Likewise, the FIPS integrity check is not attempting to detect tampering, it is designed to detect accident bit flipping.
Detecting deliberate tampering is far more involved to the point of being virtually impossible.
Paul Dale
On 3/7/2023 5:29 pm, Ishani wrote:
Hi Paul,
Yes it does do an integrity check on load. This was the main reason to limit the FIPS provider to being a loadable module. The approach taken in the 1.0.2 FOM wasn't viable with the re-architecture.
I assume these checks will be done even if we programmatically load fips.Do we have similar checks for legacy provider as well (to make sure legacy.so/legacy.dll loaded is the right one and not something tampered by some body)?
On Fri, 30 Jun 2023 at 12:45, <pauli@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Answers below....
1) Is there a way to static link FIPS? I see at many places that fips cannot be statically linked but would like to know if we have any other ways to do that.
No. This was a design goal/limitation from the start. Statically linking the FIPS provider would have been a major source of pain. We managed it for 1.0.2 with some inspirational assembly coding but that approach wouldn't have worked for 3.0.
2) If it is dynamic linking then does FIPS has any integrity check to make sure fips.so/fips.dll is the right one? and not some thing tampered by some body(as per my findings we have some check in configuration file as mentioned in the below attached snapshot 3rd line)
Yes it does do an integrity check on load. This was the main reason to limit the FIPS provider to being a loadable module. The approach taken in the 1.0.2 FOM wasn't viable with the re-architecture.
3) can both legacy and fips providers be loaded and used?
Technically yes, but you'll not be FIPS compliant unless you are extremely careful.
Which means talking to your FIPS labs and getting official resolutions on the specifics.
The OpenSSL developers are **not** FIPS experts. Only a FIPS lab can definitively answer questions like this.
4) Is it possible If i have built openssl with no-module configure option (to statically link legacy provider) and also wanted to use openssl-3.0.8 built fips module here? If yes then in what way can it be done?
Honestly not sure here. You must load the FIPS provider dynamically to be compliant.
If that's possible with the no-module option, you should be okay. I suspect it isn't. Try it and see.
If you don't get a definitive result, this means talking to your FIPS labs and getting official resolutions on the specifics.
The OpenSSL developers are **not** FIPS experts. Only a FIPS lab can definitively answer questions like this.
5) Is it possible to load multiple providers like default, leacy and also fips programmatically using OSSL_PROVIDER_load function ?
Absolutely it is possible. However, meeting FIPS requirements afterwards could be problematic.
This means talking to your FIPS labs and getting official resolutions on the specifics.
The OpenSSL developers are **not** FIPS experts. Only a FIPS lab can definitively answer questions like this.
Having several library contexts with each having different providers loaded might be a way to circumvent the strict interpretation of the requirements. This means talking to your FIPS labs and getting official resolutions on the specifics.
The OpenSSL developers are **not** FIPS experts. Only a FIPS lab can definitively answer questions like this.
6) When multiple providers like for ex: FIPS and default provider are enabled and when an encryption function is called, then algorithm from which provider is picked(from my findings it can use any of the loaded provider implementations )? assumption that we have not used property query string during algorithm fetches to specify which implementation to be used.
The OpenSSL project deliberately makes no guarantee about which provider is used in such cases. It is deterministic currently, but there is no guarantee that we'll not change the order of resolution or making it randomly non-deterministic in any future releases. Honestly, expect that we will make changes to the resolution order in the future. Such a change is not considered breaking and doesn't have to adhere to our stable release policy.
Our best recommendation is to not mix providers in library contexts. Seek resolution from you FIPS lab.
Dr Paul Dale
