Re: Custom secure heap implementation

[Dr Paul Dale <paul.dale@xxxxxxxxxx>]

We would consider a patch of this nature.  There are plenty of platforms where we don’t know and don’t support secure memory.  Having customisable hooks would allow them secure memory too.

Yes, is *must* be thread safe — just like the existing implementation.

The malloc and free are the important calls.  I’m not sure the size and allocated calls are used widely (but it’s worth a check).

Secure memory *always* cleanses currently and I don’t see that changing — if something is important enough to put in secure memory, it’s important enough to zero on free.

Pauli

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Dr Paul Dale | Cryptographer | Network Security & Encryption 
Phone +61 7 3031 7217
Oracle Australia

On 5 May 2019, at 11:15 pm, Tobias Nießen <tniessen@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello,

I have been experimenting with a custom secure heap implementation recently. Would OpenSSL be open to a patch that allows users to replace the OpenSSL implementation with their own, similarly to how CRYPTO_set_mem_functions works? Based on mem_sec.c, at least sh_malloc, sh_free, sh_actual_size and sh_allocated need to be pluggable, probably also a new function for CRYPTO_secure_used.

Also, should thread safety be part of OpenSSL as it is right now (via sec_malloc_lock), or should it be up to the implementation?

Regards,
Tobias