Re: mutual authentication fails when FIPS enabled

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Douglas E Engert" <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2021 2:48:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [Opensc-devel] mutual authentication fails when FIPS enabled
> 
> The point of using a smartcard is the crypto operations are done on the smart
> card, token
> or other hardware like a HSM, or TPS. The point of FIPS is the software and
> hardware has
> been approved and tested to do appropriate crypto operations.
> 
> The "fix" to just set RSA_FLAG_FIPS_METHOD is not a fix, it is lie. It in
> effect is saying
> libp11 take the responsibility of saying the PKCS11 modules and the smart
> card, tokens
> or other hardware are FIPS complaint.
> 
> The problem today, from the PKCS#11 standpoint, there is no way to prove the
> PKCS#11 modules,
> and hardware meet the FIPS standards. Some PKCS#11 modules are software only,
> designed they can run the cloud and with better performance. Some smart cards
> have applets
> that have never bee approved. (Note: The RedHat comments in the bug fix say
> it is not a proper
> fix.)

Hello, I am the Red Hat developer who introduced the "fix" there.

The problem is that the engine don't have a way to ask the module if it is an
approved module or not (at least not yet).

So the "fix" is basically making the engine to tell OpenSSL that the crypto
operations are being performed in an approved module regardless of the module
being used.

This makes the previous a lie when the module is not approved. That is why it
is not a proper fix, but a workaround.

In my understanding, this is transferring the responsibility of checking if 
the module is indeed an approved module to the user.

Ideally, the engine would have a way to be configured so that the user can
explicitly say "I know what I'm doing and I verified the module is approved".

> 
> You as the application developer have a choice, as to what version of OpenSSL
> you use. As
> Petr said, you can split the operations up, so the engine with pkcs11 is used
> with a non
> FIPS mode OpenSSL, and FIPS mode for the rest. Or you can use non-FIPS
> OpenSSL. Or modify
> the code like RedHat did. You also have a choice as to what PKCS11 modules
> and hardware
> you are using.
> 
>  From an OpenSC developer, I see this is a problem, but would not want to see
>  the "fix"
> in the code as it is a lie. But it might be possible to add code that would
> set that flag
> Maybe via env variable? This would let the application developer decide if
> they want to take responsibility.

For me, this is the closest to a proper fix that is possible to be implemented
for now.

For the engine, I personally like the suggestion given by Christian Heimes which
is to add a CTRL command to set the flag
(see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1827535#c1).

What do you think?

Best regards,
Anderson Sasaki