2012
- SSL 3.0 Usage in the Wild
Recently I had an opportunity to look at some logs that showed the cipher suites and protocol versions being negotiated for a large cross-section of websites.
- Understanding Windows Automatic Root Update
Windows has a feature called Automatic Root Update, when CryptoAPI does a chain build, exhausts the locally installed root certificates it downloads (if it has not already done so) a list of certificates it should trust.
- How Facebook can avoid losing $100M in revenue when they switch to always-on SSL
Recently Facebook announced that they will be moving to Always-On-SSL, I for one am thrilled to see this happen – especially given how much personal data can be gleamed from observing a Facebook session.
- Making a Windows smartcard login certificate with OpenSSL.
I use OpenSSL for testing certificate related stuff all the time, while using its test clients as a administrative tool can require contortions sometimes it’s very useful thing to have in my toolbox.
- Using CAPICOM on Windows x64
So CAPICOM was one of the project I was responsible for while at Microsoft, its been discontinued but I always find it useful – it is kind of a Swiss Army knife for CryptoAPI certificate stores when paired with its VBS…
- Priming the OCSP cache in Nginx
So recently GlobalSign, DigiCert, and Comodo worked together with Nginx to get OCSP stapling supoported in Nginx 1.3.7, unfortunately architectural restrictions made it impractical to make it so that pre-fetching the…
- What is the status of revocation checking in browsers?
Today we did an announcement of some work we have been doing with CloudFlare to speed up SSL for all of our customers through some improvements to our revocation infrastructure.
- Revocation checking, Chrome and CRLsets
One of the things I often hear is that Chrome no longer does revocation checking, this isn't actually true.
- A quick look at SSL performance
When people think about SSL performance they are normally concerned with the performance impact on the server, specifically they talk about the computational and memory costs of negotiating the SSL session and…
- Reading ocspreport and crlreport at x509labs.com
As you may know I have been hosting some performance and up-time monitors at: <http://ocspreport.x509labs.com> and <http://crlreport.x509labs.com>.
- Logo for x509Labs
Just got a logo for x509labs, what do you think?
- RESTful X509, CRL and OCSP to JSON web-service
So the other day I got a bee in my bonnet and decided I wanted a simple web service I could pass common day X509 objects to and get a JSON representation of that same object. We had recently done a project in Go at work…
- A look at revoked certificates
So today I have done posts on the browser user experience for expired and untrusted certificates but we wouldn’t have proper coverage on the topic of bad certificate user experience if we did not cover revoked…
- A look at untrusted certificates
Today I did a blog post on how browsers show expired certificates. I figured I would take the opportunity to capture a few of the other failure cases for certificates.
- A look at expired certificates
Today I was on a mail thread where the topic of how browsers handle expired certificates; this is particularly relevant for a few reasons.
- How to tell DV and OV certificates apart
There are in essence three kinds of SSL certificates: Domain Validated, Organization Validated and Extended Validated. I am not going to write about the differences here it seems that there are hundreds of articles on…
- Windows XP and Name Constraints
Recently I blogged about how Windows XP processes Name Constraints a little different than the RFC specifies -- with the help of a friend I have a good set of examples of what would work and what would not work that…
- Algorithms, key size and digital certificates
On the surface the digital certificates are not complicated -- a third-party (a certificate authority) verifies some evidence and produces a piece of identification that can be presented at a later date to prove that the…
- XP and the undefined Name Constraints
So Qualified Subordination is super important, it’s what really allows us to implement Least Privilege in PKI hierarchies.
- Updated my script for Qualified Subordination testing
I did some testing with ECC and SHA2 today and as such decided to update my script for testing Qualified Subordination to make it easy to get certificates that use these algorithms.
- Using ECC keys in X509 certificates
Recently the CAB Forum published a document called the Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly Trusted Certificates.
- Using SHA2 based signatures in X509 certificates
It’s been an exciting decade for cryptography; as a result we see smaller key sizes and weaker algorithms getting deprecated.
