be part of the circuit. Put it in a cryogenic freezer to kill the electronics without wiping the static ram. Evesdrop on the USB connection itself which leaks EM radiation like a sieve. User power analysis to extract the key since a device in this form factor is typically not using constant-power components. That's just off the top of my head.
  - buran77 6y ago
    I see you're now confusing "raising the bar for a successful hack" with "must be guaranteed impenetrable". One can invest a lot into obtaining a successful hack so we might as well not even try to protect it? Let that sink in before your next comment. Standing against your own point is that your HN account password is not posted in your profile even if it could be obtained with the famous $5 wrench. But to your point, at Level 3 it most likely means any normal attempt to open the case or rewrite the firmware would irretrievably destroy the device or wipe the encryption keys. Flash freezing a device or drilling is likely to have this effect since some of the epoxy housing should be made to crack and sever specific connection triggering the wipe before all of the heat is conducted away from the inner components. Same for using solvents, acids, or radiation which may be more of a Level 4 compliance. As for the power constant components (whether they are at L3 or L4), they may or may not be used. It may very well be part of the asking price. Apple's T2 chip is FIPS 140-2 compliant and you can be certain a lot of money was invested in making it secure yet it was still jailbroken.
buran77 6y ago
You're confusing requirements with implementation. Sure, you don't have to douse your motherboard in epoxy, just find an equivalent implementation to fulfill the same requirements* . Still damn difficult. * Vials of fluoroantimonic acid affixed to the device with slabs of C4 and high voltage tripwires?
- antonvs 6y ago
  The certification lab is going to want words with you, if they survive.
mcguire 6y ago
"At my last job we had to roll our own physical security solution for protecting keys because the off-the-shelf FIPS level 3 stuff was so brain-dead stupid and easy to defeat that it didn't meat our security needs." Have you considered contacting NIST to get certified? You could get in on the action.
- garmaine 6y ago
  It was not possible because FIPS mandates use of certain crypto systems (and to NOT use others), and our application domain—bitcoin private key management—required the use of non-standard cryptography. According to the lawyers we talked to, we couldn’t meet both needs. In my experience with the government, a waiver is probably possible though. But none of our customers were demanding FIPS certification.

manigandham 6y ago

How would you defeat that if it's supposed to be so easy?

garmaine 6y ago
Many options. Drill through the conductive portion of the USB connector itself, which obviously can't be part of the circuit. Put it in a cryogenic freezer to kill the electronics without wiping the static ram. Evesdrop on the USB connection itself which leaks EM radiation like a sieve. User power analysis to extract the key since a device in this form factor is typically not using constant-power components. That's just off the top of my head.
- buran77 6y ago
  I see you're now confusing "raising the bar for a successful hack" with "must be guaranteed impenetrable". One can invest a lot into obtaining a successful hack so we might as well not even try to protect it? Let that sink in before your next comment. Standing against your own point is that your HN account password is not posted in your profile even if it could be obtained with the famous $5 wrench. But to your point, at Level 3 it most likely means any normal attempt to open the case or rewrite the firmware would irretrievably destroy the device or wipe the encryption keys. Flash freezing a device or drilling is likely to have this effect since some of the epoxy housing should be made to crack and sever specific connection triggering the wipe before all of the heat is conducted away from the inner components. Same for using solvents, acids, or radiation which may be more of a Level 4 compliance. As for the power constant components (whether they are at L3 or L4), they may or may not be used. It may very well be part of the asking price. Apple's T2 chip is FIPS 140-2 compliant and you can be certain a lot of money was invested in making it secure yet it was still jailbroken.

buran77 6y ago

You're confusing requirements with implementation. Sure, you don't have to douse your motherboard in epoxy, just find an equivalent implementation to fulfill the same requirements* . Still damn difficult. * Vials of fluoroantimonic acid affixed to the device with slabs of C4 and high voltage tripwires?

antonvs 6y ago
The certification lab is going to want words with you, if they survive.

mcguire 6y ago

"At my last job we had to roll our own physical security solution for protecting keys because the off-the-shelf FIPS level 3 stuff was so brain-dead stupid and easy to defeat that it didn't meat our security needs." Have you considered contacting NIST to get certified? You could get in on the action.

garmaine 6y ago
It was not possible because FIPS mandates use of certain crypto systems (and to NOT use others), and our application domain—bitcoin private key management—required the use of non-standard cryptography. According to the lawyers we talked to, we couldn’t meet both needs. In my experience with the government, a waiver is probably possible though. But none of our customers were demanding FIPS certification.