Xilinx “Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC’s” Benchmarking with wolfSSL

Benchmark values of the wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library running on Xilinx boards, including the ZCU102, have been collected and are up for viewing. Our friends over at Xilinx have a white paper posted that goes into detail about the benchmark values here: https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/white_papers/wp512-accel-crypto.pdf. This shows how much faster applications can perform secure operations when incorporating the hardware acceleration available on Xilinx devices. It also gives a demonstration of the performance trade-offs when choosing FreeRTOS versus an embedded Linux OS.

For questions about building wolfSSL to use hardware acceleration or other general inquiries about wolfSSL, please contact us at facts@wolfssl.com.

Differences between TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 (#TLS13)

wolfSSL's embedded SSL/TLS library has included support for TLS 1.3 since early releases of the TLS 1.3 draft. Since then, wolfSSL has remained up-to-date with the TLS 1.3 specification. In this post, the major upgrades of TLS 1.3 from TLS 1.2 are outlined below:

TLS 1.3

This protocol is defined in RFC 8446. TLS 1.3 contains improved security and speed. The major differences include:

  • The list of supported symmetric algorithms has been pruned of all legacy algorithms. The remaining algorithms all use Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) algorithms.
  • A zero-RTT (0-RTT) mode was added, saving a round-trip at connection setup for some application data at the cost of certain security properties.
  • Static RSA and Diffie-Hellman cipher suites have been removed; all public-key based key exchange mechanisms now provide forward secrecy.
  • All handshake messages after the ServerHello are now encrypted.
  • Key derivation functions have been re-designed, with the HMAC-based Extract-and-Expand Key Derivation Function (HKDF) being used as a primitive.
  • The handshake state machine has been restructured to be more consistent and remove superfluous messages.
  • ECC is now in the base spec  and includes new signature algorithms. Point format negotiation has been removed in favor of single point format for each curve.
  • Compression, custom DHE groups, and DSA have been removed, RSA padding now uses PSS.
  • TLS 1.2 version negotiation verification mechanism was deprecated in favor of a version list in an extension.
  • Session resumption with and without server-side state and the PSK-based ciphersuites of earlier versions of TLS have been replaced by a single new PSK exchange.

More information about wolfSSL and the TLS 1.3 protocol can be found here: https://www.wolfssl.com/docs/tls13/.

Additionally, please contact facts@wolfssl.com for any questions.

wolfSSL Support for DO-178 DAL A

wolfSSL now provides support for complete RTCA DO-178C level A certification! wolfSSL will offer DO-178 wolfCrypt as a commercial off -the-shelf (COTS) solution for connected avionics applications. Adherence to DO-178C level A will be supported through the first wolfCrypt COTS DO-178C certification kit release that includes traceable artifacts for the following encryption algorithms:

  • SHA-256 for message digest
  • AES for encryption and decryption
  • RSA to sign and verify a message.
  • Chacha20_poly1305 for authenticated encryption and decryption.

The primary goal of this initial release is to provide the proper cryptographic underpinnings for secure boot and secure firmware update in commercial and military avionics. wolfSSL brings trusted, military-grade security to connected commercial and military aircraft. Avionics developers now have a flexible, compact, economical, high-performance COTS solution for quickly delivering FIPS 140-2 validated crypto algorithms can be used in DO-178 mode for combined FIPS 140-2/DO-178 consumption. The wolfCrypt cryptography library FIPS 140-2 validation certificates can be applied to DO-178 uses. 

Optimization Support

We understand that securely rebooting avionic systems has rigorous performance requirements. As such, we’re here to help with cryptographic performance optimizations through our services organization. 

To download and view the most recent version of wolfSSL, the wolfSSL GitHub repository can be cloned from here: https://github.com/wolfssl/wolfssl.git, and the most recent stable release can be downloaded from the wolfSSL download page here: https://www.wolfssl.com/download/.

wolfSSL DO-178 product page: https://www.wolfssl.com/wolfssl-support-178-dal/.

For more information, please contact facts@wolfssl.com.

 

 

wolfSSL FIPS Ready and curl (#wolfSSL #wolfCrypt #curl)

wolfSSL FIPS Ready

Along with the recent release of wolfSSL v4.1.0, wolfSSL has updated its support for the wolfCrypt FIPS Ready version of the wolfSSL library. wolfCrypt FIPS Ready is our FIPS enabled cryptography layer included in the wolfSSL source tree that can be enabled and built. To elaborate on what FIPS Ready really means: you do not get a FIPS certificate and you are not FIPS approved. FIPS Ready means that you have included the FIPS code into your build and that you are operating according to the FIPS enforced best practices of default entry point, and Power On Self Test (POST).

FIPS Ready with curl

(modified from Daniel Stenberg

The integration of wolfSSL and curl means that the curl library can also be built using the wolfCrypt FIPS ready library. The following outlines the steps for building curl with FIPS Ready:

1. Download wolfSSL fips ready

2. Unzip the source code somewhere suitable:

$ cd $HOME/src
$ unzip wolfssl-4.1.0-gplv3-fips-ready.zip
$ cd wolfssl-4.1.0-gplv3-fips-ready

3. Build the fips-ready wolfSSL and install it somewhere suitable:

$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/wolfssl-fips --enable-harden --enable-all
$ make -sj
$ make install

4. Download curl, the normal curl package.

5. Unzip the source code somewhere suitable:

$ cd $HOME/src
$ unzip curl-7.66.0.zip
$ cd curl-7.66.0

6. Build curl with the just recently built and installed FIPS ready wolfSSL version:

$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/wolfssl-fips/lib ./configure --with-wolfssl=$HOME/wolfssl-fips --without-ssl
$ make -sj

7. Now, verify that your new build matches your expectations by:

$ ./src/curl -V

It should show that it uses wolfSSL and that all the protocols and features you want are enabled and present. If not, iterate until it does!

wolfSSL FIPS ready is open source and dual-licensed. More information about building FIPS ready can be found in the FIPS Ready user guide.
More information about wolfSSL and curl can be found on the curl product page.
Details on wolfSSL support for curl is also located on the support page.