- How to get your own OID arc
X509 uses Object Identifiers (OIDs) to uniquely identify things, for example one assigns a OID to their Certificate Policy Statements (CPS) so that it is possible to programmatically detect if a certificate meets a…
- Government CAs in the Microsoft Root Program
Microsoft was the first Root program in a browser to have an open and transparent process for becoming a CA as well as the first to have public policy, audit and technical requirements that CAs must comply with.
- Serving OCSP POST responses on a CDN
The other day I did a blog post on how we are using a CDN to front our OCSP services, the CDN we are using is CloudFlare who is one of our partners.
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- How to seed the CryptoAPI URL cache with an OCSP response
It is possible to “staple” an OCSP response into higher level protocols such as TLS. This concept has been supported in Windows since Windows VISTA, shortly after it was added to OpenSSL/Apache and soon it will also be…
- CryptoAPI, Revocation checking, OCSP and the Unknown certStatus
In CryptoAPI one can use the CertGetCertificateChain.aspx) API to do the path building and basic chain validation, this validation may include revocation checking depending on which flags you pass via dwFlags; for…
- Serving OCSP on a CDN
So last week we moved our revocation repositories behind a CDN, this has a number of great benefits but it does have downsides though, for example.
- Using Monitis to monitor OCSP and CRL performance
Earlier I did a post on the performance of revocation repositories, in that I used the Monitis do some basic bench-marking for repository performance.
- Revocation repositories, IPv6 support, message size, and performance
So the last few weeks I have spent a reasonable amount of time looking at performance and networking related problems associated with revocation repositories. I still have some additional work to do but I figured I would…
- A revised look at the new Windows Update SSL configuration
The other day I did a quick post about how SSL was configure for Windows Update, I thought I would double back and see if they have made any changes and it looks like they have.
- Setting HTTP headers with OpenSSL and the OCSP test client
So I have been doing some OCSP performance bench-marking the last few weeks, one of the things we noticed while doing this is that OpenSSL does not set the HOST header when sending requests.
- Measuring OCSP Responder Performance with Powershell
The other day I did a post about testing if OCSP stapling was working, but what about telling how fast your OCSP responder is?
- Pulse data publicly availible
SSL Pulse is an initiative ran by Qualys to monitor the overall health of the SSL deployments on the Internet. It is based on the SSLLABS work Ivan Ristik has done; he has recently published the data used to derive these…
- A look at the new Windows Update SSL certificates
This morning I noticed a tweet by Mikko about the Windows Update certificate chain looking odd so I decided to take a look myself.
- What is your organizations policy on SSL?
In other posts I discussed how to redirect the initial request to a website from the HTTP version to the HTTPS (for Apache and IIS).
- Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS in IIS
So you have been using SSL on your IIS 7.5 or greater server for some time now; to get here you had to do a few things:
- Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS in Apache
So you have been using SSL on your Apache website for some time now; to get here you had to do a few things:
- Was the Flame WSUS attack caused just because of the use of MD5?
This morning I saw a number of posts on Twitter about Flame and the attacks use of a collision attack against MD5.
- RSA keys under 1024 bits and you
Recently Microsoft announced that they will push an update in August that will prevent the use of RSA keys with a bit-length less than 1024.
- Testing OCSP Stapling
So you have configured OCSP stapling and you want know if it’s actually working, it’s easy enough to check using the openssl sclient command:
- OCSP Stapling in IIS
Windows Server 2008 and later support a feature called OCSP stapling. When enabled a server pre-fetches the OCSP response for its own certificate and delivers it to the user’s browser during the TLS handshake. This…
- OCSP Stapling in Apache
Apache 2.3 and later support a feature called OCSP stapling. When enabled a server pre-fetches the OCSP response for its own certificate and delivers it to the user’s browser during the TLS handshake. This approach…
- Flame and Certificate Revocation
Microsoft has published patches that insert the CAs directly associated with the Terminal Services Licensing PKI into the “Untrusted” certificate store, this has the same effect as revoking the certificates for those…
- Flame was just one use of the Terminal Services Licensing PKI
I wanted to do a post on how the Terminal Services Licensing PKI could be used in another attack; though the variants are endless I have one concrete example of how this was used in in an attack in 2002 in this…
- How did the Terminal Services Licensing PKI effect you?
The other day I did a post on the age of the Microsoft PKI that was used for Terminal Services Licensing, today I thought I would talk about what that age meant in the context of the vulnerabilities it introduced.
