[HBASE-10065] Stronger validation of key unwrapping

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 0.98.0
• Hadoop Flags: Reviewed
• Assignee: Andrew Kyle Purtell
• Reporter: Andrew Kyle Purtell
• Created: 02/Dec/13 09:06
• Updated: 20/Nov/15 11:53
• Resolved: 03/Dec/13 12:54

Description

In EncryptionUtil#unwrapKey we use a CRC32 to validate the successful unwrapping of a data key. I chose a CRC32 to limit overhead. There is only a 1 in 2^32 chance of a random collision, low enough to be extremely unlikely. However, I was talking with my colleague Jerry Chen today about this. A cryptographic hash would lower the probability to essentially zero and we are only wrapping data keys once per HColumnDescriptor and once per HFile, saving a few bytes here and there only really. Might as well use the SHA of the data key and in addition consider running AES in GCM mode to cover that hash as additional authenticated data.

Issue Links

• is related to: HBASE-7544 Transparent table/CF encryption