The blinding applied to the scalar before modular inversion is
inadequate. Bignum is not constant time/constant trace, side channel
attacks can retrieve the blinded value, factor it (it is smaller than
RSA keys and not guaranteed to have only large prime factors). Then the
key can be recovered by brute force.
Reducing the blinded value makes factoring useless because the adversary
can only recover pk*t+z*N instead of pk*t.
We were still reusing the internal HMAC-DRBG of the deterministic ECDSA
for blinding. This meant that with cryptographically low likelyhood the
result was not the same signature as the one the deterministic ECDSA
algorithm has to produce (however it is still a valid ECDSA signature).
To correct this we seed a second HMAC-DRBG with the same seed to restore
correct behavior. We also apply a label to avoid reusing the bits of the
ephemeral key for a different purpose and reduce the chance that they
leak.
This workaround can't be implemented in the restartable case without
penalising the case where external RNG is available or completely
defeating the purpose of the restartable feature, therefore in this case
the small chance of incorrect behavior remains.
`mbedtls_ecdsa_sign_det` reuses the internal HMAC-DRBG instance to
implement blinding. The advantage of this is that the algorithm is
deterministic too, not just the resulting signature. The drawback is
that the blinding is always the same for the same key and message.
This diminishes the efficiency of blinding and leaks information about
the private key.
A function that takes external randomness fixes this weakness.
Return the error code if failed, instead of returning value `1`.
If not failed, return the call of the underlying function,
in `mbedtls_ecdsa_genkey()`.
Clarify what MBEDTLS_ERR_ECP_SIG_LEN_MISMATCH and
MBEDTLS_ERR_PK_SIG_LEN_MISMATCH mean. Add comments to highlight that
this indicates that a valid signature is present, unlike other error
codes. See
https://github.com/ARMmbed/mbedtls/pull/1149#discussion_r178130705
1) update ChangLog to have new feature in Features instead of Changes
2) Change MBEDTLS_ECDSA_ALT to function specific alternative definitions:
MBEDTLS_ECDSA_SIGN_ALT, MBEDTLS_ECDSA_VERIFY_ALT and MBEDTLS_ECDSA_GENKEY_ALT
- more freedom for us to change it in the future
- enforces hygiene
- performance impact of making accessors no longer inline should really be
negligible
