A while back, we posted that the wolfSSL embedded SSL library would be getting support for Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) encryption in the near future. This is still true! If everything goes as planned, GCM support should be generally available for wolfSSL in June of this year. Specifically, GCM will be used in wolfSSL with AES and as a cipher suite for SSL.
One of the benefits of GCM is its efficiency and performance in both hardware and software. Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) for block ciphers incorporates both CTR (counter mode) as well as a message authentication code (MAC), providing both integrity and confidentiality. It is designed for block ciphers with a block size of 128 bits and is able to take full advantage of parallel processing and pipelining. Referencing the Wikipedia article on GCM, “the key feature is that the Galois field multiplication used for authentication can be easily computed in parallel thus permitting higher throughput than the authentication algorithms that use chaining modes, like CBC.”
To learn more about the performance and security details of GCM, you can visit the Wikipedia page listed below. We expect to see GCM more widely adopted in the near future. If you`re interested in testing AES with GCM or have any question or comments please let us know.
GCM (Wikipedia): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois/Counter_Mode
RFC 5288 (AES Galois Counter Mode (GCM) Cipher Suites for TLS): https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5288