Huh, I don't know about the world of HSMs or crypto and their audits, but in FedRAMP SaaS, you absolutely have to run everything with FIPS mode enabled, there are strong guarantees that need to be in place and audited.
Perhaps never a true guarantee, but level 4 HSMs are still impressive.
> The 4769 HSM has been verified to meet the FIPS 140-2 Level 4 requirements by protecting against attacks that include penetration of the secure module, side-channel attacks, and environmental failure protection (power or temperature manipulation). From the time of manufacture, the hardware is fully self-protecting. If tamper sensors detect a possible attack, all critical keys and other sensitive data are immediately destroyed and the HSM is rendered permanently inoperable. Note therefore that the 4769 HSM must be maintained at all times within the temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure ranges specified.
The practical benefit of FIPS 140 is less that your crypto is better and more that your systems will fail to establish connections with anything not using FIPS mode, thus reducing your threat exposure. A silver lining to the overall unfortunate situation that is the FIPS CMVP.
> The practical benefit of FIPS 140 is less that your crypto is better and more that your systems will fail to establish connections with anything not using FIPS mode, thus reducing your threat exposure.
No, I don't think so.
If I'm running, say, a TLS listener (an HTTPS web server), there is no way for you to tell if I'm using a FIPS-validated implementation of the algorithms or not. I can be using a cipher suite that is allowed by FIPS, but that doesn't mean my implementation is FIPS-validated. It's not like there's a "FIPS validated and FIPS mode enabled" flag added to the TLS spec, and even if there was, there'd be nothing stopping me from setting it to true even when using a non-validated implementation.
In my experience this is the core issue with security. It has to be a continuous process in reality but its hard to justify the cost and resource allocation. For this reason it ends up being a point in time function leaving gaps over the life cycle of the product.
Every customer wants FIPS 140-3 until the realize the performance hit. Then suddenly they don’t remember why they wanted it. Datasheet engineering FTW.
10 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 31.4 ms ] thread> The 4769 HSM has been verified to meet the FIPS 140-2 Level 4 requirements by protecting against attacks that include penetration of the secure module, side-channel attacks, and environmental failure protection (power or temperature manipulation). From the time of manufacture, the hardware is fully self-protecting. If tamper sensors detect a possible attack, all critical keys and other sensitive data are immediately destroyed and the HSM is rendered permanently inoperable. Note therefore that the 4769 HSM must be maintained at all times within the temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure ranges specified.
https://public.dhe.ibm.com/security/cryptocards/pciecc4/docs...
My friends in Christ, a aerodynamic object need only contend with 7 degrees of freedom, and occasional take-offs and landings.
No, I don't think so.
If I'm running, say, a TLS listener (an HTTPS web server), there is no way for you to tell if I'm using a FIPS-validated implementation of the algorithms or not. I can be using a cipher suite that is allowed by FIPS, but that doesn't mean my implementation is FIPS-validated. It's not like there's a "FIPS validated and FIPS mode enabled" flag added to the TLS spec, and even if there was, there'd be nothing stopping me from setting it to true even when using a non-validated implementation.
In my experience this is the core issue with security. It has to be a continuous process in reality but its hard to justify the cost and resource allocation. For this reason it ends up being a point in time function leaving gaps over the life cycle of the product.