HSM outage causes root CA key loss

[Peter Gutmann]

I haven't been able to find an English version of this, but the following news
item from Germany:

http://www.heise.de/security/E-Gesundheitskarte-Datenverlust-mit-Folgen--/news/meldung/141864

reports that the PKI for their electronic health card has just run into
trouble: they were storing the root CA key in an HSM, which failed.  They now
have a PKI with no CA key for signing new certs or revoking existing ones.

(When I talk about PKI I always title the root CA as "the Single Point of
Failure", but I think this is the first time in a non-private CA where it's
actually become this in practice.  For private-label PKIs it's a lot more
common because of the "lesser-known public key" phenomenon).

Peter.

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