FreeBSD developers will limit the use of hardware random number generators due to suspicions of backdoors

In the next, 10th version of FreeBSD, developers will abandon the direct use of hardware random number generators embedded in Intel and VIA chips because of doubts about their security. One of the main sources of such doubts is the publication of secret documents of the NSA by Edward Snowden, which show that the special services are actively working to introduce backdoors into basic cryptographic technologies, both at the software and at the hardware level.



Random number generator - the foundation of any modern cryptographic system. In unix-like operating systems, a random number stream is available to the user through the device / dev / random. In different OS family work / dev / random is organized differently. In particular, in FreeBSD, the main source of random numbers is the Yarrow algorithm . However, with the advent of hardware generators in modern processors, FreeBSD began to rely on them - if the system has a hardware random number generator, it will be used. In the next version, the output from the hardware generators will only serve as a source of entropy for the Yarrow algorithm, and not fed directly to / dev / random.



In Linux systems, the problem with the presence of backdoors in hardware random number generators is not so acute - the source of entropy for / dev / random is the noise generated by various devices - microphones, temperature sensors, etc., as well as other difficultly predictable processes, for example , mouse movement or network traffic sharing. Specialized hardware generators can also be used as a source of entropy, but only as one of many. For hardware generators, there is a separate device / dev / hwrng, which can be used at your own risk - hardware acceleration increases the performance of cryptographic operations many times.

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