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Maybe this is a dumb question... but do larger companies like Google attempt to set up their own CA so they can be sure of the longevity and security, and not r

by Exuma 9y ago

Maybe this is a dumb question... but do larger companies like Google attempt to set up their own CA so they can be sure of the longevity and security, and not rely on a 3rd party?

PuffinBlue 9y ago
Not a dumb question at all and the answer is yes they do set up their own CA's for that exact reason you mentioned. Google's is called Google Trust Services: https://pki.goog/ https://pki.goog/ (Note, Google was already running a sub-ordinate CA which was issued by a third party which is why you might have seen them issue their 'own' certificates previously, but they were actually 'subordinate' to the Root CA that issued them to Google initially). As part of this process of setting up a new trusted Root CA it's necessary to get your trusted Root certificates into all products that may need to use your services. This is a trust system and has to start somewhere, so there is a list of trusted Root CA's and certificates pre-installed in every device. As you can imagine this can take time to do. Sometimes you can cross-sign your Root certificates using another pre-existing trusted CA (I think this is what LetsEncrypt did?) so that all products that trust that third party will now trust your Root CA (well, it's certificate). That could potentially still leave you/devices that don't have your own Root CA's specific Root certificate open to tampering if the CA you got to cross-sign your certificates went rogue. In mitigation of that last point above you could just buy out a pre-existing CA so they couldn't go rogue and make them part of your new Root CA collection, which is what Google/Alphabet did: https://security.googleblog.com/2017/01/the-foundation-of-more-secure-web.html https://security.googleblog.com/2017/01/the-foundation-of-mo... Even so, as you can see from that post, the process can still be lengthy to reach all products, particularly those that might not be updated with new trusted Root CA's (embedded devices etc) so Google Trust Services still plans (and has now I think?) to cross-sign its certificates with two other third parties it trusts to never go rogue (allowing products which already trust the third parties to now trust Google's new Root CA) in order to let it reach some of those products that don't (and perhaps will never be updated to ever) have it's newly owned Root CA's already installed in them. It's a question of risk management and as you mention, the only way to fully protect yourself is to get everyone to trust you (your CA) as a Root CA, the rest just leaves you open to meddling.
toast0 9y ago
Google is the only one I'm aware of. Microsoft has an intermediate CA, but it's not clear if that's actually independent of the CA that signed it. It's likely different if you only serve requests for clients you distribute, and can bundle a CA cert. But if you're serving browsers, you need your CA in the default trust store which means passing audits, which is time and money and requires a fairly rigorous setup. If you do that, you still need to get your CA cross signed by an existing CA to use it, until the root is widely distributed, if you support mobile browsers, it's a long wait until you're really distributed. I don't know how much a CA charges to cross sign, but I would guess it's very expensive; and using the cross signed cert means sending an extra cert during tls handshake. There's an extension for clients to indicate supported CAs, but it's not really used, I'm not sure it's very sensibly designed -- anyway there's not a good way to know and then provide different certs for clients that don't know your CA.

by Exuma 9y ago

Maybe this is a dumb question... but do larger companies like Google attempt to set up their own CA so they can be sure of the longevity and security, and not rely on a 3rd party?

PuffinBlue 9y ago

Not a dumb question at all and the answer is yes they do set up their own CA's for that exact reason you mentioned. Google's is called Google Trust Services: https://pki.goog/ https://pki.goog/ (Note, Google was already running a sub-ordinate CA which was issued by a third party which is why you might have seen them issue their 'own' certificates previously, but they were actually 'subordinate' to the Root CA that issued them to Google initially). As part of this process of setting up a new trusted Root CA it's necessary to get your trusted Root certificates into all products that may need to use your services. This is a trust system and has to start somewhere, so there is a list of trusted Root CA's and certificates pre-installed in every device. As you can imagine this can take time to do. Sometimes you can cross-sign your Root certificates using another pre-existing trusted CA (I think this is what LetsEncrypt did?) so that all products that trust that third party will now trust your Root CA (well, it's certificate). That could potentially still leave you/devices that don't have your own Root CA's specific Root certificate open to tampering if the CA you got to cross-sign your certificates went rogue. In mitigation of that last point above you could just buy out a pre-existing CA so they couldn't go rogue and make them part of your new Root CA collection, which is what Google/Alphabet did: https://security.googleblog.com/2017/01/the-foundation-of-more-secure-web.html https://security.googleblog.com/2017/01/the-foundation-of-mo... Even so, as you can see from that post, the process can still be lengthy to reach all products, particularly those that might not be updated with new trusted Root CA's (embedded devices etc) so Google Trust Services still plans (and has now I think?) to cross-sign its certificates with two other third parties it trusts to never go rogue (allowing products which already trust the third parties to now trust Google's new Root CA) in order to let it reach some of those products that don't (and perhaps will never be updated to ever) have it's newly owned Root CA's already installed in them. It's a question of risk management and as you mention, the only way to fully protect yourself is to get everyone to trust you (your CA) as a Root CA, the rest just leaves you open to meddling.

toast0 9y ago

Google is the only one I'm aware of. Microsoft has an intermediate CA, but it's not clear if that's actually independent of the CA that signed it. It's likely different if you only serve requests for clients you distribute, and can bundle a CA cert. But if you're serving browsers, you need your CA in the default trust store which means passing audits, which is time and money and requires a fairly rigorous setup. If you do that, you still need to get your CA cross signed by an existing CA to use it, until the root is widely distributed, if you support mobile browsers, it's a long wait until you're really distributed. I don't know how much a CA charges to cross sign, but I would guess it's very expensive; and using the cross signed cert means sending an extra cert during tls handshake. There's an extension for clients to indicate supported CAs, but it's not really used, I'm not sure it's very sensibly designed -- anyway there's not a good way to know and then provide different certs for clients that don't know your CA.