Dstack-TEE / Dstack-TEE/dstack

Static HKDF salt "RATLS" with no key versioning

Open
#552 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
security security: report security: roadmap
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
544
Forks
96
Avg merge
17h 57m
Merged PRs (30d)
117

Description

The disk encryption key derivation in `dstack/kms/src/main_service.rs` uses a hardcoded, empty HKDF salt rather than a per-instance random salt, reducing HKDF's security margin and making all derived keys deterministic given the same input keying material.

## Root Cause

The RA-TLS key derivation uses a hardcoded salt `b"RATLS"` for all HKDF operations. There is no key versioning mechanism and no support for key rotation. If the HKDF input keying material (IKM) is compromised at any point, all historically derived keys are also compromised because the salt is static and publicly known.

```rust
// kdf.rs:28
const SALT: &[u8] = b"RATLS";
```

## Attack Path

1. Attacker compromises the HKDF input keying material (e.g., via a KMS vulnerability)
2. Because the salt is static and hardcoded, the attacker can re-derive all keys ever produced by this KDF
3. No key versioning means there is no way to distinguish keys from different epochs
4. Key rotation requires changing the IKM, but old keys remain derivable from old IKM + static salt

## Impact

No forward secrecy in the key derivation hierarchy. Compromise of the IKM at any point reveals all past and future derived keys. The static salt provides no additional entropy or domain separation beyond what the IKM already provides.

## Suggested Fix

1. Include a version number in the salt or info parameter: `format!("RATLS-v{}", version)`
2. Support key rotation by allowing the salt to be updated periodically
3. Consider using a random salt persisted alongside the derived keys

---
> **Note:** This issue was created automatically. The vulnerability report was generated by Claude and has not been verified by a human.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.