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it uses an HSM. You can always verify cryptographically that you are communicating with an HSM.
by halayli 12y ago
it uses an HSM. You can always verify cryptographically that you are communicating with an HSM.
- e12e 12y agoNo, you can't. You can verify that you're communicating with an API that is consistent with a HSM -- but how are you going to verify that it's not a software HSM on a VM on x86 hardware?
- halayli 12y agoYes you can. http://www2.safenet-inc.com/AWS-guides/Remotely_Verifying_an_HSM_is_Real_Tech_Note.pdf http://www2.safenet-inc.com/AWS-guides/Remotely_Verifying_an...
- e12e 12y agoThat doesn't verify that you're communicating with an actual HSM, just that you're communicating with something operating like a HSM, that has a key signed by someone that promise they'll only sign keys of actual HSMs. It's a good initiative, and as long as you trust the company, you can trust that they probably haven't signed a compromised key, or that someone's been able to extract the key from a HSM (something that's really hard, but see eg: the (first) XBOX hack involving an electron microscope for reading key-bits from ROM).
- halayli 12y agoIf you can't trust safenet then you shouldn't use their HSM. They gave you the process of verifying that the HSM is a safenet hardware security module and that is a FIPS compliant one.