The security impact of a new cryptographic library

Daniel J.  Bernstein; Tanja Lange; Peter Schwabe

Paper 2011/646

The security impact of a new cryptographic library

Daniel J. Bernstein, Tanja Lange, and Peter Schwabe

Abstract

This paper introduces a new cryptographic library, NaCl, and explains how the design and implementation of the library avoid various types of cryptographic disasters suffered by previous cryptographic libraries such as OpenSSL. Specifically, this paper analyzes the security impact of the following NaCl features: no data flow from secrets to load addresses; no data flow from secrets to branch conditions; no padding oracles; centralizing randomness; avoiding unnecessary randomness; extremely high speed; and cryptographic primitives chosen conservatively in light of the cryptanalytic literature.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Implementation
Publication info: Published elsewhere. expanded version of LatinCrypt 2012 paper
Keywords: confidentiality integrity simplicity speed security
Contact author(s): tanja @ hyperelliptic org
History: 2012-07-25: revised; 2011-12-01: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2011/646
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2011/646,
      author = {Daniel J.  Bernstein and Tanja Lange and Peter Schwabe},
      title = {The security impact of a new cryptographic library},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2011/646},
      year = {2011},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2011/646}
}