• Jason A. Donenfeld's avatar
    random: use RDSEED instead of RDRAND in entropy extraction · 28f425e5
    Jason A. Donenfeld authored
    
    
    When /dev/random was directly connected with entropy extraction, without
    any expansion stage, extract_buf() was called for every 10 bytes of data
    read from /dev/random. For that reason, RDRAND was used rather than
    RDSEED. At the same time, crng_reseed() was still only called every 5
    minutes, so there RDSEED made sense.
    
    Those olden days were also a time when the entropy collector did not use
    a cryptographic hash function, which meant most bets were off in terms
    of real preimage resistance. For that reason too it didn't matter
    _that_ much whether RDSEED was mixed in before or after entropy
    extraction; both choices were sort of bad.
    
    But now we have a cryptographic hash function at work, and with that we
    get real preimage resistance. We also now only call extract_entropy()
    every 5 minutes, rather than every 10 bytes. This allows us to do two
    important things.
    
    First, we can switch to using RDSEED in extract_entropy(), as Dominik
    suggested. Second, we can ensure that RDSEED input always goes into the
    cryptographic hash function with other things before being used
    directly. This eliminates a category of attacks in which the CPU knows
    the current state of the crng and knows that we're going to xor RDSEED
    into it, and so it computes a malicious RDSEED. By going through our
    hash function, it would require the CPU to compute a preimage on the
    fly, which isn't going to happen.
    
    Cc: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarEric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarDominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
    Suggested-by: default avatarDominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarJason A. Donenfeld <Jason@zx2c4.com>
    28f425e5
random.c 52.9 KB