On 7/22/21 6:09 PM, Charles Mills wrote:
Guys, this is the problem with inventing your own solution.
You didn't elucidate what the (or a) problem is.
Public keys are, well, public.
Yes, that's the very nature of a /public/ key.
The new fashion in fact is to NOT trust internal networks. You really
don't know how far an intruder may have intruded, so you should assume
every communication channel is insecure.
*HEAVYsigh*
Yes. Zero Trust *is* /a/ thing. But I think it's *MUCH* /more/ of a
buzz word trying to sell snake oil than it is a real problem.
As Bruce Schneier is famous for saying "Trust the Math".
If I compare (a cryptographic hash of) the public key on SYS1 and SYS2
and they are the same, combined with the fact that SYS1's corresponding
key can decrypt what SYS2 encrypts with it's copy of SYS1's public key,
then I think the math dictates that SYS1 and SYS2 are actually talking
to each other, no matter how (in)secure the intervening network(s) are.
And if a malicious actor can intercept data flowing across a HyperSocket
between two LPARs and perform a full in the middle attack, ... you've
got MUCH bigger problems.
In the new era of cloud and partners and bring your
own device, exactly what is an internal and what is
an external network?
The two CECs sitting next to each other in the same room with cables
running directly between them seems to definitely qualify as "internal"
to me.
You can "what if" yourself to death. Or you can "trust the math".
Verify (a hash of) the public key on the source and destination system.
If the key is the same, you are quite likely safe to move data across
the wire. If someone can spoof the output from the commands to display
(the hash of) the public key and your terminal as an active in the
middle attack ... you have bigger problems. I'm not even sure that IBM
can help you.
This new paradigm is called "Zero
Trust." https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-207/final. I
have a presentation on Zero Trust coming up courtesy of New Era,
but we don't have a date yet. A good month or so out.
I'm intrigued. But obviously I'm a tad bit skeptical.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
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