Introduction

Introduction #

TKey with interaction points marked

The Tillitis TKey is a small computer in a USB stick form factor that can run small device applications that are loaded onto it. The purpose of the TKey is to be a secure environment for applications that provide some kind of security function. Some examples of such security functions are:

  • Time-based one-time password (TOTP) token generators
  • Signing oracles
  • Secure random numbers
  • Encryption

There is no way of storing a device application (or any other data) on the TKey. A device app has to be loaded onto the TKey every time you plug it in.

TKey specifications #

  • 32-bit RISC-V CPU running at 18 MHz
  • Execution monitor
  • Hardware-assisted address randomization and RAM scrambling
  • 128 kiB RAM for TKey device applications
  • 2 kiB firmware RAM
  • 6 kiB ROM
  • True random number generator
  • USB CDC (Communications Device Class) over a Type-C connector
  • Timer
  • Two levels of hardware privilege modes: firmware mode and application mode
  • CPU-controlled LED
  • No persistent storage
Note well: In the end-user version (not TKey Unlocked) the FPGA configuration is locked down. This means you cannot change the FPGA bitstream or read out the bitstream (or the Unique Device Secret, UDS) from the configuration memory, even if you break the case and insert it into a programmer board.

Measured boot & secrets #

A unique feature of the TKey is that it measures the loaded device application before starting it. A hash digest measurement (using BLAKE2s) combined with a Unique Device Secret (UDS) makes up a base secret we call a Compound Device Identifier (CDI) which can then used by the TKey device app.

If the TKey device app is altered in any way the CDI is also changed. If the keys derived from the CDI are the same as the last time the given device app was loaded onto the same TKey the device app’s integrity is guaranteed.

The UDS is unique per TKey. The same device app loaded onto another TKey results in a different CDI.

The key derivation can also include a User Supplied Secret (USS). Then the keys are based on both something the user has – the specific TKey – and something the user knows – the USS.

This is the algorithm for the CDI:

cdi = blake2s(UDS, blake2s(device_app), USS)

All of the TKey software, firmware, FPGA Verilog source code, schematics, and PCB design files are released under open source/hardware licenses, like all trustworthy security software and hardware should be. This, in itself, makes the TKey different, as other security tokens use at least some closed source hardware for security-critical operations.

Getting Started #