RECENT BLOG NEWS

The option to have a massive TITAN size session cache is now available in wolfSSL 4.2.0. This can hold over 2 million session entries and works well for use in desktops and high load environments that have many long lasting session ID’s. To turn on the new session cache size use the enable option --enable-titancache, or the macro TITAN_SESSION_CACHE if building without autoconf. This option is meant for extreme use cases where --enable-hugecache (HUGE_SESSION_CACHE) is just not enough. It works well with systems that need over 200 new sessions per second and also need to handle numerous long lasting sessions.

For more information about the TITAN cache build contact us at facts@wolfssl.com.

Are you a MQX user looking for SFTP client or server support?  If so, you’ll be happy to hear that wolfSSH SFTP now supports NXP/Freescale MQX 4.2!

MQX 4.2 support (using the MFS file system and RTCS TCP/IP stack) was added as part of the wolfSSH 1.4.3 release.  MQX 4.2, or “MQX Classic”, is a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) created by NXP/Freescale and commonly used on 32-bit MCUs and MPUs from NXP.  The wolfSSH SFTP MQX 4.2 port was tested and validated on a NXP K70-based platform.  When compiling wolfSSH for NXP/Freescale MQX 4.2, the FREESCALE_MQX define should be used.

wolfSSH is a lightweight, portable SSHv2 implementation with support for both client and server functionalities.  Including features such as SFTP and SCP, and supporting both password and public key authentication, wolfSSH is the ideal solution for SSH and file transfer requirements on embedded systems.  wolfSSH is backed by the wolfCrypt cryptography library and can use features of wolfCrypt such as expansive hardware cryptography support, FIPS 140-2 validated cryptography, DO-178, and more!

wolfSSH can be downloaded from the wolfSSL download page or via GitHub.  Please contact facts@wolfssl.com with any questions or inquiries.

wolfSSL has added in many new OpenSSL compatibility API’s in the recent release, wolfSSL 4.2.0. The compatibility layer previously was impressive with upwards of 600 hundred of the most common API used, but in the effort to make transitioning projects that currently use OpenSSL, over to using wolfSSL, we added more than 198 additional API. These API additions supported many open source projects such as building with Apache (https://www.apache.org/) and WebRTC. There were also improvements done in the last release for existing API’s and enhancements to their functionality.

There are too many new API to list all, but here are some of them:

• SSL_CIPHER_get_id
• SSL_CIPHER_get_rfc_name
• SSL_get_cipher_by_value
• X509_print_ex
• X509_NAME_add_entry_by_NID
• X509_time_adj
• X509_time_adj_ex
• DTLSv1_get_timeout
• DTLSv1_handle_timeout
• DTLSv1_set_initial_timeout_duration
• SSL_CTX_set_current_time_cb
• PEM_write_bio_RSA_PUBKEY
• PEM_read_bio_RSA_PUBKEY
• PEM_write_bio_PUBKEY
• EVP_PKEY_missing_parameters
• EVP_PKEY_cmp
• BN_is_negative
• BIO_set_retry_write
• ASN1_STRING_type
• EVP_aes_128_gcm, EVP_aes_192_gcm, EVP_aes_256_gcm
• EVP_CIPHER_CTX_ctrl
• EVP_PKEY_sign
• EVP_PKEY_sign_init
• RSA_print
• RSA_NO_PADDING
• RSA_PKCS1_PSS_PADDING
• wolfSSL_EVP_CIPHER_CTX_set_iv_length
• GENERAL_NAMES_free
• i2a_ASN1_OBJECT
• PKCS5_PBKDF2_HMAC
• X509_get_ext_by_NID
• X509V3_EXT_print
• ASN1_STRING_print
• GENERAL_NAME_free
• …. (and more)

If you have a FIPS project in jeopardy with the upcoming lapse in OpenSSL support, an easy fix is to plug in wolfSSL. Let us know if your project needs any API that we are missing by contacting us at facts@wolfssl.com.

wolfSSH v1.4.3 has been released. This version of wolfSSH includes several fixes and new features. The primary new feature is a wolfSFTP port to MQX 4.2. Please see the change log for more details. Included are some portability fixes between versions of C compilers, a clean up of some obvious issues with the examples, and improved interoperability with PuTTY.

