Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v2] vnc: disable VNC password authentication (security type 2) when in FIPS mode

["Daniel P. Berrange" <berrange@redhat.com>]

On Thu, May 03, 2012 at 11:01:29AM +0200, Alexander Graf wrote:
> 
> On 03.05.2012, at 10:57, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, May 03, 2012 at 10:51:15AM +0200, Alexander Graf wrote:
> >> 
> >> On 03.05.2012, at 10:29, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> >> 
> >>> On Wed, May 02, 2012 at 03:32:56PM -0400, Paul Moore wrote:
> >>>> FIPS 140-2 requires disabling certain ciphers, including DES, which is used
> >>>> by VNC to obscure passwords when they are sent over the network.  The
> >>>> solution for FIPS users is to disable the use of VNC password auth when the
> >>>> host system is operating in FIPS mode.
> >> 
> >> So that means "no password" is more secure according to FIPS than
> >> "DES encrypted password"?
> > 
> > No, FIPS is not making statements about the choice of auth methods.
> > FIPS is concerned with what encryption algorithms an application uses.
> > The requirements about whether authentication is required & what sort,
> > is upto other specifications (eg Common Criteria) to decide.
> 
> Hrm, so short-term this fixes things. But long-term, I think the 
> better solution would be to implement the tight security model and
> use a real cipher:

That is certainly possible, but shouldn't have any bearing on whether
this patch is accepted. Note that QEMU already implements VeNCrypt
and SASL extensions both of which provide strong security


Daniel
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