Understanding Security APIs - CrySyS Lab

ATM transactions travel through RG7000 series devices. Racal SPS originally had
the contract to produce the VISA Security Module, but once VISA disassociated
their brand name with the device, it developed into the RG series HSMs. In 2000,
the HSM department split off to fend for itself, under the name ‘Zaxus’, but was
bought after a year or so by the multi-national conglomerate ‘Thales’. The original
Racal product lines have not been radically updated since their conception in the
80s – smartcards and keyswitches have augmented passwords for access control to
the HSMs, but the key management architecture in the RG7000 remains very dated.
The RG series devices are also not currently strongly tamper-resistant – their main
line of defence is a lid-switch whilst others such as IBM have had wire meshes and
even tamper-resistant membranes. In the RG series API lies a somewhat paradoxical
reputation: it must be respected for its continued dominance of the financial security
market, even though their technical product is way behind the other vendors.
Thales also produce less famous, but more advanced modules for electronic payments
and PKI security, for example, their ‘Websentry’ product line, which uses the
PKCS#11 API and its own custom key management interface.
5.3.3 nCipher
http://www.ncipher.com
nCipher is one of the youngest HSM manufacturers out there, founded in 1996.
Their API is uniquely modern in that it is centred around public key cryptography.
Their first product was a hardware cryptography accelerator card – the ‘nFast’ –
which was designed to be fitted to web servers to increase their SSL capabilities, as
well as protect the private SSL keys, should the webserver be compromised. Their
focus is on performance and API security, not tamper-resistance. nCipher argues
that sophisticated tamper-resistance is overkill given the physical access controls
on the server rooms where these devices typically reside. Current nCipher devices
are available in potted form, and do have a tamper-responding component, but
they only claim tamper-evidence for their devices. Most of their products have
achieved FIPS 140-1 level 3 evaluation. As the success of their SSL acceleration
cards grew, nCipher released products including more and more key management
facilities, and redesigned their API to reflect this. They introduced the ‘nForce’ and
‘nShield’ devices – available in PCI and SCSI forms – which competed with products
from Baltimore and Chyrsalis to provide back-end protection for key material in
Certification Authorities.
Since 2001, nCipher have incorporated the Secure Execution Engine (SEE) technology
into their devices. This facility allows third-party code to run within their
tamper-evident boundary, thus their HSMs are suitable devices for implementing
completely custom Security APIs. In early 2002 nCipher floated on the London
Stock Exchange; they compete with manufacturers such as IBM in the general pur-
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