On 02/07/2012 09:58 PM, Kai Engert wrote:
> On 07.02.2012 17:54, Ondrej Mikle wrote:
>>> The phone calls would ensure that each registered person will be aware
>>> of the certificate issuance.
>>
>> This is getting very close to EV validation (Sovereign Keys have the
>> same issue).
> 
> I'd say making phone calls is less effort than checking business
> documents, so I'm not convinced it's close to EV - because EV is out of
> reach for anyone running a private server.

Sure, provided that you call the right owner.

>> How do you plan on handling CDN services (ones with many certs)?
> 
> That's a reason why I propose vouchers to be IP specific.
> 
> In my understanding, each IP will have only a single certificate,
> regardless from where in the world you connect to it.

It's not true in general. There are services hidden with a load-balancer
behind a single IP. An example - 3m.com:

% dig +short 3m.com
192.28.34.26  #note: it's not fast-flux, TTL is 86400

% openssl s_client -tls1 -connect 192.28.34.26:443 -servername 3m.com
</dev/null 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -fingerprint -sha256
-issuer -subject
SHA256
Fingerprint=0A:F6:9B:2A:7C:C5:7C:7E:36:1F:49:02:EF:A4:8B:1E:4D:F6:44:43:CF:AF:8F:22:75:E8:BA:B8:61:49:A0:65
issuer= /C=US/O=Thawte, Inc./CN=Thawte SSL CA
subject= /C=US/ST=Minnesota/L=Saint Paul/O=3M Company/OU=3M Company -
P9/CN=*.3m.com

% openssl s_client -tls1 -connect 192.28.34.26:443 -servername 3m.com
</dev/null 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -fingerprint -sha256
-issuer -subject
SHA256
Fingerprint=40:21:0B:40:1F:1E:7D:61:D5:8B:C9:60:6C:07:1D:F0:1B:85:55:4D:5A:95:14:16:84:45:42:AD:82:44:97:CE
issuer= /C=US/O=Thawte, Inc./CN=Thawte SSL CA
subject= /C=US/ST=Minnesota/L=Saint Paul/O=3M Company/OU=3M Company -
P11/CN=*.3m.com

% openssl s_client -tls1 -connect 192.28.34.26:443 -servername 3m.com
</dev/null 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -fingerprint -sha256
-issuer -subject
SHA256
Fingerprint=7A:0F:F7:50:9E:8A:67:57:5A:6E:08:16:0C:A4:C2:11:D6:DD:A0:79:78:FC:49:23:8F:9A:30:B6:F6:0E:05:98
issuer= /C=US/O=Thawte, Inc./CN=Thawte SSL CA
subject= /C=US/ST=Minnesota/L=Saint Paul/O=3M Company/OU=3M Company -
P10/CN=*.3m.com

Here's a survey on CDNs done around November 2011 that shows the CDN
services (IPs are not recorded, but a simple script could check which
ones are just behind single IP):

http://constructibleuniverse.net/CDN/CDN_hosts.csv

It's CSV with '|' delimiter, fields: domain, DB id, issuer Org, issuer
CN, first seen, last seen.

> EV doesn't help if the attacker simply decides to get a plain DV cert
> and hopes that a sufficient amount of users won't notice the missing green.

Maybe I wasn't clear before: I'm not saying EV certs would help, just
that the administrative demands/costs of verification process in
MECAI/SK are getting close to EV validation. (Technically, we could talk
about OV/IV validation instead of EV.)

> But if the domain is supposed to watch something anyway (e.g. cert
> transparency log), then the domain owner could simply watch public DNS
> for changes. They could ask a monitoring company to watch DNS and notify
> them by phone if it changes. Or they could setup a watchdog on their own
> on some hosted VPS elsewhere on the web. They could quickly detect the
> DNS manipulation, and maybe even prevent the cert from being issued.

Yes. The difference between the "attacker close to webserver" and
"compromised DNS" is just in the available attack vectors:

- with DNS, it makes it easier if MX points to other machine than
webserver and makes attacking registrar as an option, whereas
- attacker "close to webserver" requires that MX points to the webserver
and that active attacker can do downgrade attack to SMTPS (if SMTPS is
used; or the webserver itself is compromised).

> Maybe we should require that CAs must always send out multiple emails
> whenever a certificate is being requested, even for EV. In addition to
> the usual approval message to host/web/sslmaster@domain, it could be
> mandatory that the CA sends notification emails to each of the email
> addresses found in the domain registry. If the domain owners are smart,
> they will use email addresses from secondary domains. Thus, even if the
> attacker can hijack the DNS of the domain in question, the attacker
> might be unable to do it for those secondary domains, too. If the domain
> owners receive notification about a fraudulent certificate request, they
> can quickly react. At least they will know which CA might soon issue a
> false certificate - and the domain owner can contact that CA and request
> cancellation or revocation.

I'd also add that the secondary domain should be registered with
different registrar than primary domain.

> Being able to modify WHOIS data and hijack a domain is a separate attack
> and might require solutions from a different angle.

It's a separate attack, but unfortunately very feasible (I am inclined
to say that it's generally easier than attacking a CA).

Ondrej
-- 
dev-tech-crypto mailing list
dev-tech-crypto@lists.mozilla.org
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-tech-crypto

Reply via email to