Abstract
In this paper we describe attacks on PKCS#11 devices that we successfully mounted by interacting with the low-level APDU protocol, used to communicate with the device. They exploit proprietary implementation weaknesses which allow attackers to bypass the security enforced at the PKCS#11 level. Some of the attacks leak, as cleartext, sensitive cryptographic keys in devices that were previously considered secure. We present a new threat model for the PKCS#11 middleware and we discuss the new attacks with respect to various attackers and application configurations. All the attacks presented in this paper have been timely reported to manufacturers following a responsible disclosure process.
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This is typically done by using the operating system debug API to instrument or inspect the target process memory. Examples are the Event Tracing API for Windows and the Linux ptrace() syscall.
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Bozzato, C., Focardi, R., Palmarini, F., Steel, G. (2016). APDU-Level Attacks in PKCS#11 Devices. In: Monrose, F., Dacier, M., Blanc, G., Garcia-Alfaro, J. (eds) Research in Attacks, Intrusions, and Defenses. RAID 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9854. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45719-2_5
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