RECENT BLOG NEWS

OpenSSL recently released patches for two vulnerabilities [1] – one related to how OpenSSL generates Diffie-Hellman prime values and the other that potentially allowed a malicious client to negotiate old SSLv2 ciphers that had been disabled on the server.  Since both of these are OpenSSL implementation vulnerabilities, wolfSSL users are SAFE.

For reference, the two OpenSSL vulnerabilities that were patched were:

CVE 2016-0701
CVE 2015-3197

[1] http://openssl.org/news/secadv/20160128.txt

New in wolfSSL v3.8.0 we have added support for NXP’s LPCExpresso IDE and a reference project using the LPC18S37 on the OM13076 (LPCXpresso18S37) board. The reference project and README.md are located in the repository at:

/IDE/LPCXPRESSO

Please contact us at facts@wolfssl.com or support@wolfssl.com with any questions about using the wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library with LPCExpresso.

We have recently updated our ChaCha20-Poly1305 cipher suites. The ChaCha20-Poly1305 AEAD cipher suites are performant and use low amounts of memory, making it a good fit for IoT devices. This recent update allows for interoperability with the current OpenSSL, GnuTLS, and BoringSSL libraries when using ChaCha20-Poly1305 in a TLS connection and continues interoperability with libraries using the older version of RFCs like LibreSSL and the www.google.com server. For connection with the older RFC there has been an addition of ChaCha20-Poly1305 cipher suites ending with “-OLD” for example ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305-OLD.

This most recent addition to the wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library is on our GitHub account located at https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl and will be coming to the wolfSSL website https://wolfssl.com/download in our next release, scheduled for the end of February.

For any questions contact us at facts@wolfssl.com.

1.  You want more robust security.

2.  You want to avoid the steady stream of security updates required by using OpenSSL.

3.  You are paranoid, and want to use quantum safe crypto.

4.  You are performance driven, and want to leverage the latest hardware crypto, or tune in progressive ciphers.

5.  You want direct support for the crypto you use in MySQL or MariaDB.

6.  You need FIPS 140-2 support for your MySQL install.

7.  You want to use ChaCha/Poly.

You can check out the patch here.  If you have questions or need support, then give us a call at +1 425 245 8247 or email us at facts@wolfssl.com.

A new year, another attack on TLS.  Karthikeyan Bhargavan and Gaetan Leurent of INRIA recently announced the new attack.  TLS 1.2 allows negotiation of the hashing algorithm used for signatures, typically to “upgrade” the hash to a higher security level.  Before TLS 1.2 a combination of MD5 and SHA1 were used for signatures. TLS 1.2 allows SHA1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, but also MD5 to be chosen for signatures.  Fortunately for users of the wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library
we’ve never supported MD5 based signatures in TLS 1.2.

To be clear, wolfSSL is not vulnerable to key strength loss because it does not allow MD5 based signatures for the server or client.  Several implementations are affected by the attack: http://www.mitls.org/pages/attacks/SLOTH .  

For any questions about TLS security in wolfSSL contact us at facts@wolfssl.com

Everybody with a pulse is excited about the IoT, for all of the right reasons, but the market is starting to recognize the challenges of security. See the following EE Times article by John Curran of Accenture for a description of the security challenges of IoT: https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328584.

Fortunately, wolfSSL is here to help secure your IoT designs. We currently have staff at CES, so let us know if you would like to get together at the show by emailing us at facts@wolfssl.com.

Securing connected devices, including the IoT, is very important to us at wolfSSL. Larry Stefonic, CEO and Co-Founder of wolfSSL, recently published a guest post on the Xively blog that talks about the fundamentals of device security.

This post includes commentary on securing the connection, device authentication, secure firmware updates, and securing the data on the device. To read the article in full, visit the link below:

https://blog.xively.com/guest-blog-iot-security-start-with-the-fundamentals-2/
(as of 05/01/2018, this link no longer works – this may be attributed to Google’s purchase of Xively)

If you have any questions about using the wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library or wolfCrypt cryptography engine to secure your IoT device, you can contact us at facts@wolfssl.com

Curious about new features and additions to wolfSSL technologies for the coming year?

Some items on our current roadmap include:
– Early TLS 1.3 adoption
– Non-blocking Crypto support
– DTLS robustness improvements
– Curve25519 / Ed25519 integration at the TLS level
– Increased IoT platforms
– More resource reduction options

In terms of new environments we’ll have:
– More FIPS platforms
– Additional hardware acceleration options
– Easier integration with event programming
– Data plane development support

More Open Source project plugins including:
– HAProxy
– OpenSSH
– nginx

New product offerings will include:
– wolfSSH
– wolfSFUS (secure firmware update system)
– wolfCrypt as a separate library
– wolfCLU (command line utility)
– wolfMQTT enhancements

We also anticipate offering our testing and security audit programs as services. Keep an eye out for connected home white papers and case studies.

Something we missed, or something you would like to see on our roadmap? Please let us know.

wolfSSL has a port to devkitPro, giving an option to game developers to secure information with the embedded, lightweight, wolfSSL TLS/SSL library. The low memory footprint size of wolfSSL allows for efficient use of security while leaving plenty of room for the game itself. The low memory size of wolfSSL is something that has been perfected in the IoT realm and those benefits that are seen in IoT transfer nicely into the game development realm. We have updated and verified the port to devkitPPC with the most recent release of wolfSSL.

For more information, or an example of use, contact us at facts@wolfssl.com.

wolfSSL version 3.8.0 has been released and is now available for download. The release has many new feature additions and some minor fixes. One of the new feature additions is that there have been APIs added for single shot hashing, creating a signature, and verifying a signature. This allows users to easily create a hash or signature for single time use by just calling one API. Cutting out the time needed to manage structs for the algorithms used in the process. Another feature added is a C# wrapper to allow using the wolfSSL embedded TLS/SSL library when working with C#.

A couple of the fixes in release 3.8.0 were for IDEA on 16 and 32-bit systems along with a fix for LowResTimer on Microchip ports. No high level security fixes were needed with this release but we always recommend updating to the latest release version.

The full list of changes in this release, taken from the README are listed below:

– Example client/server with VxWorks
– AES-NI use with AES-GCM
– stunnel compatibility enhancements
– Single shot hash and signature/verify API added
– Update Cavium NITROX port
– LPCXpresso IDE support added
– C# wrapper to support wolfSSL use by a C# program
– (BETA version)OCSP stapling added
– Update OpenSSH compatibility
– Improve DTLS handshake when retransmitting finished message
– fix idea_mult() for 16 and 32bit systems
– fix LowResTimer on Microchip ports

For more information about wolfSSL contact us at facts@wolfssl.com.