> It is *theoretically* possible for someone with physical access to the > zSeries processor to open it up and install some customized hardware > that could intercept the clear key. Is that a reasonable risk for the > dats you need to protect, when weighed against the improved performance? > For most customers I would think so.
The people who put this stuff in the standards all come from a perspective of thinking about POS terminals (where you really can attack the hardware), ATMs, and injection of keys into HSMs. In all cases, they're thinking about some relatively small hardware device that you can get access to in some way - perhaps modifying the hardware, perhaps watching signals flowing over an interface, etc. They are NOT at all thinking of things like internal logic and data paths inside a mainframe locked in a secured data center. I work on some of those standards, and I'm constantly fighting this battle - some times I succeed, and some times I don't. Todd Arnold ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
