RECENT BLOG NEWS

wolfSSL supports the STMicroelectronics STSAFE-A100 I2C cryptographic coprocessor. It's capable of ECC sign/verify (ECDSA) and shared secret (ECDH) operations for 256-bit and 384-bit (NIST Prime and Brainpool) curves. It has 2 key slots and 6KB of non-volatile memory for certificate or data storage. 

Prerequisites:

• Requires the STSAFE-A Device Library from ST
• Requires wolfSSL interface and crypto configuration code (available by request and approval from ST)

Examples:

• wolfSSL uses PK callbacks for the TLS crypto operations
• wolfCrypt uses the WOLFSSL_STSAFEA100 macro to enable native `wc_ecc_*` API support

The README.md and reference PK callbacks can be found here: https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl/tree/master/wolfcrypt/src/port/st

Preprocessor Macros:

• WOLFSSL_STSAFEA100

PK Callbacks:

wolfSSL TLS layer PK callbacks expose API’s to set ECC callbacks.Enabled with: #define HAVE_PK_CALLBACKS or ./configure --enable-pkcallbacks.

Reference API’s:

• SSL_STSAFE_CreateKeyCb
• SSL_STSAFE_SignCertificateCb
• SSL_STSAFE_VerifyPeerCertCb
• SSL_STSAFE_SharedSecretCb

Reference API for loading device certificate:

• SSL_STSAFE_LoadDeviceCertificate

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

wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS support the latest Microchip ATECC508A and ATECC608A I2C cryptographic coprocessors. The latest round of fixes to support the most recent CryptoAuthLib are in a pull request here (https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl/pull/1815). We have not yet tested with the ATECC608A due to lack of hardware, but wolfSSL is compatible with the latest CryptoAuthLib. We plan on adding support for the new 608A PRF and HKDF for TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 speed improvements.

Prerequisites:

• Requires the Microchip CryptoAuthLib (https://github.com/MicrochipTech/cryptoauthlib.git)

Examples:

• wolfSSL uses PK (Public Key) callbacks for the TLS crypto operations
• wolfCrypt uses the WOLFSSL_ATECC508A macro to enable native `wc_ecc_*` API support

The README.md and reference PK callbacks can be found here: https://github.com/wolfSSL/wolfssl/tree/master/wolfcrypt/src/port/atmel

Additional demos for wolfSSL TLS Client/Server and wolfCrypt test/benchmarks can be found:

https://www.wolfssl.com/download/downloadMoreForm.php
https://github.com/dgarske/atmel

Preprocessor Macros:

• WOLFSSL_ATECC508A
• WOLFSSL_ATECC_PKCB
• WOLFSSL_ATMEL

PK Callbacks:

wolfSSL’s TLS layer PK callbacks expose API’s to set ECC callbacks. These are enabled with: #define HAVE_PK_CALLBACKS or ./configure --enable-pkcallbacks.

Reference API’s:

• atcatls_create_key_cb
• atcatls_verify_signature_cb
• atcatls_sign_certificate_cb
• atcatls_create_pms_cb

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

Have you heard talk about SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, TLS 1.2, and TLS 1.3 but never really knew the differences between the different versions? Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Security Layer (TLS) are both cryptographic protocols which provide secure communication over networks. These different versions are all in widespread use today in applications such as web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging and VoIP, and each is slightly different from the others.wolfSSL supports all three of these ciphers to best suit your needs and requirements. Below you will find the major differences between the different protocol versions.

