Cloud CA Bundle Signing with Global Asymmetric Keys
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Solution Overview
Problem
In cloud computing environments, there are challenges in securely provisioning and validating certificate authority (CA) datasets across virtual cloud networks, particularly in ensuring the authenticity and integrity of CA certificates distributed to network entities.
Innovation Solution
A global public key corresponding to a global private key is used by a key management service to digitally sign CA datasets, which are then distributed to network entities for validation, providing a trusted source of CA certificates and ensuring their authenticity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If certificate bundles are distributed to network entities, then CA certificates become available for validation, but the authenticity and integrity of the certificates cannot be ensured
Solution Approach 1:
A root CA certificate is introduced as an intermediary trusted anchor. The root CA certificate contains a public key that network entities use to validate digital signatures on CA certificates. This intermediary establishes a chain of trust from the root CA down to individual CA certificates, ensuring authenticity without requiring complex validation mechanisms at each step.
Solution Approach 2:
The root CA certificate is pre-installed on network entities before they need to validate CA certificates. This preliminary action establishes the trusted foundation in advance, allowing network entities to immediately validate the authenticity of CA certificates using the pre-existing root CA public key without requiring complex runtime validation procedures.
2Reliability
If digital signatures are used to validate CA certificates, then integrity is ensured, but the complexity of the validation process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The root CA certificate acts as an intermediary that simplifies the validation process. Instead of network entities needing to perform complex cryptographic validation themselves, they simply need to use the root CA public key to verify digital signatures on CA certificates. The root CA certificate mediates between the complexity of cryptographic validation and the simplicity of the validation operation.
Solution Approach 2:
Network entities perform the validation operation themselves using the root CA certificate's public key, but the complexity is abstracted away. The validation process becomes a simple signature verification operation rather than a complex cryptographic computation, making the system easier to operate while maintaining integrity through digital signatures.
3Reliability
If trust relationships are established with CAs, then authentication reliability improves, but the risk of trust on first use anti-security models increases
Solution Approach 1:
The root CA certificate is pre-installed on network entities before any authentication occurs. This preliminary action establishes a trusted foundation in advance, eliminating the need for 'trust on first use' models. Network entities can validate CA certificates using the pre-existing root CA public key, ensuring that trust relationships are established through cryptographic validation rather than risky first-use assumptions.
Solution Approach 2:
The root CA certificate serves as an intermediary trusted anchor that mediates between network entities and CA certificates. This intermediary establishes a secure chain of trust that prevents trust on first use attacks, as the root CA certificate provides a pre-established, verifiable foundation for authentication that cannot be exploited by malicious actors.
Data Source
AI summary
Operations of a digital signature manager may include detecting, in a certificate repository on a first virtual cloud network, set of one or more new certificate authority (CA) certificates; transmitting, to a key management service hosted on a second virtual cloud network, a CA dataset that includes the set of one or more new CA certificates; receiving, from the key management service, a digital signature of the CA dataset generated based at least on a global private key stored on the second virtual cloud network in a private key repository associated with the key management service; and storing the digital signature in the certificate repository in a data structure that associates the digital signature with the CA dataset.