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@sigma-star.at>
[david@sigma-star.at: addressed review comments]
Signed-off-by: David Gstir <david@sigma-star.at>
Reviewed-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
8e989de6f8