AIX Advanced Crypto Facility (ACF) now taps into Power in-core hardware acceleration for AES-GCM & GMAC. This enhancement delivers significant performance gains especially for IPsec, which leverages ACF for secure, high-speed encryption. Lab tests show up to close to 3x improvement in IPsec throughput with in-core acceleration enabled.
Please refer this post for more details.
ACF enhancements have been integrated into both AIX Encrypted Logical Volumes and Physical Volumes, resulting in significant IOPS improvements and reduced CPU usage. Lab tests have shown approximately a 15% performance gain for both Logical and Physical Volumes
Platform KeyStore (PKS) now supports User-Space on AIX
With FW950 + HMC 9.2.950, Applications on AIX can now securely store secrets in hardware backed NVRAM using PKS.
With more exploiters using PKS, storage limitations in NVRAM became a concern. To address this, object wrapping was introduced in Power11 (FW1110), allowing more efficient use of PKS storage.
Please refer this post for more details.
Audit API Gets Smarter in new AIX
Continuous Auditing Meets Zero Downtime: AIX LKU Now Supports All Audit Modes
AIX Auditing is now fully compatible with Live Kernel Update (LKU), including both BIN and STREAM modes. This enhancement ensures continuous observability during live updates no more trade-offs between uptime and audit integrity
AIX Live Kernel Update Is Now Possible with Active IPsec Tunnels and IPsec filters
No more downtime, with AIX LKU, you can now migrate active IPsec tunnels without rebooting or disrupting secure traffic. Traditionally, LKU failed if IPsec tunnels or filters were active. With a new LKU unable “ipsec_auto_migrateoption”, AIX can automatically tear down and restore IPsec during LKU, no manual intervention needed.
AIX IPsec/IKEv2 now supports stronger cryptographic algorithms, reinforcing its position as a secure and enterprise grade networking solution.
These enhancements align AIX IPsec/IKEv2 with modern security standards, making it suitable for environments requiring high assurance encryption and future proof cryptographic strength. Whether you're securing internal communications or building a zero-trust architecture, these updates ensure your AIX systems are ready for the next generation of secure networking.
OpenSSL, 3.0.15.1001, is now available on AIX
This release includes performance optimizations for the AES-GCM, AES-XTS, and AES-CFB algorithms, leveraging the in-core cryptographic acceleration capabilities of the IBM Power11 processor
Trusted boot is now enabled with vTPM 2.0
AIX 7.3 TL3 SP1 now supports TPM 2.0 on IBM Power10 & Power11 systems, enabling trusted boot & remote attestation in line with TCG standards for modern, secure computing.