Corda, an open source blockchain for business from R3, has announced the general availability of Corda Enterprise 4.2. According to the notes, the main focus in this release was to continue work on securing cryptographic keys using hardware security modules typically found in enterprise environments.
Corda 4.0 introduced the ability to store signing keys in a hardware security module (HSM). This latest 4.2 release adds the ability to store other key types in a participant node. These include keys related to the TLS (transport layer security) as well as confidential identity keys.
The R3 team also added additional HSMs requested by customers including Securosys. Now work is continuing to ensure all HSMs support all three key types, see the HSM support list to determine an HSMs support level including model and firmware versions.
For the 4.2 release, the R3 team implemented other sets of improvements. The operational capability of the node was also a key focus of development work as more instances of Corda Enterprise being deployed in production system environments are seen.
Other Improvements Include:
- Logging improvements for the HSM and vault to give more insights into what is happening in the node.
- A notary registration tool that assists in the distribution of a shared key among the nodes of a notary cluster.
- Corda firewall deployment improvements. The firewall can check CRLs (certificate revocation lists) to ensure it does not connect to unlisted nodes.
- Flow management improvements with the checkpoint tool which outputs information about flows currently running on a node.
All the details can be found in the Corda 4.2 release notes.
