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Thales HSM Simulator Library

HSM stands for Hardware Security Module. It’s a tamper resistant and incredibly secure physical device which is used to generate/store cryptographic keys and perform cryptographic functions. It detects unauthorized access, trigger alarm and even can remove the cryptographic keys inside to protect the information.

HSM devices are widely used in banking environments to provide security functions to a host application. Typically, an HSM can perform DES and Triple DES symmetric encryption. Additionally, some HSM devices (Thales amongst them) can also provide RSA asymmetric encryption facilities.

Released on Mar 8th, an excellent resource was forwarded by a friend, is a software based open implementation of HSM, Hardware security module. The HSM simulator is a library that provides almost all of the functionalities offered by Thales HSM.

Almost all means, that several commands were not implemented fully (like the PA-Load Formatting Data whose sole implementation task is to respond to the host application) or not at all (like commands that have to do with the IBM verification method).

Thales Simulator Library