Cloud cryptography demystified: Google Cloud Platform
Summary: Trail of Bits published a guide to Google Cloud Platform's cryptography offerings, covering Cloud KMS (including Cloud HSM and Cloud EKM), Secret Manager, Confidential Computing, and the Tink client-side library. The post notes GCP's cryptography offerings are fewer than AWS's, that Confidential Computing currently relies on AMD SEV, which has faced side-channel attacks including CVE-2021-46744 and CVE-2023-20575, and that Tink lacks searchable encryption, forcing a choice between encrypting a database field or querying it.
Key Takeaway: The guide states that unless regulators require control of cryptographic materials or you need FIPS 140 levels above 1, Cloud HSM and Cloud EKM are almost certainly unnecessary - a distinction that matters when those requirements drive architecture and cost decisions.
Read the original at Trail of Bits Blog ↗
- Topics
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