In 2017, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) had various
crypto libraries examined as part of a project.
Three software projects were shortlisted and subjected to more in-depth
analysis: the LibreSSL developed by OpenBSD, the NSS developed by
Mozilla, and the library Botan.
The development of Botan was subsequently financially supported by the
BSI, found deficiencies were corrected and improved the test suite. The
results of this development have been incorporated into Botan and have
been published with version 2.0.1. In the meantime, some documents have
also been published in a Github repository by Rohde & Schwarz
(https://github.com/Rohde-Schwarz-Cybersecurity/botan/tree/master/doc/bsi).
What was not published: the original detailed study, and in particular
the results it contained in relation to the other crypto libraries.
Golem.de has asked the developers of the two libraries LibreSSL and
Mozilla's NSS, which were examined, but ultimately not selected for the
project: The developers of LibreSSL knew nothing of the project, the
request to Mozilla remained unanswered.
They have read the document. Information about spectacular security
holes can not be found in it. Nevertheless, it could be helpful for the
developers of the respective libraries, because in many places are very
concrete suggestions on how the code could be improved, including an
estimate of how much effort that would be. For example, there are
references to compiler warnings and an assessment of their severity, as
well as a list of errors in the state machines of the TLS handshake
implementation and hints on where the code should be better protected
against timing attacks.
In the case of Botan, these recommendations were implemented, but for
the other libraries studied, it would certainly make sense to make the
results at least available to the developers.
But even if the BSI does not want to have published the comparison of
crypto libraries: Anyone who wants to read it, can even make a request
for the Freedom of Information Act, for example via the portal
Fragdenstaat.de
(https://fragdenstaat.de/anfrage/sicherheitsaudits-des-projekts-sichere-implementierung-einer-allgemeinen-kryptobibliothek/)
or informally by writing to the BSI. You do not have to justify such a
request.
Jochen
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