The article discusses how Amazon Web Services (AWS) ensures secure encryption practices by utilizing the Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) of AES for data protection, specifically addressing concerns related to the limits and security bounds of using GCM.
Key points from the article include:
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AES-GCM Security Bounds: The article explains that while AES-GCM is a widely used mode of operation for encryption, it has specific limitations regarding the number of invocations (encryption/decryption operations) and total plaintext size that can be securely processed with a single key before security risks increase.
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AWS KMS and Encryption SDK Practices:
- AWS Key Management Service (KMS) and the AWS Encryption SDK both employ strategies to mitigate these limitations by deriving unique keys for each encryption operation.
- This approach ensures that even if an application performs millions of operations, it remains within safe security bounds without manual tracking.
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Key Derivation Mechanisms:
- Both services use key derivation functions (KDFs) to generate a new key for every invocation or data frame being processed.
- AWS KMS uses the HMAC-based Extract-and-Expand Key Derivation Function (HKDF) with SHA512 as the default
Read the full article at AWS Security Blog
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