Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bogomipz 3498 days ago
I had to look up TPM, I didn't realize there was an open standard for crypto processors. Is it safe to say that most HSMs are TPMs?
1 comments

They are quite different beasts. HSMs offer tamper protection through various physical means like wrapping all components in resin, or implementing self-destruction mechanisms. Smart cards protect their secrets against all kinds of side channel attacks trying to read keys off a thermal signature for example.

TPMs in most cases are based on smart cards but can also be implemented in a TEE (Trusted Execution Environment). Security does not always mandate tamperproof hardware.

Thanks for the clarification.