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Extended validation and organization validation (EV and OV) certificates do not solve any technical cause of phishing. They're also poor instruments for attacki
by throwawaymath 8y ago
Extended validation and organization validation (EV and OV) certificates do not solve any technical cause of phishing. They're also poor instruments for attacking the social efficacy of phishing attacks. The phishing demo you linked in that Twitter page is not mitigated by EV or OV certificates.
These "extra" certificates are sold at a premium 1) so CAs can earn more, despite the race to the bottom; and 2) so potential victim companies of data breaches can point to all the "extra" effort (read: money) they invested in security. But they fundamentally do not improve security, because they're predicated on the idea that non-technical end users will use increasingly more sophisticated methods of identity assurance. The software security industry has decades of case studies which demonstrate this is not the case.
Simply put: you can't solve phishing by stuffing more and more authentication signals into a URL bar and a padlock icon. Approximately all users won't even bother to check and most will simply click through warnings. Trying to design better, more "verified" certificates is a clear example of a local maximum. It seizes upon a weak proxy for security against phishing, then tries to optimize further with the bureaucratic scar tissue of identity verification. In so doing it completely loses focus on the core issue.
- dagenix 8y agoYes, and yes, and yes. They seem to fall strongly into the category of things I wish I sold but I can't figure out why anyone buys.
- candiodari 8y agoI'm going to start brewing vats of neurons, as an anti-phishing measure. Anyone have any good ideas for a distribution mechanism ?
- JetSpiegel 8y agoTinder?
- nailer 8y agoThat sounds like a problem of needing better identity indicators rather than verifying identity via EV.