You can download this latest release from the wolfSSL download portal. Additional information wolfSSH can be found on the wolfSSH product page. For more information on platform support or for questions regarding wolfSSH, contact us at facts@wolfssl.com. Be sure to stay up to date with our GitHub repository. Please give us a star!

wolfSSH v1.4.3 (10/31/2019)

1. wolfSFTP port to MQX 4.2 (MQX/MFS/RTCS)
2. Maintenance and bug fixes
3. Improvements and additions to the test cases
4. Fix some portability between C compilers
5. Fixed an issue in the echoserver example where it would error sometimes on shutdown
6. Improvement to the global request processing
7. Fixed bug in the new keys message handler where it reported the wrong size in the data buffer; invalid value was logged, not used
8. Fixed bug in AES initialization that depended on build settings
9. Improved interoperability with puTTY
10. Added user auth callback error code for too many password failures
11. Improvements to the Nucleus filesystem abstraction
12. Added example for an “autopilot” file get and file put with the wolfSFTP example client

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

Saficard is a French company specializing in solutions for healthcare payment management. One of their products is a Point-of-Sale (POS) terminal designed to accept the Vitale Card. The Vitale Card is a French health insurance card that stores social security information and allows patients to be reimbursed for healthcare costs. The card works with various smart card standards, such as: EMV, IAS-ECC, and ISO (joinup).

The French government has created strict security standards for processing healthcare bills using the Vitale Card. Among these standards are using Cryptography Message Syntax (PKCS#7) and TLS for transmitting healthcare transactions.

Saficard faced problems finding a lightweight-portable cryptography library written in C for their Point-of-Sale terminals. Their solution was using wolfSSL + wolfCrypt to implement PKCS#7 and TLS on the iWL250 terminal by Ingenico.

Read more about the Saficard Case Study and check out Saficard.
Vitale Card Information at joinup

If you have any questions about using wolfSSL products for your project, please contact us at facts@wolfssl.com.

The NXP Memory-Mapped Cryptographic Acceleration Unit (mmCAU) is on many Kinetis and ColdFire microcontrollers. It improves symmetric AES and SHA performance as compared to our software based implementation. The v4.2.0 enhanced the MMCAU support to use multiple blocks against hardware and optimizes to avoid memory copies (memcpy) when able. This resulted in a 20-78% improvement.

Features:

• Enhancement for NXP MMCAU to process more than one block at a time.
• Added optional buffer alignment detection macro WC_HASH_DATA_ALIGNMENT to avoid memcpy.
• Added MD5 and SHA-1 support for XTRANSFORM_LEN to process blocks.
• Cleanups for consistency between algorithms and code commenting.

Improved MMCAU performance: SHA-1 by 35%, SHA-256 by 20% and MD5 by 78%.

NXP K64 MMCAU with wolfSSL v4.2.0:

MD5                  8 MB took 1.000 seconds,    7.910 MB/s

SHA                  4 MB took 1.005 seconds,    3.644 MB/s

SHA-256              2 MB took 1.006 seconds,    2.306 MB/s

NXP K64 MMCAU with wolfSSL v4.1.0:

MD5                  4 MB took 1.004 seconds,    4.450 MB/s

SHA                  3 MB took 1.006 seconds,    2.670 MB/s

SHA-256              2 MB took 1.008 seconds,    1.913 MB/s

Changes are in GitHub pull request #2481 and in the wolfSSL v4.2.0 release.

For more information please email us at facts@wolfssl.com.

The release of wolfSSL version 4.2.0 is now available!

Many exciting new features were added in this release along with optimizations and some fixes. wolfSSL has spent 10,000 hours worth of engineering on creating the code for this release.  We’ve added new features, ports, and made it more robust. For a full list of fixes, optimizations, and recommendations check out our README on GitHub (https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl) or the ChangeLog.md in the main download from www.wolfssl.com. We suggest that all users keep up to date with wolfSSL versions to get access to new features, optimizations, and minor fixes. We also have a list of higher severity fixes in the bottom of the README/ChangeLog to help answer any questions on security related fixes and changes. Feel free to reach out to us at facts (at) wolfssl.com with any questions regarding the release.

