Re: [PATCH v5] fscrypt: Add support for AES-128-CBC

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Mon, Jun 19, 2017 at 09:27:58AM +0200, David Gstir wrote:
> From: Daniel Walter <dwalter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> fscrypt provides facilities to use different encryption algorithms which
> are selectable by userspace when setting the encryption policy. Currently,
> only AES-256-XTS for file contents and AES-256-CBC-CTS for file names are
> implemented. This is a clear case of kernel offers the mechanism and
> userspace selects a policy. Similar to what dm-crypt and ecryptfs have.
> 
> This patch adds support for using AES-128-CBC for file contents and
> AES-128-CBC-CTS for file name encryption. To mitigate watermarking
> attacks, IVs are generated using the ESSIV algorithm. While AES-CBC is
> actually slightly less secure than AES-XTS from a security point of view,
> there is more widespread hardware support. Using AES-CBC gives us the
> acceptable performance while still providing a moderate level of security
> for persistent storage.
> 
> Especially low-powered embedded devices with crypto accelerators such as
> CAAM or CESA often only support AES-CBC. Since using AES-CBC over AES-XTS
> is basically thought of a last resort, we use AES-128-CBC over AES-256-CBC
> since it has less encryption rounds and yields noticeable better
> performance starting from a file size of just a few kB.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Daniel Walter <dwalter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> [david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx: addressed review comments]
> Signed-off-by: David Gstir <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@xxxxxxxxxx>

Thanks, applied.

					- Ted