Since Windows NT 4.0, the Cryptographic Service Provider (CSP) has been part of the CryptoAPI.
The purpose is that an application does not have to worry about the concrete implementation of key management, but can leave this to generic operating system interfaces. It is also intended to prevent cryptographic keys from being loaded into memory in the security context of the user/application being used (a fatal security incident based precisely on this problem was the Heartbleed incident).
For example, it makes no technical difference to the certification authority software how its private key is protected - whether in software or with a hardware security module (HSM), for example. The call of the private key is always identical for the certification authority.
With Windows Vista and the introduction of Cryptography Next Generation (CNG) as a replacement for CryptoAPI, Key Storage Providers (KSP) were introduced.
Continue reading „Grundlagen: Cryptographic Service Provider (CSP) und Key Storage Provider (KSP)“
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