wolfSSL Math Library Comparison Matrix
The wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library includes three different math libraries which can be used to support wolfCrypt’s cryptographic operations – the Normal Math library, the fastmath library, and SP math. To help our users decide which math library is right for them, we have put together a helpful comparison matrix!
The wolfSSL Math Library Comparison Matrix, included below, shows the strengths and weaknesses of the 3 math options offered by wolfSSL. If you have any commentary or feedback please reach out to our team at facts@wolfssl.com or support@wolfssl.com!
wolfTPM v2.0 Release
A major release for wolfTPM came out at the end of 2020 and is now available for download from our website. This release brings many new features:
- Native support for using TPM2.0 hardware with wolfTPM under Microsoft Windows
- TPM simulator support for even easier development with wolfTPM and MacOS users
- Protection from MITM (man-in-the-middle) attacks using TPM2.0 Parameter Encryption. wolfTPM supports both TPM2.0 options for MITM protection, XOR encryption and AES CFB.
- HMAC Session support for verification of peer authenticity and integrity.
This release also adds multiple new examples: TPM key generation and key loading examples with options to store the key to disk and use parameter encryption to protect from MITM. Added is support for importing external private keys and easy re-loading. And for those who use the internal TPM clock for reference, there is now a TPM clock increment example.
Among the other enhancements of our portable TPM2.0 library are the use of HMAC sessions and new wolfTPM wrappers for easier work with TPM sessions and authorization of TPM objects.
Please contact us at facts@wolfssl.com for more information and help for taking advantage of the new wolfTPM features to better protect your systems.
wolfSSL Use With Signal
Back in January of 2018 wolfSSL added support for use with the Open Whisper Systems Signal Protocol C Library! This means that you can now develop Signal applications using wolfCrypt as the underlying cryptography provider.
For those unfamiliar with the Signal Protocol, it is described on their GitHub page as “A ratcheting forward secrecy protocol that works in synchronous and asynchronous messaging environments.”
wolfSSL also has a JSSE provider that can be used with Android. This can seamlessly replace the default provider, giving all the benefits that come with using wolfSSL. Such as; extra performance boosts, access to our stellar support, and FIPS certifications to name a few items. Instructions on using the wolfSSL JSSE with Android can be found here https://www.wolfssl.com/docs/installing-a-jsse-provider-in-android-osp/.
wolfCrypt Signal Protocol Integration
By design, the Signal Protocol C Library does not depend on any SSL/TLS or cryptography library. Instead, Signal allows the application to register a crypto provider at runtime. We recently ported the wolfCrypt cryptography library into the “libsignal-protocol-c” test code and added a CMake configuration to build the libsignal-protocol-c test programs using cryptography from wolfSSL.
With this build option and wolfCrypt integration, Signal application developers can choose to use cryptography from wolfSSL instead of OpenSSL. Thanks to wolfSSL’s small footprint size, low memory usage, and broad platform support, application developers can more easily use the Signal Protocol C Library on small resource-constrained platforms and embedded systems.
For more information on using wolfCrypt with Signal, contact us at facts@wolfssl.com!
New Sparkplug example in wolfMQTT
The team here at wolfSSL is putting together a Sparkplug example that we’d like to share with you! The Sparkplug specification is useful for Industrial IoT system developers building on top of MQTT. Sparkplug defines a set of device states, adds topic naming structures, and defines payload formats. The wolfMQTT client library is perfectly suited to help secure your IIoT project since it is already integrated with wolfSSL!
For more information send a quick note to facts@wolfssl.com
You can download the latest release here: https://www.wolfssl.com/download/
Or clone directly from our GitHub repository: https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfMQTT
While you’re there, show us some love and give the wolfMQTT project a Star!
wolfSSL Vulnerabilities In 2020
Last year wolfSSL fixed 8 vulnerabilities and documented them in the wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library release notes. Thanks to all of the researcher reports, and to the dedicated wolfSSL team, the fixes were identified and resolved rapidly. How rapidly you may ask? The average time to get a fix submitted for review on the vulnerabilities listed in 2020 was just over 26 hours.
Thanks to the researchers that submitted reports!
- Gerald Doussot from NCC group
- Lenny Wang of Tencent Security Xuanwu LAB
- Ida Bruhns from Universität zu Lübeck and Samira Briongos from NEC Laboratories Europe
- Alejandro Cabrera Aldaya, Cesar Pereida García and Billy Bob Brumley from the Network and Information Security Group (NISEC) at Tampere University
- Paul Fiterau of Uppsala University and Robert Merget of Ruhr-University Bochum
- Pietro Borrello at Sapienza University of Rome
If you have a vulnerability to report or would like more information, contact us at facts@wolfssl.com, the wolfSSL development team takes vulnerabilities seriously.