SSL 3.0
This protocol was released in 1996, but first began with the creation of SSL 1.0 developed by Netscape. Version 1.0 wasn`t released, and version 2.0 had a number of security flaws, thus leading to the release of SSL 3.0. Some major improvements of SSL 3.0 over SSL 2.0 are:
– Separation of the transport of data from the message layer
– Use of a full 128 bits of keying material even when using the Export cipher
– Ability of the client and server to send chains of certificates, thus allowing organizations to use certificate hierarchy which is more than two certificates deep.
– Implementing a generalized key exchange protocol, allowing Diffie-Hellman and Fortezza key exchanges as well as non-RSA certificates.
– Allowing for record compression and decompression
– Ability to fall back to SSL 2.0 when a 2.0 client is encountered

Netscape`s Original SSL 3.0 Draft: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/pki/nss/ssl/draft302.txt
Comparison of SSLv2 and SSLv3: http://stason.org/TULARC/security/ssl-talk/4-11-What-is-the-difference-between-SSL-2-0-and-3-0.html

TLS 1.0
This protocol was first defined in RFC 2246 in January of 1999. This was an upgrade from SSL 3.0 and the differences were not dramatic, but they are significant enough that SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 don`t interoperate. Some of the major differences between SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 are:
– Key derivation functions are different
– MACs are different – SSL 3.0 uses a modification of an early HMAC while TLS 1.0 uses HMAC.
– The Finished messages are different
– TLS has more alerts
– TLS requires DSS/DH support

RFC 2246: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2246

TLS 1.1
This protocol was defined in RFC 4346 in April of 2006, and is an update to TLS 1.0. The major changes are:
– The Implicit Initialization Vector (IV) is replaced with an explicit IV to protect against Cipher block chaining (CBC) attacks.
– Handling of padded errors is changed to use the bad_record_mac alert rather than the decryption_failed alert to protect against CBC attacks.
– IANA registries are defined for protocol parameters
– Premature closes no longer cause a session to be non-resumable.

RFC 4346: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4346#section-1.1

TLS 1.2
This protocol was defined in RFC 5246 in August of 2008. Based on TLS 1.1, TLS 1.2 contains improved flexibility. The major differences include:
– The MD5/SHA-1 combination in the pseudorandom function (PRF) was replaced with cipher-suite-specified PRFs.
– The MD5/SHA-1 combination in the digitally-signed element was replaced with a single hash. Signed elements include a field explicitly specifying the hash algorithm used.
– There was substantial cleanup to the client`s and server`s ability to specify which hash and signature algorithms they will accept.
– Addition of support for authenticated encryption with additional data modes.
– TLS Extensions definition and AES Cipher Suites were merged in.
– Tighter checking of EncryptedPreMasterSecret version numbers.
– Many of the requirements were tightened
– Verify_data length depends on the cipher suite
– Description of Bleichenbacher/Dlima attack defenses cleaned up.

RFC 5246: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5246

TLS 1.3
This protocol is currently being revised, and is in its 28th draft. The major differences from TLS 1.2 include:
– The list of supported symmetric algorithms has been pruned of all legacy algorithms. The remaining algorithms all use Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) algorithms.
– A zero-RTT (0-RTT) mode was added, saving a round-trip at connection setup for some application data at the cost of certain security properties.
– Static RSA and Diffie-Hellman cipher suites have been removed; all public-key based key exchange mechanisms now provide forward secrecy.
– All handshake messages after the ServerHello are now encrypted.
– Key derivation functions have been re-designed, with the HMAC-based Extract-and-Expand Key Derivation Function (HKDF) being used as a primitive.
– The handshake state machine has been restructured to be more consistent and remove superfluous messages.
– ECC is now in the base spec and includes new signature algorithms. Point format negotiation has been removed in favor of single point format for each curve.
– Compression, custom DHE groups, and DSA have been removed, RSA padding now uses PSS.
– TLS 1.2 version negotiation verification mechanism was deprecated in favor of a version list in an extension.
– Session resumption with and without server-side state and the PSK-based ciphersuites of earlier versions of TLS have been replaced by a single new PSK exchange.