- How one typically verifies code comes from Microsoft
Microsoft signs all code that ships from it (that is except for the case when it doesn't); so how does one verify that the code came from them vs. anyone with a fraudulent certificate claiming to be them?
- The tale of two (Microsoft) PKIs
As you know I used to work at Microsoft on areas surrounding cryptography, certificates, protocols and other such things.
- MSRC 2718704 and the age of the rogue certificates
One of the things I love about security is how security researchers are so passionate about their jobs; they for the most part respect their peers and enjoy learning about attacks so they are willing to share…
- MSRC 2718704 and Terminal Services License Certificates
When looking at the certificates the Flame authors used to sign the malware in their Windows Update module one has to wonder what was different between a normal terminal services license certificate and the one they…
- MSRC 2718704 and Nested EKU enforcement
There are a number of technical constraints a Certificate Authority can put into place on a subordinate Certificate Authority; the general concept is referred to as Qualified Subordination.
- MSRC 2718704 and the Terminal Services Licensing Protocol
There has been a ton of chatter on the internet the last few days about this MSRC incident; it is an example of so many things gone wrong it’s just not funny anymore.
- Getting beyond 1% -- How do we increase the use of SSL?
Today about 1% of the traffic on the Internet is protected with SSL (according to Sandyvine), there are a few key issues keeping this number so small and I thought I would put together a quick post on what I think those…
- Lightning talk on the “Improving the Availability of Revocation Information” workshop.
Looks like Scott Rea of DigiCert did a lightening talk on the workshop he and I participated in this last April, it was recorded and gives you a glimpse into the conversations that took place during this event; it is…
- Transcript for Panel on Third-Party Trust Providers and SSL Best Practices
Work just published the transcript from my panel discussion on Third-Party Trust Providers and SSL Best Practices last month at InfoSec Europe 2012, it also looks like Ivan has put his notes up also.
- Always On SSL (AOSSL) Whitepaper Published
Did you know about 1% of the traffic on the internet is protected with SSL (see the Sandyvine Report)?
- My top PKI/TLS related issues in Firefox
I have been asked a few times recently what my largest issues are with Firefox and it’s PKI/TLS implementations, here is the short-list:
- Attending workshop on “Improving the Availability of Revocation Information”
At the most recent CA/Browser Forum folks from DigiCert and I both made presentations on what’s needed to improve the current state of revocation in X.509.
- Browser Revocation Behavior Needs Improvement
Today the best behaving client for revocation behavior is that of Windows, in the case of browsers that means IE and Chrome.
- OCSP Responder Performance Needs Improvement
Recently I set up a PingDom monitor to track the overall performance of the various OCSP responders out there, PingDom is limited to doing GETs and cannot parse the responses from the responders but it’s a fair mechanism…
- How to do OCSP requests using OpenSSL and CURL
It pretty easy, the OpenSSL and CURL manuals make it fairly easy but I thought I would put it all here in a single post for you.
- Hard revocation checking and why it’s not here yet.
If you follow discussions around x.509 and SSL you have likely heard that “Revocation Checking is Broken”, you might even hear it will never work therefore we should start over with a technology that isn’t dependent on…
- Using OpenSSL to create a test Qualified Subordination PKI hierarchy
The other day posted about "Least Privilege and Subordinate Certificate Authorities", this post talked about how you can delegate only a limited set of rights to a subordinate CA. I thought you might find a set of…
- Least Privilege and Subordinate Certificate Authorities
One of the most fundamental design principals when designing a secure system is that of least privilege, in the case of CAs one scenario where this can be applied is the subordination of another CA.
- SSL/TLS Deployment Best Practices
SSL/TLS seems simple, you go to a CA to prove who you are they give you a credential, you install it on your server, turn on SSL and then you are done.
- My first post since joining GlobalSign
My first day at GlobalSign was actually the 23<sup>rd</sup>, I have been traveling to the various offices to get to know people, the technology and the review the immediate projects. Its been a whirlwind forsure.
- Leaving Microsoft, My Goodbye Letter
Here is my goodbye letter to all of the amazing people I worked with over the last decade: