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So help me understand... A government agency in Iran has obtained the private key of the root certificate for the DigiNotar Certificate Authority. And with th

So help me understand... A government agency in Iran has obtained the private key of the root certificate for the DigiNotar Certificate Authority. And with that, they can decrypt and re-encrypt SSL traffic by pretending that they have the valid SSL certificate for *.google.com. Is that the way this works?

ammmir 15y ago
essentially, they would be MITMing the connection and presenting an SSL cert issued by DigiNotar (instead of the actual CA that issued the cert to *.google.com). because the compromised CA is in the browser's trusted CAs list, it probably produces no user-visible warning.
marshray 15y ago
More than likely someone hacked or socially engineered the DigiNotar CA into issuing just that cert, or some limited set of certs.
JoshTriplett 15y ago
Either that or they've got the cooperation of someone who has access to that private key, potentially the CA itself. But a compromise seems more likely in this case.
modeless 15y ago
That's one possibility, and quite scary because someone with that private key could hijack any SSL connection to any site, not just Google. More likely is that Iran caused DigiNotar to issue them a valid .google.com certificate via social engineering, bribery, or hacking. This is slightly less scary because only .google.com would be affected. Either way, IMHO DigiNotar's root certificate should be revoked and they should be barred from participating in the CA system ever again. The seriousness of SSL MITM attacks is such that a "one strike and you're out" policy is warranted. With so much commerce running over SSL these days, possession of the private key of a CA's root certificate would allow you to implement plots worthy of a James Bond supervillan.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- yuhong 15y ago
  In fact, guess what: http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2011/08/29/fraudulent-google-com-certificate/ http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2011/08/29/fraudulent-googl...
  - modeless 15y ago
    Great! I'm glad DigiNotar will be punished for this lapse. Too bad it takes a code update to revoke their certificate. This won't be the last CA compromise we see.
    - bigiain 15y ago
      "This won't be the last CA compromise we see." Indeed. I strongly suspect too that it's only "the first one we've seen", and not "the first one". I have very little doubt that most nation-state sized adversaries have the ability to forge whatever certs they want. It's only careful use of those forged certs (or dumb luck) by the agencies using them that have kept them out of the blogosphere...
      - modeless 15y ago
        Yeah, if NSA doesn't have at least one root CA key they're not doing their jobs. What we need is an alternative to the centralized CA system, like TOFU POP MONK.
        lawnchair_larry 15y ago
        They do, and it isn't even hiding. Take a look in your cert store and you will see multiple DoD root CAs.
        jmcqk6 15y ago

ammmir 15y ago

essentially, they would be MITMing the connection and presenting an SSL cert issued by DigiNotar (instead of the actual CA that issued the cert to *.google.com). because the compromised CA is in the browser's trusted CAs list, it probably produces no user-visible warning.

marshray 15y ago

More than likely someone hacked or socially engineered the DigiNotar CA into issuing just that cert, or some limited set of certs.

JoshTriplett 15y ago

Either that or they've got the cooperation of someone who has access to that private key, potentially the CA itself. But a compromise seems more likely in this case.

modeless 15y ago

That's one possibility, and quite scary because someone with that private key could hijack any SSL connection to any site, not just Google. More likely is that Iran caused DigiNotar to issue them a valid .google.com certificate via social engineering, bribery, or hacking. This is slightly less scary because only .google.com would be affected. Either way, IMHO DigiNotar's root certificate should be revoked and they should be barred from participating in the CA system ever again. The seriousness of SSL MITM attacks is such that a "one strike and you're out" policy is warranted. With so much commerce running over SSL these days, possession of the private key of a CA's root certificate would allow you to implement plots worthy of a James Bond supervillan.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
yuhong 15y ago
In fact, guess what: http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2011/08/29/fraudulent-google-com-certificate/ http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2011/08/29/fraudulent-googl...
- modeless 15y ago
  Great! I'm glad DigiNotar will be punished for this lapse. Too bad it takes a code update to revoke their certificate. This won't be the last CA compromise we see.
  - bigiain 15y ago
    "This won't be the last CA compromise we see." Indeed. I strongly suspect too that it's only "the first one we've seen", and not "the first one". I have very little doubt that most nation-state sized adversaries have the ability to forge whatever certs they want. It's only careful use of those forged certs (or dumb luck) by the agencies using them that have kept them out of the blogosphere...
    - modeless 15y ago
      Yeah, if NSA doesn't have at least one root CA key they're not doing their jobs. What we need is an alternative to the centralized CA system, like TOFU POP MONK.
      - lawnchair_larry 15y ago
        They do, and it isn't even hiding. Take a look in your cert store and you will see multiple DoD root CAs.
        jmcqk6 15y ago