OpenPGP keys on smartcard: what is the real-world security gain of keeping master key offline?

Question

When keeping OpenPGP keys for daily use on a smartcard (a Yubikey, say), what are, from a security point of view, the advantages of keeping the master key offline as compared to simply keeping the master key pair on the card? (Of course, just like in the case of using subkeys, redundant encrypted offline backups of the master key exist.)

I understand that subkeys may be revoked separately from the master key, but I fail to see a realistic threat model where this capability would matter. Here are the two most relevant threat scenarios that I can come up with where there would be a difference:

(1) An adversary gains access to a computer where the smarcard is used and manages to read out the private master key by exploiting a weakness or backdoor in the smartcard. Or, if readout is impossible, the adversary may create a revocation certificate or certify other keys.

(2) Same as (1), but the smartcard gets lost or stolen.

Frankly, I do not consider (1) or (2) relevant for someone like, say, a free software developer who is not directly targeted by powerful adversaries like state security agencies who may have the necessary knowledge and resources to defeat the smartcard. And someone who is individually targeted by powerful adversaries needs to also take care of other glaring security problems (like living in a place that is not guarded 100% of the time).

Personally, I feel reasonably secure keeping my master key on the encrypted Debian laptop that I use for daily work and that no one else has physical access to. (This approach is sometimes called trusted physical console.) The reason I'm interested in smartcards now is that I would like to use the key also on other computers to which third parties may theoretically have access.

Am I overlooking any real-world advantages of not keeping the master key on the daily-use smartcard? Have any attacks become known where the additional security of keeping the master key offline mattered?

On the other hand, one could argue that since one needs to keep offline backups of all the keys anyway, one may just as well use dedicated subkeys for daily work, since the amount of additional hassle does not seem to be particularly high.

Answer 1

I'm not a cryptographic expert but here is my point of view.

Both methods you talk about are storing the keys offline. Secrets stored in smart cards cannot be read. The goal of a smart card is to keep the private key out of the computer. You can communicate with your smart card to do cryptographic operation but you can't extract the private key. So your first scenario is a bit far from reality as it is unlikely to happen. The second scenario is also not realistic. Usually, you need to enter a pin code to use your smart card. So if someone steal your smart card, it can't use it. Some smart cards can be automatically deactivated after a number of wrong pin. Anyway, when you see that your smart card has been stolen, you can "revoke" it.

So I would say that from the security point of view smart card and offline storage of cryptographic keys are equals for your usage (storing openpgp keys). But for an everyday usage of your personal keys smart cards are a better solution. It's also easier to manage smart cards in organization than offline computer.

Here is good article to complete my answer : Strategies for offline PGP key storage

Answer 2

Since asking the question, I have acquired a better understanding of the matter, which allows me to answer my question myself.

Smartcards, when working as designed, prevent an adversary from reading out the secret keys that are stored on them, but not from using them. Say that an adversary has gained access to the card, for example by breaking into the computer where it is plugged in. If the master private key is stored on the card, the attacker can now certify a new key of his making, and create a revocation certificate for the legitimate key. This is equivalent to hijacking the identity of the card owner, and it is not necessary to read out any private key for that.

Even if signing operations are protected with a push button, the attacker needs to hijack only two pushes in one way or other.

In summary, using a smart card or not and storing the master private key offline or not are two independent security considerations.

OpenPGP smartcards turn out to be less useful than many people may think. The threat models where a smartcard is useful have been discussed in a recent thread on the GnuPG-users mailing list.