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I think HSMs are selling security (rather than security being an additional feature) and therefore you may be surprised at the amount of testing and scrutiny be

I think HSMs are selling security (rather than security being an additional feature) and therefore you may be surprised at the amount of testing and scrutiny being done. As I mentioned, I saw a pentest happening, that included physical, network, software, pretty much anything that could be done over months. Issues like the Debian OpenSSL issues show that something being open source does not mean it's getting the scrutiny it needs, and while open source software is easier to apply that scrutiny to, I think the relationship is far more complicated than that. If a defence contractor like Thales was asked to put a backdoor in, do you think that wouldn't be found if their device was tested for months on end by external testers paid to, and motivated by, finding vulnerabilities. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I do think they deserve a little more credit than you may be giving them.

michaelt 5y ago
> If a defence contractor like Thales was asked to put a backdoor in, do you think that wouldn't be found [..] by external testers There are many ways to design a back door that would pass such security audits, yes. One option is to simply give the auditors a device without the back door - or a firmware listing without it. You can also create bugs that are undetectable by black box testing - such as generating keys with insufficient entropy. Another is to copy subtle bugs from other products, that sat in plain sight for years. And of course the testers will all be under NDA so if they do find your back door, they’ve already promised to take part in your cover-up.