11 ms·

Chinese CA WoSign faces revocation after possibly issuing fake certificates

• mtgx 10y ago
  > Possible fake cert for Github https://crt.sh/?id=29647048 https://crt.sh/?id=29647048 https://crt.sh/?id=29805567 https://crt.sh/?id=29805567 > Possible fake cert for Alibaba, the largest commercial site in China https://crt.sh/?id=29884704 https://crt.sh/?id=29884704 > Possible fake cert for Microsoft https://crt.sh/?id=29805555 https://crt.sh/?id=29805555 Yikes. If all of that is true, surely Google will permanently ban WoSign from Chrome? And I would hope Mozilla and Microsoft, too, but Google is usually the one to "play tough" with rogue CAs (and I hope they will strive to develop and maintain that reputation).
  • MichaelGG 10y ago
    Or maybe limit them to certain .cn domains? (Excluding well known targets?)
    • noinsight 10y ago
      Supposedly name constraints are not universally supported though. See: http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/31376/certification-authority-limited-only-to-certain-domains http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/31376/certificat... http://blog.codekills.net/2012/04/08/adventures-in-x509-the-utterly-ignored-nameconstraints/ http://blog.codekills.net/2012/04/08/adventures-in-x509-the-...
  • verroq 10y ago
    [deleted]
    • Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
      You can only accept certs issued before a given date, though.
      • LoSboccacc 10y ago
        but you have to code that in every browser and hope people will be able to patch up. a revocation list from parent certificate company nuking the ca is the intended way to deal with trust breach, it should be supported everywhere, and doesn't require a full redeployment of browsers (And sometime entire OSes!) across the world.
        • Kadin 10y ago
          Most major (non-embedded, I suppose) OSes have some framework for periodically updating the certificate store. It's not necessarily a full redeployment of the OS. Mac OS and Windows both are capable of receiving new root certs via the OS update process. Apple says it updates certs approximately once per quarter: https://www.apple.com/certificateauthority/ca_program.html https://www.apple.com/certificateauthority/ca_program.html I think there is a pretty strong argument for treating a bad CA like a zero-day vulnerability and "fixing" the problem through a security update that un-trusts the cert. However, to date neither Apple nor Microsoft have been especially aggressive in this regard. Google has taken a somewhat freer hand towards badly-behaved CAs, but they really only control Android: Chrome uses the OS's trust store, rather than its own (as Firefox does). They could presumably change this, and I'm sometimes unsure why they don't, but I guess it has to do with enterprise-environment interoperability. At some point if Chrome were to become the dominant browser, such that they could dictate terms to enterprise customers rather than the other way around (or if web apps really did take over the world to the point where the keystore outside your browser is essentially irrelevant; cf. Chromebooks), maybe they would reconsider this decision...
          • pfg 10y ago
            While Chrome technically does not have the kind of root program that other OS or browser vendors run, they have the ability to revoke trust for specific roots, plus other things, like enforcing CT for specific CAs. Given that there's already a root program that's being run transparently, there's not that big of an incentive to run yet another root program, IMO. Plus, while I'm extremely happy that Mozilla is running their own root program for various reasons, using existing OS APIs for these things seems like the cleanest approach (if you can't trust your OS to make these decisions, you probably have bigger problems and shouldn't run that OS anyway).
    • laggyluke 10y ago
      I believe this is done by not accepting any certificate issued past date X. This way the old certificates keep working, while the new ones don't.
      • creshal 10y ago
        WoSign was also caught red-handed backdating certificates to avoid the SHA1 deprecation. So you can't trust that information either. As mentioned in a different thread, whitelisting certificates extracted from CT logs is the only really viable choice here.
      • pfg 10y ago
        The problem with this approach is that a CA that's been given the death penalty has little to lose, so they might just start backdating certificates. In fact, backdating SHA-1 certificates is one of the incidents they've now reported. The only way to do this without the risk of backdated certificates being accepted would be to explicitly whitelist all known certificates that were issued prior to the cut-off date. I'm not sure how practical it is to ship such a large list, though (they've issued > 100k certificates in 2015 IIRC).