RFC 8446: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8446

Resources:
If you would like to read more about SSL or TLS, here are several resources that might be helpful:
TLS – Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security)
SSL versus TLS – What`s the Difference? (http://luxsci.com/blog/ssl-versus-tls-whats-the-difference.html)
Cisco – SSL: Foundation for Web Security (http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/ipj_1-1/ssl.html)

As always, if you have any questions or would like to talk to the wolfSSL team about more information, please contact facts@wolfssl.com.

We have had some reports of low-end embedded systems taking 10-20 seconds to establish a TLS connection when generating a shared secret using the ECDH algorithm.

We wanted to remind our users of the fixed-point caching mechanism provided by wolfSSL. Users can enable fixed point caching with the configure option --enable-fpecc or by defining FP_ECC in their settings. Users will also need to configure which look up table (FP_LUT) to use and the number of entries (FP_ENTRIES).

FP_LUT: General rule is the larger the table, the more memory is needed but the faster subsequent lookup operations will be.

FP_ENTRIES: The number of entries allowed in the cache.

By default if users are not using the autoconf system (IE ./configure --enable-fpecc) users can start by adding these to either wolfssl/wolfcrypt/settings.h or their own user_settings.h when defining WOLFSSL_USER_SETTINGS globally:

/* Fixed point cache (speeds repeated operations against same private key) */
#undef  FP_ECC
#define FP_ECC
#ifdef FP_ECC
    /* Bits / Entries */
    #undef  FP_ENTRIES
    #define FP_ENTRIES  2
    #undef  FP_LUT
    #define FP_LUT      4  /* NOTE: FP_LUT must be between 2 and 12 inclusively */
#endif

Users can pre-cache fixed points on a curve related to a specific private key prior to establishing a connection to speed up shared secret computation times. Below we have provided some sample code users might use to accomplish this “pre-caching”. Ideally this would be a function you would run on system start-up or initialization of your embedded device prior to establishing a connection:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

/* NOTE: ALWAYS include options.h or settings.h before any other wolf headers */
#include <wolfssl/options.h>
#include <wolfssl/wolfcrypt/settings.h>
#include <wolfssl/wolfcrypt/ecc.h>
#include <wolfssl/wolfcrypt/asn.h>

/* Build wolfSSL using ./configure --enable-fpecc or by adding #define FP_ECC to your user_settings.h. */

/* Fixed client ECC key */
static const unsigned char ecc_clikey_der_256[] =
{
    0x30, 0x77, 0x02, 0x01, 0x01, 0x04, 0x20, 0xF8, 0xCF, 0x92,
    0x6B, 0xBD, 0x1E, 0x28, 0xF1, 0xA8, 0xAB, 0xA1, 0x23, 0x4F,
    0x32, 0x74, 0x18, 0x88, 0x50, 0xAD, 0x7E, 0xC7, 0xEC, 0x92,
    0xF8, 0x8F, 0x97, 0x4D, 0xAF, 0x56, 0x89, 0x65, 0xC7, 0xA0,
    0x0A, 0x06, 0x08, 0x2A, 0x86, 0x48, 0xCE, 0x3D, 0x03, 0x01,
    0x07, 0xA1, 0x44, 0x03, 0x42, 0x00, 0x04, 0x55, 0xBF, 0xF4,
    0x0F, 0x44, 0x50, 0x9A, 0x3D, 0xCE, 0x9B, 0xB7, 0xF0, 0xC5,
    0x4D, 0xF5, 0x70, 0x7B, 0xD4, 0xEC, 0x24, 0x8E, 0x19, 0x80,
    0xEC, 0x5A, 0x4C, 0xA2, 0x24, 0x03, 0x62, 0x2C, 0x9B, 0xDA,
    0xEF, 0xA2, 0x35, 0x12, 0x43, 0x84, 0x76, 0x16, 0xC6, 0x56,
    0x95, 0x06, 0xCC, 0x01, 0xA9, 0xBD, 0xF6, 0x75, 0x1A, 0x42,
    0xF7, 0xBD, 0xA9, 0xB2, 0x36, 0x22, 0x5F, 0xC7, 0x5D, 0x7F,
    0xB4
};
static const int sizeof_ecc_clikey_der_256 = sizeof(ecc_clikey_der_256);

