wolfSSL Use With Signal

Signal Protocol Logo

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!