2024-04-11
Using a hardware security module (HSM) with your Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) or signing solution enhances overall security, protects cryptographic keys, ensures compliance with regulations, and provides a level of trust and assurance in the integrity of your cryptographic operations.
For any application or service that is crucial for your company’s operation or business or that could be exploited for malicious purposes, integrating an HSM is essential. In this blog, we will explore the advantages of using an HSM with your PKI and signing solution.
An HSM is designed to be tamper-resistant and physically secure, often housed in a hardened device or dedicated appliance. The module protects your cryptographic keys from unauthorized physical access or tampering, even in the event of physical damage or hardware theft.
HSMs also provide a logically secure and isolated environment for key generation, storage, and cryptographic operations, reducing the risk of exposure to malicious software or attacks on the host system. Private keys are theoretically impossible to extract even if the application host is compromised.
With an HSM, cryptographic keys are stored, generated, and managed in one centralized, secure, and controlled environment. This centralized process simplifies the overall key management and minimizes the risk of key sprawl or keys being copied in an uncontrolled way to multiple systems.
Many HSM solutions offer high availability and redundancy features, ensuring continuous access to cryptographic services even during hardware failures. This lowers the risk for an organization as the availability of critical keys is ensured.
HSMs help organizations comply with various industry regulations and standards that mandate the use of hardware-based security for cryptographic operations. In fact, besides being a security best practice, using an HSM is also frequently mandatory for compliance; there is just no way of getting around that.
Even if HSMs are not utilized during testing and prototyping, their inclusion in production systems is strongly advised. Without an HSM, cryptographic keys are typically stored as files or in databases, protected by passwords, PINs, or challenges. However, this exposes them to potential theft by anyone with access to the server, compromising the security. HSMs mitigate this risk by ensuring that only authorized services can access the keys, thereby safeguarding the integrity and trustworthiness of the PKI. Given the potential access of multiple personnel to servers, such as domain admins, root users, or server operators in typical organizations, the risk of key exposure without HSM protection is significantly heightened.
EJBCA is a widely used open-source software enabling users to deploy and run Public Key Infrastructures (PKI). SignServer is a centralized signing service that supports multiple use cases in one solution.
Although both EJBCA and SignServer can be deployed and operated without an HSM, integrating with HSMs strongly enhances the security of the cryptographic operations, protects sensitive keys, and is simply the way security-aware users operate.
Try EJBCA or SignServer for yourself:
EJBCA and SignServer have support for several HSMs. For more information, see the Documentation.
Read also our recent blog: Navigating HSM Options for EJBCA PKI: A Guide for Product Engineers and Owners.
Director of Solutions Engineering EMEA
Principal Solution Engineer Nordics