int pre_cache_my_priv_key(void)
{
    int ret;
/* If we plan on caching fixed points for ECC operations... */
#ifdef FP_ECC
    word32 idx = 0;
    WC_RNG rng;
    ecc_key dummyPubKey;
    ecc_key myPrivKey;
    word32 x = 32; /* large enough for 256-bit */
    unsigned char exportBuf[x];

    wc_ecc_init(&dummyPubKey);
    wc_InitRng(&rng);

    ret = wc_ecc_make_key(&rng, 32, &dummyPubKey);
    if (ret != 0) {
        printf("Failed to make the public key\n");
        return -1;
    }

    ret = wc_EccPrivateKeyDecode(ecc_clikey_der_256, &idx,
                                 &myPrivKey, sizeof_ecc_clikey_der_256);
    if (ret != 0) {
        printf("Failed to import private key, ret = %d\n", ret);
        return -1;
    }

    ret = wc_ecc_shared_secret(&myPrivKey, &dummyPubKey, exportBuf, &x);
    wc_ecc_free(&dummyPubKey);
    if (ret != 0) {
        printf("Failed to generate a shared secret\n");
        return -1;
    }

    printf("Successfully pre-cached curve points!\n");
#else
    ret = 0;
#endif

    return ret;
}

int main(void)
{
    int ret;

    wolfSSL_Init();
    ret = pre_cache_my_priv_key();

   /* Do other interesting things, establish a TLS connection, etc. */

   wolfSSL_Cleanup(); /* Calls the wc_ecc_fp_free() function to free cache resources */

   return 0;
}

If you have any questions on the above solution please contact us anytime at support@wolfssl.com! If you have feedback or comments please send a note to facts@wolfssl.com we would love to hear from you!

wolfSSL is a lightweight TLS/SSL library that is targeted for embedded devices and systems. It has support for the TLS 1.3 protocol, which is a secure protocol for transporting data between devices and across the Internet. In addition, wolfSSL uses the wolfCrypt encryption library to handle its data encryption.

Because there is a FIPS 140-2 validated version of wolfCrypt, this means that wolfSSL not only has support for the most current version of TLS, but it also has the encryption backbone to support your FIPS 140-2 needs if required.

Some key benefits of combining TLS 1.3 with FIPS validated software include:

1. Software becomes marketable to federal agencies - without FIPS, a federal agency is not able to use cryptographic-based software
2. Single round trip
3. 0-RTT (a mode that enable zero round trip time)
4. After Server Hello, all handshake messages are encrypted.

And much more! For more information regarding the benefits of using TLS 1.3 or using the FIPS validated version of wolfCrypt, check out wolfSSL's TLS 1.3 Protocol Support and our wolfCrypt FIPS page.

FIPS 140-2 is a government validation that certifies that an encryption module has successfully passed rigorous testing and meets high encryption standards as specified by NIST. For more information or details on FIPS 140-2, it may be helpful to view this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_140-2

For more details about wolfSSL, TLS 1.3, or if you have any other general inquiries please contact facts@wolfssl.com

To find out more about FIPS, check out the NIST FIPS publications or contact fips@wolfssl.com

The wolfSSH Manual is now available on the wolfSSL website! It is easily navigable, descriptive, and detailed.

Some of the topics covered in the manual are listed below:

• How to build wolfSSH
• How to run the example applications
• Library design
• wolfSSH User Authentication Callback
• Callback Function Setup API
• wolfSSH SFTP Beta Introduction
• wolfSSH API reference
• And more!

The wolfSSH Manual can be viewed as HTML here: https://www.wolfssl.com/docs/wolfssh-manual/
Or downloaded as a PDF here: https://www.wolfssl.com/documentation/wolfSSH-Manual.pdf