      • willglynn 10y ago
        This is problematic here, because WoSign is also known to have issued a certificate in July 2016 backdated to December 2015: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/k9PBmyLCi8I/mKSMaz9eCgAJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/...
  • wyuenho 10y ago
    Wosign is not in the list of default CAs on the Mac, according to Keychain, so if you are using Chrome on a Mac, since Chrome only uses the system's root certs, you should be safe as long as you don't go add that root cert into Keychain. Wosign is in Firefox however, so Mozilla needs to do something about this.
    • pfg 10y ago
      They're cross-signed by StartCom, which is trusted by MacOS.
      • wyuenho 10y ago
        True, is there anything a SSL cert manager can do short of a blanket ban of StartCom certs?
        • snuxoll 10y ago
          You can add code to fail validation if this specific intermediate certificate is in the trust chain, but there's no way to ban intermediate certificates with the X.509 trust model without removing the root from the CA store. Firefox/Chrome already do some extra validation to ban SHA1 certs issued past a specific date, they'd just need to blacklist the fingerprint of the intermediate CA.
  • throwaway7767 10y ago
    > Yikes. If all of that is true, surely Google will permanently ban WoSign from Chrome? And I would hope Mozilla and Microsoft, too, but Google is usually the one to "play tough" with rogue CAs (and I hope they will strive to develop and maintain that reputation). This will most likely happen, because a) the CA is not a western CA and b) it was due to incompetence. If they had been competent but intentionally and willfully broken the trust of the CA system, assuming they had enough money, they would keep their CA cert. Case in point: TrustWave still has their CA certificate after intentionally selling sub-CAs for the purpose of MITM! But don't worry, they promised they'll never to it again, honest.
  • estebank 10y ago
    > Possible fake cert for Github https://crt.sh/?id=29647048 https://crt.sh/?id=29647048 https://www.schrauger.com/the-story-of-how-wosign-gave-me-an-ssl-certificate-for-github-com https://www.schrauger.com/the-story-of-how-wosign-gave-me-an...
    • schrauger 10y ago
      Just FYI, since you only quoted one certificate. Both GitHub certificates were mine, not just the one. I created a second account for the second certificate.
• michaelt 10y ago
  Traditionally it's difficult for browser vendors to revoke a root CA as they want to grandfather in old certificates, so existing sites don't have the rug pulled out from under their feet when their only crime is using a crap CA. Partial solutions include blocking the CA's certs based on the issuance date or insisting they hand over a list of the certs they've issued - but if the CA is going down in flames anyway, they have no incentive to cooperate; they can backdate certs and destroy their own customer list. My theory is [1] this is one of the side benefits of Certificate Transparency - CT will give browser vendors a list of certs to grandfather in if they decide to shut down a CA against its will. [1] https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/certificate-transparency/ https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/certificate-transparency/
  • Buetol 10y ago
    +1 revoking a CA using the issuance date seems like the right solution
    • michaelt 10y ago
      It would certainly be better than nothing, yes. But prior to March 2015, CAs could issue certs valid for up to 5 years. So even if browsers stopped accepting WoSign certs with an issuance date after today, WoSign could still issue certs "issued March 2015 valid until to March 2020" and browsers would accept them.
      • jandrese 10y ago
        If they start putting fake dates on the certs then the nuclear option is the only option. They are in the business of selling trust and they're outright lying on their only product? That's untenable.
        • creshal 10y ago
          See above, they've already been caught doing that.
      • 10y ago
• guelo 10y ago
  I just went to delete these roots from my Windows system but it's not listed. It was in Firefox's list but not in Window's. Anyone know why?
  • hannob 10y ago
    They're cross-signed by startcom.
    • guelo 10y ago
      I'm not familiar with this. Does it mean that if you trust StartCom you have to trust WoSign?
      • detaro 10y ago
        No, you can explicitly install the WoSign certificate into the "Untrusted Certificates" chain.
