Threat Model: Miscellaneous clarifications

Signed-off-by: Janos Follath <janos.follath@arm.com>
This commit is contained in:
Janos Follath 2023-03-03 14:56:38 +00:00
parent 24792d0a33
commit 144dd7d2fa

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@ -24,8 +24,8 @@ Users are urged to always use the latest version of a maintained branch.
We use the following classification of attacks:
- **Remote Attacks:** The attacker can observe and modify data sent over the
network. This includes observing timing of individual packets and potentially
delaying legitimate messages.
network. This includes observing the content and timing of individual packets,
as well as suppressing or delaying legitimate messages, and injecting messages.
- **Timing Attacks:** The attacker can gain information about the time taken
by certain sets of instructions in Mbed TLS operations.
- **Physical Attacks:** The attacker has access to physical information about
@ -34,20 +34,19 @@ We use the following classification of attacks:
### Remote attacks
Mbed TLS aims to fully protect against remote attacks. Mbed Crypto aims to
enable the user application in providing full protection against remote
attacks. Said protection is limited to providing security guarantees offered by
the protocol in question. (For example Mbed TLS alone won't guarantee that the
messages will arrive without delay, as the TLS protocol doesn't guarantee that
either.)
Mbed TLS aims to fully protect against remote attacks and to enable the user
application in providing full protection against remote attacks. Said
protection is limited to providing security guarantees offered by the protocol
in question. (For example Mbed TLS alone won't guarantee that the messages will
arrive without delay, as the TLS protocol doesn't guarantee that either.)
### Timing attacks
Mbed TLS and Mbed Crypto provide limited protection against timing attacks. The
cost of protecting against timing attacks widely varies depending on the
granularity of the measurements and the noise present. Therefore the protection
in Mbed TLS and Mbed Crypto is limited. We are only aiming to provide protection
against publicly documented attacks, and this protection is not currently complete.
Mbed TLS provides limited protection against timing attacks. The cost of
protecting against timing attacks widely varies depending on the granularity of
the measurements and the noise present. Therefore the protection in Mbed TLS is
limited. We are only aiming to provide protection against publicly documented
attacks, and this protection is not currently complete.
**Warning!** Block ciphers do not yet achieve full protection. For
details and workarounds see the section below.
@ -55,26 +54,26 @@ details and workarounds see the section below.
#### Block Ciphers
Currently there are four block ciphers in Mbed TLS: AES, CAMELLIA, ARIA and DES.
The Mbed TLS implementation uses lookup tables, which are vulnerable to timing
attacks.
The pure software implementation in Mbed TLS implementation uses lookup tables,
which are vulnerable to timing attacks.
**Workarounds:**
- Turn on hardware acceleration for AES. This is supported only on selected
architectures and currently only available for AES. See configuration options
`MBEDTLS_AESCE_C`, `MBEDTLS_AESNI_C` and `MBEDTLS_PADLOCK_C` for details.
- Add a secure alternative implementation (typically a bitsliced implementation or
hardware acceleration) for the vulnerable cipher. See the [Alternative
Implementations Guide](docs/architecture/alternative-implementations.md) for
more information.
- Instead of a block cipher, use ChaCha20/Poly1305 for encryption and data
origin authentication.
- Add a secure alternative implementation (typically hardware acceleration) for
the vulnerable cipher. See the [Alternative Implementations
Guide](docs/architecture/alternative-implementations.md) for more information.
- Use cryptographic mechanisms that are not based on block ciphers. In
particular, for authenticated encryption, use ChaCha20/Poly1305 instead of
block cipher modes. For random generation, use HMAC\_DRBG instead of CTR\_DRBG.
### Physical attacks
Physical attacks are out of scope. Any attack using information about or
influencing the physical state of the hardware is considered physical,
independently of the attack vector. (For example Row Hammer and Screaming
Channels are considered physical attacks.) If physical attacks are present in a
use case or a user application's threat model, it needs to be mitigated by
physical countermeasures.
Physical attacks are out of scope (eg. power analysis or radio emissions). Any
attack using information about or influencing the physical state of the
hardware is considered physical, independently of the attack vector. (For
example Row Hammer and Screaming Channels are considered physical attacks.) If
physical attacks are present in a use case or a user application's threat
model, it needs to be mitigated by physical countermeasures.