George Lambert
afa270a141
Cure53 Berlin 2019 and ROS Amsterdam 2024 are pentests, not HIPAA/SOC2/ISO certificates. BAA/DPA guidance for ciphertext-at-rest on cryptree+IPFS.
4.9 KiB
Peergos verification (what was actually audited)
This file records sourced facts. It does not turn Peergos, Verae, or DataCubes into a HIPAA, SOC 2, or ISO 27001 certificate.
Claim to check
Data at rest is stored in an encrypted append-only Peergos filesystem; backup/restore is managed via a distributed, hashed, encrypted Peergos IPFS system, designed and evaluated in the EU as an audited secure filesystem.
Verified
Independent security audits (Europe)
| Year | Firm | Where | What | Outcome (as published) | Primary sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Cure53 | Berlin, Germany | Pentest, source-code audit, crypto/design review of Peergos (May–June 2019) | Peergos: no fundamental architectural or cryptographic problems found; reported issues fixed. Cure53 concluded the platform passed this evaluation. | peergos.org/posts/security-audit; cure53.de/pentest-report_peergos.pdf; github.com/Peergos/Peergos/tree/master/audits |
| 2024 | Radically Open Security B.V. | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Crystal-box pentest + code audit of Peergos web-ui (Sep–Nov 2024), report dated 18 Nov 2024 | 0 extreme / high / elevated findings; 2 moderate, 6 low; Peergos states all fixed; none resulted in data exposure or integrity compromise (mostly UI crashes). | peergos.org/posts/security-audit-2024; ROS PDF in the same GitHub audits/ tree |
Both firms are EU-based. Both full reports are public. That is a security evaluation of the Peergos protocol/implementation, not a HIPAA/SOC 2/ISO management-system certificate.
EU funding / NLNet
- Peergos received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 programme under NGI-POINTER, grant 871528 (stated on the 2024 audit post).
- The 2024 audit was supported by NLnet (Netherlands).
Hosted instance location (peergos.net, not necessarily your self-host)
Peergos’s hosted privacy notice states the hosted instance uses servers in Germany and encrypted object storage, with backups that may use other providers (e.g. Backblaze S3). Self-hosted ns1 / customer cryptree is a different processing location and must be documented in your RoPA / BAA pack.
Source: peergos.net/privacy.html
Encrypted filesystem + hashed IPFS (design)
Documented Peergos design (matches “encrypted, hashed, distributed”):
- Cryptree: tree of symmetric keys; fine-grained read/write caps; sibling names hidden from a cap-holder of one file. Writes are signed. book.peergos.org/security/cryptree.html
- Chunks: up to 5 MiB, padded, independently encrypted (Salsa20-Poly1305 / TweetNaCl); random 256-bit keys (not convergent). book.peergos.org/security/encryption.html
- IPFS: content-addressed blocks. Peergos verifies the hash of every block read from or written to IPFS (server cannot silently swap bytes). Client verifies hashes and signatures of data from a Peergos server. book.peergos.org/security/trust.html
- CHAMP: encrypted cryptree nodes under random 32-byte labels; server cannot deduce file size or directory shape from the label graph.
- Sharing: hybrid X25519 + ML-KEM-1024 (post-quantum hybrid) for follow requests.
That is an append-mostly / capability / content-addressed encrypted filesystem. “Append-only” in Verae DataCubes is the cube chain JSONL (application integrity). Peergos itself uses signed updates and immutable blocks; directory pointers move forward. Do not conflate the two layers in an audit interview.
Not verified / do not claim
| Phrase | Status |
|---|---|
| “Peergos is HIPAA certified” | False. HIPAA is not a product certificate. |
| “Peergos is SOC 2 / ISO 27001 certified” | Not shown in the public materials above. The published work is security pentest/code audit, not a Type II or ISO registrar certificate. |
| “EU evaluated Peergos as a certified secure filesystem under a government FS standard” | Overstated. What exists: EU grant funding, NLNet-funded ROS pentest, Cure53 Berlin design+code audit. |
| “Hosts with disk/backup never need a BAA/DPA” | Legal conclusion — not a technical fact. See BAA-DPA.md. Encryption + no keys at the host is a strong Art. 32 / HIPAA Security Rule argument; counsel still decides. |
How Verae uses this
Verae DataCubes sit on Peergos cryptree (Drive) plus a console identity plane (TOTP, k-of-n inspect). Backup of cubes is content-addressed encrypted blocks (Peergos/IPFS), not a plaintext dump. That is the technical story to hand an auditor, with the sources in this file.