    • Karunamon 10y ago
      Given StartCom's bad behavior, you're probably better off marking them untrusted too.
    • svenfaw 10y ago
      Windows actually trusts 5 WoSign roots by default, regardless of the StartCom cross-signing. Friendly names: WoSign - WoSign 1999 - WoSign ECC - WoSign G2 - WoSign China
  • kobayashi 10y ago
    Anybody know how to delete certs from Firefox on OS X?
    • guelo 10y ago
      Settings -> Advanced -> Certificates -> View Certificates -> Authorities
  • 10y ago
• marcoperaza 10y ago
  Is there an easy way for me to revoke trust from all Chinese CAs? Anyone in China is ultimately subject to being forced to do the dirty work of the Chinese Communist Party. Why are browser and OS vendors even trusting them in the first place?
  • aianus 10y ago
    I untrusted all Chinese-sounding CAs from "System Roots" under "Keychain Access" in OSX as soon as I got my laptop. That's what Chrome and Safari verify against.
    • Kadin 10y ago
      That wouldn't have helped you in this case -- WoSign doesn't even show up in the OS X or Windows root keystores. Its certificates are (apparently) signed by StartCom. I just blacklisted StartCom's root certs. IMO for signing off on WoSign they're just as guilty, if not worse, than WoSign itself. Since they're the ones with the root cert in the OS, the buck stops there.
      • aianus 10y ago
        Yup, you're absolutely right. I've also blacklisted StartCom after reading through the comments on this thread.
      • rblatz 10y ago
        I attempted to remove all StartCom certs from the OS X keychain, apparently you can't do it even as root. You have to boot into the recovery partition first. http://superuser.com/questions/1070664/security-seckeychainitemdelete-unixoperation-not-permitted-on-os-x-when-tryi http://superuser.com/questions/1070664/security-seckeychaini... Edit: Don't delete them, instead right click each certificate, select "Get Info", Expand the "Trust" panel, and set it to "Never Trust"
        • aianus 10y ago
          You don't have to remove them, you can just set the 'Trust' setting to 'Never Trust'.
• koolba 10y ago
  Too big to fail my ass. There's no such thing when it comes to security. If anything, that's more reason to cut them loose. If a CA pulls shit like this they need to be revoked immediately and let the wrath of 1000s of businesses that are impacted by cert warnings rain down upon them. That will 1) Solve the security problem immediately and 2) Publicize what it means to get a cert from a crap CA that doesn't care about security. Sure it will suck for the "little guy" who didn't know but, if you don't do this, he'll never know and never learn.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • mariuolo 10y ago
    I won't comment on the specifics of this case, but a more nuanced approach regarding security is preferable because it favours transparency. If a vendor/CA/whatever knows that they will die if anything comes out, they will bury things like this even deeper.
    • koolba 10y ago
      > I won't comment on the specifics of this case, but a more nuanced approach regarding security is preferable because it favours transparency. Certificate Transparency solves a lot of this already. It'd be nice if you could flag your domain as being only acceptable from a CA of your choosing. I don't even think the false positives would be an issue as worst case you have security conscious customers not coming to your site (i.e. you make the business decision). > If a vendor/CA/whatever knows that they will die if anything comes out, they will bury things like this even deeper. There's already ways to handle this. Rather than signing everything with your top level cert, you sign a series of intermediate certs and use those to sign the end user keys. The intermediate certificates would be rolled over every N days and creation of new ones should happen offline (i.e. where you keep your master CA cert, the "approved" one). If you have a system like that in place before shit hits the fan, the damage is isolated to the impacted intermediate certs which could be selectively revoked/blacklisted. If a CQ has not taken those precautions then they've got no recourse when something like this happens. From a user's perspective, I wouldn't want my browser/OS/app to trust any certificates from these losers. If they can't isolate the damage that's their and their customer's problem. I'm not going to compromise my security for their sake.
