PKI Consortium blog

Moving to Always on HTTPS, Part 1 of 2; Marking HTTP as Unsecure
February 3, 2016 by Ben Wilson Chrome Firefox Google HSTS Malware Mixed Content Mozilla SSL/TLS Vulnerability

Over the past several years there has been increased discussion about deprecating HTTP and making HTTPS the default protocol for the World Wide Web.  (HTTP stands for “HyperText Transfer Protocol” and the “S” in HTTPS is enabled with an SSL/TLS digital certificate properly installed and configured on a web server.)  These discussions have taken place in the context of browser security indications and technical improvements simplifying the global movement to “Always on HTTPS.”   Part 1 of this two-part blog post will address browser security indicators, while Part 2 discusses technical developments to make HTTPS the default protocol when browsing the web.

What Will Happen With SHA-1 and Browser Users on January 1st, 2016?
January 5, 2016 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Android Apple Chrome Firefox Google Mozilla SSL/TLS Vulnerability

On January 1, 2016, the public trust certification authorities (CAs) will stop issuing SHA-1 signed SSL/TLS certificates. What will happen?

Will all websites using SHA-1 fail? No. SHA-1 will be supported by browsers and operating systems through 2016. Microsoft and Mozilla have announced that Windows and Firefox will not support SHA-1 in 2017, but no change for 2016. We expect Apple to follow the same protocol.

What about Chrome? Chrome will still provide warning indications in the browser status bar for SHA-1 signed certificates which expire in 2016 and in 2017 or later. No change.

2016 – Looking Back, Moving Forward
December 14, 2015 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Attack CA/Browser Forum CAA Chrome Code Signing DH Encryption Firefox Google Hash Function IETF Microsoft MITM OpenSSL Policy RC4 Revocation RSA SSL/TLS TLS 1.2 TLS 1.3 Vulnerability

Looking Back at 2015

A number of new tactics proved 2015 was no exception to an active year defending against ever increasing security issues. Vendors found new and creative ways to provide vulnerabilities including the now popular man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.  MitM as well as a host of other new vulnerabilities caused browsers to rethink their security requirements.  This article gives a flashback of the exploits and industry changes from 2015 and looks ahead at the latest security requirements and how it impacts IT security teams.

HTTP/2 Is Speedy and Secure
April 20, 2015 by Wayne Thayer Announcement Chrome Firefox Forward Secrecy Google HSTS IETF Microsoft Mozilla SSL/TLS Vulnerability

Since we last wrote about SSL/TLS performance, there has been a lot of activity in the IETF HTTP Working Group, resulting in the February announcement that the next version of HTTP has been approved. This is big news because it means that major SSL/TLS performance improvements are on the way.

Background

When your browser connects to a website today, it most likely uses the HTTP/1.1 protocol that was defined in 1999 in RFC 2616. Over the past 15 years, HTTP/1.1 has served us well and many tweaks have been discovered to make the most of it. However, in that time the web has transformed into a platform for interactive content and applications. Today, browsers load much more data from many more sources to build the typical web page.

Lenovo Enables Man-in-the-Middle Attacks Via Superfish Adware
February 20, 2015 by Doug Beattie (GlobalSign) Attack Code Signing Firefox Malware Microsoft MITM Mixed Content SSL/TLS Vulnerability

Lenovo is selling computers that contain the Superfish application which “supplements” the user’s SSL sessions to enable their adware application to deliver content transparently; however, due to poor security design this leaves users vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.

How it was supposed to work

Superfish uses the program “Visual Discovery” to process images in browser content and then displays ads for similar goods and services. This sounds like any other adware application, but in order to maintain SSL sessions and not alert users with security warnings, Superfish is serving up these images over https. They were able to do this by creating SSL certificates on the fly that imitate the certificates on the “real” websites they have intercepted and using them in a local SSL proxy to deliver content from the Visual Discovery server over the same apparent domain, without clearly revealing what they have done.  This is a classic “man in the middle” or MITM process.

2015 – Looking Back, Moving Forward
January 6, 2015 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Apple Attack CA/Browser Forum CAA Chrome Code Signing EV Firefox Forward Secrecy Google IETF Malware Microsoft MITM Mozilla OpenSSL PKI Policy RSA SHA1 SSL 3.0 SSL/TLS TLS 1.0 TLS 1.2 TLS 1.3 Vulnerability

Looking Back at 2014

End of 1024-Bit Security

In 2014, the SSL industry moved to issuing a minimum security of 2048-bit RSA certificates. Keys smaller than 2048 are no longer allowed in server certificates. In addition, Microsoft and Mozilla started to remove 1024-bit roots from their certificate stores. Hopefully, the key size change will support users through to 2030.

Extra Trips are for Frequent Flyers, Not SSL/TLS Performance
October 30, 2014 by Wayne Thayer Firefox Forward Secrecy Google HSTS OCSP Revocation RSA SSL/TLS

TLS is quickly becoming a de facto requirement for every website due to increased concerns about spying and Google’s recent move to use HTTPS as a factor in search engine ranking. In a recent article we explained how HSTS helps website operators to ensure that their site is always using TLS, but now we want to ensure that your performance isn’t sacrificed in the name of enhanced security. While the myth that TLS slows down a website has been debunked, some basic settings can make a site using TLS even faster.

Secure Your Website with HSTS
October 8, 2014 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Attack Chrome Encryption Firefox Google HSTS Policy SSL/TLS

Is your website secure? One thing to consider is securing your website with HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS).

Implementation of HSTS is an extension of the Always-On SSL policy. For each website you want to protect with HSTS, you must first deploy an SSL/TLS certificate (if you haven’t already), and configure that website to be accessible only via HTTPS, not via HTTP. Then you convey to HSTS-enabled browsers that your site is only available with HTTPS, by sending the HSTS header value. Supporting browsers will automatically change any HTTP query for your website into an HTTPS query. If there is no HTTPS version available, then the browser will provide a trust dialogue to the user.

In the Wake of Unauthorized Certificate Issuance by the Indian CA NIC, can Government CAs Still be Considered “Trusted Third Parties”?
July 24, 2014 by Ben Wilson CA/Browser Forum CAA CASC Chrome ETSI Firefox Google Microsoft Mis-issued Mozilla OCSP PKI Policy Revocation SSL/TLS Trust List WebTrust

Short answer: Government CAs can still be considered “trusted third parties,” provided that they follow the rules applicable to commercial CAs.

Introduction

On July 8 Google announced that it had discovered several unauthorized Google certificates issued by the National Informatics Centre of India. It noted that the Indian government CA’s certificates were in the Microsoft Root Store and used by programs on the Windows platform. The Firefox browser on Windows uses its own root store and didn’t have these CA certificates. Other platforms, such as Chrome OS, Android, iOS, and OS X, were not affected. See http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/07/maintaining-digital-certificate-security.html

What To Do When You Rely on Internal Names in TLS/SSL Certificates
July 18, 2014 by Wayne Thayer Attack CA/Browser Forum Firefox IANA ICANN Microsoft MITM Qualified SSL/TLS

A deadline set by the CA/Browser Forum for the use of Internal Names is quickly approaching, and many system administrators need to understand how best to adapt to this change. At the same time, hundreds of new top-level domains are being launched, which redefines what constitutes an Internal Name. In this post we’ll explain what the changes are, why they’re being made, and how you can update your systems in response to the problem.