CloudFront 宣佈支援 ECDSA 的 Certificate

Amazon CloudFront 宣佈支援 ECDSA 的 certificate:「Amazon CloudFront now supports ECDSA certificates for HTTPS connections to viewers」。

用主要是讓 certificate 更小,讓 HTTPS 建立時的過程更快 (包括了傳輸的速度與計算的速度):

As a result, conducting TLS handshakes with ECDSA certificates requires less networking and computing resources making them a good option for IoT devices that have limited storage and processing capabilities.

很久以前好像有看到資料說 256 bits 的 EC 運算量跟 768~1024 bits 的 RSA 差不多,但一時間找不到資料...

目前 CloudFront 只支援 NIST P-256 (secp256r1,或稱作 prime256v1):

Starting today, you can use Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) P256 certificates to negotiate HTTPS connections between your viewers and Amazon CloudFront.

但 NIST P-256 一直為人詬病,在「SafeCurves: choosing safe curves for elliptic-curve cryptography」這邊可以看到 NIST 宣稱的效率設計實際上都不是真的:

Subsequent research (and to some extent previous research) showed that essentially all of these efficiency-related decisions were suboptimal, that many of them actively damaged efficiency, and that some of them were bad for security.

但目前標準是往 NIST P-256、NIST P-384 與 NIST P-521 靠攏 (主要是受到 CA/Browser Forum 的限制),要其他 curve 的 certificate 也沒辦法生,目前可能還是繼續觀望...