Distribution of Crypto Operations
wolfSSL is developing a library to handle the location of where crypto operations run amongst multiple cores. For large systems that have many sign/verify operations happening at once this library would be able to distribute those sign/verify requests based on a user’s input. In addition to managing where the operation runs it can be used to plug in hardware acceleration for handling requests that come in. An example use case would be having 3 cores for generic lower priority operations and saving 1 core that has hardware acceleration for fast, real time responses, that would run high priority operations.
Contact us at facts@wolfssl.com with any questions, or for more details! The wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library also supports TLS 1.3, FIPS 140-2/3, and DO-178.
Upcoming Webinar: Securing the IoT from the End Point (or Edge) to the Cloud
We would like to personally invite you to a webinar presented by wolfSSL Partner Microchip!
If you are developing IoT systems, this webinar will help you learn how to use TLS/MQTT to ensure secure endpoint-to-cloud communication and employ hardware roots of trust to enable strong security. We will also explain how to use wolfSSL, with its secure software suite integrated within our MPLAB® Harmony Framework, to secure endpoint communication.
Title: SHIELDS UP! Webinar #29: Securing the IoT from the Endpoint to the Cloud
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Time: 08:00 AM Pacific Standard Time
Duration: 45 minutes
Register for the webinar here: https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=2862875&sessionid=1&key=0AE813D5055E821C7E8E12C6546B44F2®Tag=&V2=false&sourcepage=register
Learn more about Microchip’s webinar series here:
https://www.microchip.com/training/webinars/security/shields-up-webinar-series
We hope to see you there!
Additional Resources
Please contact us at facts@wolfssl.com with any questions about the webinar. For technical support, please contact support@wolfssl.com or view our FAQ page.
In the meanwhile, check out the wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library, star us on Github, and learn more about the latest TLS 1.3 is available in wolfSSL.
Sniffing traffic with TLS v1.3
The wolfSSL library includes a useful tool for sniffing TLS traffic. This can be used to capture and decrypt live or recorded PCAP traces when at least one of the keys is known. Typically a static RSA ciphersuite would be used, however with TLS v1.3 only Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) ciphers are allowed. For TLS v1.3 all cipher suites use a new ephemeral key for each new session.
In order to solve this we added a “static ephemeral” feature, which allows setting a known key that is used for deriving a shared secret. The key can be rolled periodically and synchronized with the sniffer tool to decrypt traffic. This feature is disabled by default and is only recommended for internal or test environments.
As a proof of concept we added this support to Apache httpd to demonstrate real-time decryption of web traffic. We are also working on a key manager to assist with key rolling and synchronization.
A use case that might be interesting is a company internal web server that requires auditing.
The TLS v1.3 sniffer support was added in PR 3044 and officially supported in v4.6.0.
The Apache httpd branch with sniffer and FIPS ready support is here.
Contact us at facts@wolfssl.com to learn more!
wolfSSL Use With Hexagon Toolchain
The Qualcomm Hexagon SDK is used for building code to run on DSP processors. Use of the Hexagon toolchain to offload ECC verify operations has been added to wolfSSL. This can free up the main CPU for other operations or lead to future optimizations with HVX on some algorithms that use vector operations. The Makefile for building with the Hexagon toolchain and a README with more information can be found in the directory wolfssl-4.6.0/IDE/HEXAGON.
For questions about wolfSSL contact facts@wolfssl.com.
What is TPM parameter encryption?
Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) give us a secure vault for storing keys and secrets. We could also use a TPM as root-of-trust for reporting the health and integrity of our servers or bare metal systems (e.g. IoT). However, TPMs are physical devices. The communication between our software and the TPM happens over a physical interface, typically a SPI bus. This physical interface could be attacked maliciously. For example, IoT and Edge devices are exposed at this risk, because they are deployed in the field. An attacker might physically open the device and try to interfere with the communication between our software and the TPM. To protect from this risk, a TPM offers the capability of parameter encryption.
TPM has the ability to receive commands with their first parameter encrypted. If requested, the TPM could also respond with an encrypted first parameter. Usually, the first parameter is where the most sensitive data of a TPM command is stored. For example, during a TPM2_Create for generating a new key pair, the authValue used as password for the new key is stored in a structure called inSensitive that is the very first parameter of a TPM2_Create command request. All of this should be handled by the TPM stack. Because in order to use parameter encryption a TPM session must be set.
wolfTPM recently added parameter encryption support for protection of man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks and offers new API wrappers to simplify its use. There is now the wolfTPM2_StartSesssion wrapper to start TPM sessions for parameter encryption and wolfTPM2_SetAuth to make use of this session. Regardless, if you want to use this extra layer of protection or not, the wolfTPM2_CreateKey wrapper accepts the same number of parameters. This way the development cycle is not affected, if you want to add MITM protection to your secure application by using wolfTPM.
TPM supports AES CFB and XOR method for parameter encryption, and wolfTPM supports both. All the encryption and decryption of command parameters is handled by the stack. The secure exchange of secrets for setting up the TPM session for parameter encryption also happens seamlessly from the developer’s perspective.
If you have questions about adding wolfTPM to your project, or need tips on getting started with using a TPM, email us at facts@wolfssl.com.