This is a list of the notable exciting new features in wolfSSL version 4.2.0:

• Over 198 OpenSSL compatibility API’s added
  • This includes the support for many open source projects such as NGINX (https://www.nginx.com/)
  • The additions make it easier to migrate projects from OpenSSL to wolfSSL and keep support for FIPS active
• Apache (https://www.apache.org/) port added for compiling with wolfSSL using –enable-apachehttpd
• Port for using wolfSSL with OpenVSwitch (https://openvpn.net/community-resources/ethernet-bridging/)
• Port for Renesas TSIP (https://www.renesas.com/br/en/products/software-tools/software-os-middleware-driver/security-crypto/trusted-secure-ip-driver.html) 
• Visual Studio Solution for Azure Sphere Devices (MT3620 and MT3620-mini) added to the directory IDE/VS-AZURE-SPHERE
• Addition of Coldfire MCF5441X NetBurner example to the directory IDE/M68K/
• Added support for prime checking to SP math build
• Addition of DYNAMIC_TYPE_BIGINT type for tracking mp_int allocations
• Addition of wc_ecc_get_curve_params API for getting ecc_set_type params for a curve
• Adding in TLS_SHA256_SHA256 and TLS_SHA384_SHA384 TLS1.3 cipher suites (null ciphers)
• Added in PKCS7 decryption callbacks for CMS operations
• Added handling for optional ECC parameters with PKCS7 KARI
• Addition to configure.ac for FIPS wolfRand builds
• Adding the flag WOLFSSL_LOAD_FLAG_DATE_ERR_OKAY for ignoring certificate date checks with the functions wolfSSL_CTX_load_verify_buffer_ex and wolfSSL_CTX_load_verify_locations_ex
• Support for PKCS8 keys added to the function wolfSSL_CTX_use_PrivateKey_buffer
• Support for KECCAK hashing. Build with macro WOLFSSL_HASH_FLAGS and call wc_Sha3_SetFlags(&sha, WC_HASH_SHA3_KECCAK256) before the first SHA3 update
• Addition of setting secure renegotiation at CTX level
• Addition of KDS (NXP Kinetis Design Studio) example project to directory IDE/KDS/ (https://www.nxp.com/design/designs/design-studio-integrated-development-environment-ide:KDS_IDE)
• Support for Encrypt-Then-MAC to TLS 1.2 and below
• Added a new build option for a TITAN session cache that can hold just over 2 million session entries (–enable-titancache)
• Synchronous Quick Assist Support for Sniffer
• Added Support for SiFive HiFive Unleashed board
  (https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unleashed)
• Support for Google WebRTC added in to compatibility layer build (https://webrtc.org/)
• Additional Sniffer features; IPv6 sniffer support, Fragment chain input, Data store callback, Various statistics tweaks and other Sniffer fixes

We have the best tested crypto and a goal to release code without any bugs or issues, but being human, some do slip through. In our effort to be as transparent as possible this is a list of fixes that we feel users should be aware of when considering whether to update to the latest wolfSSL version:

• Fix for sanity check on reading TLS 1.3 pre-shared key extension. This fixes a potential for an invalid read when TLS 1.3 and pre-shared keys is enabled. Users without TLS 1.3 enabled are unaffected. Users with TLS 1.3 enabled and HAVE_SESSION_TICKET defined or NO_PSK not defined should update wolfSSL versions. Thanks to Robert Hoerr for the report.
• Fix for potential program hang when ocspstapling2 is enabled. This is a moderate level fix that affects users who have ocspstapling2 enabled(off by default) and are on the server side. In parsing a CSR2 (Certificate Status Request v2 ) on the server side, there was the potential for a malformed extension to cause a program hang. Thanks to Robert Hoerr for the report.
• Two moderate level fixes involving an ASN.1 over read by one byte. CVE-2019-15651 is for a fix that is due to a potential one byte over read when decoding certificate extensions. CVE-2019-16748 is for a fix on a potential one byte overread with checking certificate signatures. This affects builds that do certificate parsing and do not have the macro NO_SKID defined.Thanks to Yan Jia and the researcher team from Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences for the report.
• High level fix for DSA operations involving an attack on recovering DSA private keys. This fix affects users that have DSA enabled and are performing DSA operations (off by default). All users that have DSA enabled and are using DSA keys are advised to regenerate DSA keys and update wolfSSL version. ECDSA is NOT affected by this and TLS code is NOT affected by this issue. This affects a very small percentage of users (~ less than 1%). Thanks to Ján Jan?ár for the report.

For additional vulnerability information visit the vulnerability page at https://www.wolfssl.com/docs/security-vulnerabilities/

Love from wolfSSL <3

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.