For more information regarding wolfSSL, wolfCrypt, cURL, support packages, or any additional questions, please contact facts@wolfssl.com.

 

wolfSSL + Nginx

The wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library provides support for various open source projects, including Nginx. For those who are unfamiliar, Nginx is a high-performance, high-concurrency web server. Like wolfSSL, it is also compact, fast, and highly scalable. Additionally, wolfSSL also provides support for TLS 1.3 and features such as OCSP, so Nginx servers can be configured with the latest and most secure protocols.

Nginx and wolfSSL make a likely pairing because they are both lean, compact, fast, and scale well under high volumes of connections. wolfSSL + Nginx is available in a public GitHub repository.  The configure option --enable-nginx will compile the wolfSSL libraries with Nginx support.

wolfSSL also provides FIPS and FIPS ready versions of the wolfCrypt library, meaning Nginx can be built FIPS compliant. More information on wolfCrypt FIPS can be found on the wolfCrypt FIPS FAQ page.

For more information on wolfSSL + Nginx, TLS 1.3, OCSP, FIPS, or for any additional questions, contact facts@wolfssl.com.

wolfCrypt as an engine for OpenSSL

As many people know, the OpenSSL project is struggling with FIPS, and their new FIPS release is not expected until December 2020. The version of OpenSSL that supports FIPS goes into End Of Life and is no longer supported in December of 2019.

This means that OpenSSL users will not have a supported package for over a year. This is a big issue for companies that rely on security.

To fill this breach, wolfSSL has integrated our FIPS certified crypto module with OpenSSL as an OpenSSL engine. This means that:

1. OpenSSL users can get a supported FIPS solution, with packages available up to the 24×7 level,

2. The new wolfCrypt FIPS solution also supports the TLS 1.3 algorithms, so your package can support TLS 1.3,

3. You can support hardware encryption with your package, as the new wolfCrypt solution has full hardware encryption support.

Additionally, should you be using one of the OpenSSL derivatives like BoringSSL, we can also support you.

Contact us at facts@wolfssl.com if you would like to learn more!

We love you.

Team wolfSSL

Remote firmware updates for embedded systems with wolfBoot

Remote firmware updates for embedded systems

Firmware updates are one of the most important factors to take into account very early in the process of  starting the development of any IoT project. When the software is maintained by a development team, anything that goes wrong can be fixed on the field and new features can be deployed quickly, as long as remote updates are efficient, reliable and trusted.

Products can be pushed into production earlier, offering the possibility for a different strategy that involves remote updates when new features are ready, or when defects on the current version have been fixed. For this reason, it is in general a good idea to include a firmware update mechanism since the very early phases of  your product or platform definition.

Microcontroller-based systems are quite challenging when it comes to firmware updates. On one hand, modern microcontrollers provide a wide range of features, a large choice of embedded operating systems, significantly reduced engineering costs for products based on a simpler design and the ability of running in ultra low-power environment, some even relying solely on energy-harvesting devices. On the other hand, embedded systems cannot relocate executable code at run-time. Even if a system is capable of multi-threading, threads are almost always defined at compile time, assigned a fixed stack space, and all the code is often linked together into a single executable firmware image.

Using a monolithic image makes impossible to update single components on the system without changing the layout of the code stored in flash. A bootloader can be helpful in this case.

MCU bootloaders

A classic approach for updating the firmware of a running embedded system is by using a bootloader.

Chip manufacturers often provide very simple pre-installed bootloaders, that can be used to update the partition images on a running system. A very common strategy adopted by these bootloaders is to provide a “DFU mode” as an alternative boot stage to choose, where DFU is the acronym for “device firmware update”. This mechanism often allows to update all the software stored on the target flash, using local devices such as UARTs or the DFU-USB device class specification. Pre-installed bootloaders may result helpful during the development of a few prototypes to speed up the life-cycle, or when the number of targets and their geographical location allows for manually-activated updates.

Connected devices however have a different range of challenges to deal with. Updates must be fail-safe  in order to prevent the node from being unreachable after a software failure. Security considerations arise whenever the firmware is transmitted using a public network, or over-the-air, about the authenticity and the integrity of firmware update images. How do IoT projects deal with this? Building your own bootloader may seem viable, but it may become as time and resource consuming as maintaining the firmware itself, and definitely does not help cutting down your time to market.

wolfBoot

wolfBoot is an open source secure bootloader for all microcontrollers, designed to support remote firmware updates in embedded systems. It currently supports ARM Cortex-M and RISC-V architectures, and can be integrated in embedded systems using by partitioning of the non-volatile memory available on board.

Thanks to its in-place swapping mechanism, any memory support can be used by the application to store the firmware updates. The updates are then verified and authenticated by wolfBoot after the system reboots. A copy of the old firmware, overwritten only by a validated update, is temporarily stored into the update space to provide a fall-back mechanism in case of boot failures due to a defective firmware release. The image must in fact be confirmed after a valid update.

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