Re: Regd. the Implementation of Wallet (in Oracle) config equivalent in postgreSQL whilst the database migration

On 2022-12-22 11:15:57 +0100, Rainer Duffner wrote:
>
>
> Am 22.12.2022 um 10:46 schrieb Peter J. Holzer <hjp-pgsql(at)hjp(dot)at>:
>
> If the hacker has root access: What prevents them from talking to the
> HSM?
>
>
>
> I wasn’t involved in setting it up here, but AFAIK you need to „enroll“ the
> client to the HSM.
>
> That is a one-time process that requires HSM credentials (via certificates and
> pass-phrases).
>
> Then, that client can talk to the HSM.

Which means that some sort of access-token is stored on the client.

So what prevents a hacker from using that access token?

> The HSM-client is (or should be) engineered in such a way that you can’t
> extract the encryption-secret easily.

Security by obscurity? Just hope that nobody figures out how that access
token is stored? That doesn't seem like a good strategy against
high-level threats.

hp

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