When /dev/random was directly connected with entropy extraction, without
any expansion stage, extract_buf() was called for every 10 bytes of data
read from /dev/random. For that reason, RDRAND was used rather than
RDSEED. At the same time, crng_reseed() was still only called every 5
minutes, so there RDSEED made sense.
Those olden days were also a time when the entropy collector did not use
a cryptographic hash function, which meant most bets were off in terms
of real preimage resistance. For that reason too it didn't matter
_that_ much whether RDSEED was mixed in before or after entropy
extraction; both choices were sort of bad.
But now we have a cryptographic hash function at work, and with that we
get real preimage resistance. We also now only call extract_entropy()
every 5 minutes, rather than every 10 bytes. This allows us to do two
important things.
First, we can switch to using RDSEED in extract_entropy(), as Dominik
suggested. Second, we can ensure that RDSEED input always goes into the
cryptographic hash function with other things before being used
directly. This eliminates a category of attacks in which the CPU knows
the current state of the crng and knows that we're going to xor RDSEED
into it, and so it computes a malicious RDSEED. By going through our
hash function, it would require the CPU to compute a preimage on the
fly, which isn't going to happen.
Cc: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Reviewed-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Dominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
Suggested-by: Dominik Brodowski <linux@dominikbrodowski.net>
Signed-off-by: Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@zx2c4.com>
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