Unlocking the Power of Cryptography in Rust
In today’s digital landscape, securing data in transit is crucial. Rust, a systems programming language, offers a robust ecosystem of cryptography libraries to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of data. In this article, we’ll delve into the state of cryptography in Rust, exploring popular libraries and tools for encryption, random number generation, password-based encryption, TLS, and hashing.
Cryptography Suites for Rust
Cryptography suites provide a secure connection using TLS or SSL. Here are some open-source Rust suites, evaluated for stability and production readiness:
- OpenSSL: A safe interface to the popular OpenSSL cryptography library, with 123 versions published and licensed under Apache 2.0.
- Orion: Aims to minimize the use of unsafe code, supporting Rust 1.41 or later, with 68 versions published and licensed under MIT.
- Libsodium-sys: An open-source Rust binding to the sodium library, with 24 versions published and licensed under Apache-2.0/MIT.
- GPGME: A GnuPG Made Easy (GPGME) library for Rust, with 14 versions published and licensed under LGPL-2.1.
- Ring: A library allowing the creation of safe, fast, and small crypto applications using Rust with BoringSSL’s cryptography primitives, with 94 versions published.
Random Number Generators (RNG) for Rust
Random number generators take in nondeterministic inputs and generate unpredictable numbers as output. Here are some production-ready RNGs for Rust:
- Rand: A Rust library for random number generation, with 62 versions published and requiring rustc version 1.32 or greater.
- UUID: Creates and parses universally unique identifiers (UUIDs), with 45 versions published.
Password-Based Encryption for Rust
Password-based encryption helps create strong cryptographic keys. Here are some libraries for password-based encryption in Rust:
- Bcrypt: An open-source library for hashing and verifying passwords, with 21 versions published and supporting version 1.36.0 as the minimum version of Rust.
- Djangohashers: A Rust port of the password primitives used in Django projects, with 23 versions published.
- Pwhash: A collection of password hashing and verification routines, with five versions published.
TLS Libraries for Rust
Transport Layer Security (TLS) ensures data sent over the internet is encrypted. Here are some TLS libraries for Rust:
- Rustls: A modern library implementing TLS for Rust, with 29 published versions and licensed under MIT/Apache-2.0.
- Tokio-OpenSSL: An implementation of SSL streams for Tokio, an asynchronous runtime for Rust, backed by OpenSSL, with 56 versions published.
- Tokio-Rustls: An asynchronous TLS/SSL stream for Tokio using the rustls library, with 56 versions published.
- Webpki: Validates Web PKI (TLS/SSL) certificates, with 40 versions released and licensed under no license.
Crypto Tools for Rust
Crypto tools make securing information between peers seamless. Here are some popular encryption tools for Rust:
- Tempfile: Creates temporary files and directories, with 35 versions published and licensed under MIT/Apache 2.0.
- Cookie: Enhances HTTP cookie parsing and cookie jar management, with 62 versions published and licensed under MIT or Apache 2.0.
- Frank-JWT: An implementation of JSON Web Tokens in Rust, with 14 versions published and licensed under Apache 2.0.
Hashing in Rust
Hashing converts data into unique strings that are undecipherable to humans. Here are some libraries that offer hashing in Rust:
- Rust-FNV: A custom hasher implementation that is fast and has good dispersion, with eight published versions and licensed under Apache 2.0/MIT.
- Twox-Hash: A Rust implementation of the XXHash algorithm, with 13 versions published.
- Blake2-RFC: A pure Rust implementation of BLAKE2, with 20 versions published.
Cryptographic Algorithms for Rust
Algorithms are designed for data encryption, authentication, and digital signatures. Here are some popular cryptographic algorithms for Rust:
- Bulletproofs: Enacts Bulletproofs using Ristretto, with eight versions published.
- Curve25519-Dalek: A Rust implementation of operations on Ristretto and Curve25519, with 64 versions published.
- Ed25519-Dalek: A fast and efficient Rust implementation of ed25519 key generation, signing, and verification, with over 28 versions published.
- Merlin: Provides a transcript-based RNG as defense-in-depth against bad-entropy attacks, with 12 versions published.
- Rust-Secp256k1: A wrapper around libsecp256k1, with 63 versions published and licensed under CC0-1.0.
- Subtle: A constant-time cryptographic implementation, with 24 versions published and supporting a minimum of Rust version 1.41.
- X25519-Dalek: A pure-Rust implementation of x25519 elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange, with 17 versions published.
- ZKP: Implements the zero-knowledge proof according to Schnorr style, with 12 versions published and licensed under CC0-1.0.
In conclusion, Rust offers a robust ecosystem of cryptography libraries and tools, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of data. Whether you’re building a secure web application or a cryptographic protocol, Rust has got you covered.