• jaas 10y ago
  This is a pretty misleading title for a couple of reasons: 1) WoSign may face revocation (I doubt it but I don't know), but there is no evidence of that in this article. This is just one person not affiliated with a root program "calling for" it. People on the internet call for revocation of major CA roots all the time. 2) I don't really know what a "fake" cert is, it's a very strange choice of words. I would think a fake cert is not a real cert, and in that case issuing fake certs is fine because browsers won't trust them. It seems the problem here is that real certs were issued when they shouldn't have been. That's called "mis-issuance", not "fake certs."
  • joosters 10y ago
    I don't really know what a "fake" cert is You are just being pedantic. The meaning is perfectly clear, they are creating certificates for a domain and giving them to people who do not control/own that domain. Pick whatever word you like to describe this. The story is very clear.
    • SimeVidas 10y ago
      Speak for yourself. People get confused by the smallest ambiguities.
• 0x0 10y ago
  So what's the relation to StartCom/StartSSL? I remember reading some comments about half a year ago mentioning that the startssl website suddenly was hosted on Chinese IP addresses, just around the time they redesigned the web page. This seemed fishy enough back then that I finally switched from startssl to letsencrypt for non-wildcard certs and actually started paying a different CA for wildcart certs... Did the StartSSL root CA change hands / was it sold to a Chinese company (Wosign?) I seem to remember the CEO used to be vocal in various ssl and ca forums and on bugzilla earlier.... But no comments lately?
  • psz 10y ago
    Looks like Eddy Nigg was recently attending the cabforum minutes: https://cabforum.org/2016/06/09/2016-06-09-minutes/ https://cabforum.org/2016/06/09/2016-06-09-minutes/
    • 0x0 10y ago
      From what I've seen earlier, he's appeared to have a clue or two about SSL. I wonder what's going on with wosign+startssl despite that? Isn't it all very related?
  • pfg 10y ago
    This came up on the Mozilla mailing list and the most likely explanation is that they're sharing some infrastructure, i.e. one CA is hosting the other[1]. This is apparently quite common in the industry. I don't think the Baseline Requirements (or any of the root program policies) currently require that CAs disclose these arrangements. I don't think CA hosting is inherently bad (in many cases I'd actually be happy to know that a CA is not running their own infrastructure), but it would probably be a good idea to force CAs to be transparent about it. If it's publicly known that WoSign and StartCom use the same domain validation infrastructure (just as an example, this might not be the case), that fact would be highly relevant for this discussion. [1]: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/k9PBmyLCi8I/MwnUqwRqCgAJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/...
  • jlgaddis 10y ago
• jwilk 10y ago
  https://www.schrauger.com/the-story-of-how-wosign-gave-me-an-ssl-certificate-for-github-com https://www.schrauger.com/the-story-of-how-wosign-gave-me-an...
• amluto 10y ago
  Can't browsers at least restrict CAs like WoSign so that their roots are only accepted for .cn domains? I realize that X.509 name constraints are utterly broken, but that doesn't mean that browsers can't manually restrict the domains that a given root is accepted for.
• nguoiduatin196 10y ago
  http://phukhoathaiha.com/thuoc-chua-benh-sui-mao-ga-o-nam-gioi-hieu-qua-nhat-102110.html http://phukhoathaiha.com/thuoc-chua-benh-sui-mao-ga-o-nam-gi... Nam giới là đối tượng rất dễ mắc các bệnh lây nhiễm, đặc biệt là các bệnh lây truyền qua đường tình dục như các bệnh xã hội do lối sống của nam giới trong chuyện này thoáng hơn rất nhiều. Sùi mào gà là một trong những bệnh xã hội phổ biến và có nguy cơ lây nhiễm bệnh cao nhất. Mặc dù sùi mào gà ở nam giới có biến chứng và ủ bệnh và lâu hơn ở nữ giới nhưng gây ra rất nhiều những phiền toái và rắc rối cho người bệnh. Vậy khi bị mắc sùi mào gà ở nam giới, sử dụng thuốc điều trị nào là hiệu quả nhất.