UEFI 2.4 Review, Part 12: Random Number Generator Protocol

This article is the twelfth part in a series describing the changes in the UEFI 2.4 specification. This article discusses the new Random Number Generator protocol, which provides random numbers for use in applications or as an entropy seed for other cryptographic purposes. In cryptography, random numbers are used for key generators, as the salt value in certain signature schemes and nonces.

In the pre-OS this can be very important, since the system has not been running for very long. Software random number generators (sometimes called pseudo-random number generators) give a good distribution of returned values of the total possible range of values, but need a reliably random starting or seed value. Unfortunately, in the pre-OS when UEFI is running, random numbers are needed before a sufficiently random seed value can be found. Hardware random number generators can provide a good distribution, compensating for biases in the measuring process.

The Random Number protocol in UEFI 2.4 allows you to select the source of the random number from a list of random-number algorithms. Some of these are standard. For example, NIST SP 800-90 provides a series guidelines for ensuring adequate range and randomness for software random number generators. And other NIST recommendations detail an algorithm based on ANSI X9.31. Or you can define your own by generating and returning your own GUID. In the case of hardware random number generators, there is a default GUID (EFI_RNG_ALGORITHM_RAW) which gets the raw value from the hardware or NULL, which uses the driver's default algorithm, hardware or software.

Random number generators provide the basis for any number of security-related algorithms, including the network traffic. By providing access to a high-quality random number generator in the pre-OS, UEFI paves the way for handling that network traffic securely.

UPDATE: Appendix A of the UEFI 2.4 specification also indicates that the last 48 bits of the GUID can be optionally filled in with a random number. Extracting any 48 bits from a generated random number provided by this protocol would work.