In any encryption system, the ability to generate pseudo-random numbers is crucial, particularly for tasks like creating encryption keys. Akeyless addresses this need by offering a solution that not only generates pseudo-random numbers, but also enhances overall data security by leveraging Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to generate and securely store these pseudo-random numbers for encryption keys, ensuring maximum data security.

The integration of the Akeyless Gateway with an HSM utilizes the PKCS#11 protocol to provide a seamless solution. This integration can also be leveraged for the derivation of Zero-Knowledge Customer Fragments from the HSM to the Gateway, using the HKDF function - currently supporting Standalone Gateway deployments only.

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HSM Entropy

For setting the HSM to generate random numbers for the cryptographic operations, the HSM must support the C_GenerateRandom operation.

Prerequisites

• HSM configured to work with PKCS#11.

• An AES encryption key that supports the hmac 256 mechanism (Relevant for Customer Fragment )

HSM Configuration

To configure the Gateway to work with your HSM, add the following parameters as part of the deployment:

Note: There are three options for identifying the HSM Token to work with: HSM_SLOT, HSM_TOKEN_LABEL, and HSM_TOKEN_SERIAL - only one of these options needs to be set.

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -p 5696:5696 \
-e ADMIN_ACCESS_ID="<Access ID>" \
-e HSM_PIN="<HSM PIN>" \
-e HSM_SLOT="<slot number>" \
-e HSM_TOKEN_LABEL="<token label>" \
-e HSM_TOKEN_SERIAL="<token serial>" \
-e HSM_USE_RAND="true" \
-e PKCS11_LIB_PATH="/opt/cloudhsm/lib/libcloudhsm_pkcs11.so" \
-v /opt/cloudhsm:/opt/cloudhsm \
--name akeyless-gw akeyless/base:latest-akeyless

Where:

• HSM_PIN - The HSM PIN for login, for example: a user:pass or wwwww-xxxx-yyyy-zzzz.

• HSM_SLOT - The slot number to use within the HSM that holds cryptographic objects.

• HSM_TOKEN_LABEL - The token label to use within the HSM that holds cryptographic objects.

• HSM_TOKEN_SERIAL - The token serial to use within the HSM that holds cryptographic objects.

• HSM_USE_RAND - Boolean flag, setting this to true will direct the Gateway to get the entropy randomness of the pseudo-random numbers from the HSM.

• PKCS11_LIB_PATH - The path to a PKCS#11 library file which should be mounted to the container filesystem. Must be a fixed path and imported along with the entire folder, since it contains configuration information. In our example, the source folder /opt/cloudhsm is mounted completely with all subdirectories.

Customer Fragments

Akeyless offers two modes for integrating the customer fragment with the HSM: hsm_wrapped and hsm_secured. Both modes use the same mechanism: the fragment value itself is used as a seed for a key derivation function, which is executed with the HSM key performing HMAC signing operations. The derived value is then used as the actual customer fragment value, meaning the fragment itself is not stored in the HSM.

To derive the Customer Fragment into the Gateway from the HSM, generate the Customer Fragment using the following command:

akeyless gen-customer-fragment \
--name HSM_CF \
--type <hsm_wrapped|hsm_secured> \
--hsm-key-label <"akeyless_hsm">

Where:

• name: Customer Fragment name.

• type: The HSM mode for the Customer Fragment either:

  • hsm_wrapped: Will derive the fragment once, when the gateway starts up, and keep the result in memory

  • hsm_secured: Will derive the value on each use of the key, and will not save the value.

• hsm-key-label: The label of the key inside the HSM.

Save the output in a new file called customer_fragments.json in a directory of your choice. Once you have your customer_fragments.json file saved, you'll need to provide a path to the file containing your fragment as part of the Gateway installation command, as described in this guide.