4 ms·

Not the biggest crisis. Okay, they have several awful cipher suites enabled, but no sane client would ever use them. The client report shows that almost every c

Not the biggest crisis. Okay, they have several awful cipher suites enabled, but no sane client would ever use them. The client report shows that almost every client uses AES; a couple crappy ones use RC4 or 3DES. They don't have PFS, either. That's bad, though unfortunately still common. As far as I know Akamai's position is that the (small) performance cost of PFS is unacceptable. They would be delighted if it was faster (which people are working on). I think the F is because of the 1024-bit, MD5 CA. That seems to be more of an argument for clients to disable that CA certificate, especially since there's another, good trust path, but maybe I'm missing something.

patcheudor 13y ago
All great points. The biggest issue I see with their apparent lack of consideration towards a passable SSL/TLS configuration is that it extends outside of their own corporate web space to impact their customers. As just one example: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ozsale.com.au https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ozsale.com.au You'll see in the Qualys report that the Akamai accelerated Ozsales gets an "F" & from the Qualys report you'll note that results in a PCI compliance failure (near the bottom of this report): https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.ozsale.com.au&s=23.204.176.90 https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.ozsale.co...
tmx 13y ago
> no sane client would ever use them Unfortunately, that's not the case. From RFC 5246: Note: some server implementations are known to implement version negotiation incorrectly. For example, there are buggy TLS 1.0 servers that simply close the connection when the client offers a version newer than TLS 1.0. Also, it is known that some servers will refuse the connection if any TLS extensions are included in ClientHello. Interoperability with such buggy servers is a complex topic beyond the scope of this document, and may require multiple connection attempts by the client. An attacker that can insert themselves between client and server can cause a negotiation failure - causing the client or server to negotiate a weaker protocol/cipher combination - so its still important to disable weak cipher suites on the server, especially with browsers as old as IE 6 or 7 still kicking around.
brians 13y ago
Indeed, it looks like that's a bug in the SSL labs rating scheme: given two trust paths, it takes the longer one. The Baltimore root is trusted, but also signed by the old GTE 1024-bit root. It's not clear to me what harm it does to have an appendix of old roots above a well-managed, trustworthy trusted root.
- ivanr 13y ago
  No, the issue is not with the trust paths. The old 1024-bit root is in Mozilla's trust store, where it's a danger to everyone. SSL Labs reuses their store, which is why the weak root shows up in the trust paths. Technically, the F for blogs.akamai.com was a bug (now corrected; the grade after the fix is C). I say "technically" not because I approve of export cipher suites, but because the implementation did not follow the documentation (the rating guide, linked from every report). Export suites are hopelessly weak and will be treated more harshly in the next guide revision. The new grade is certainly not something to be happy about.

patcheudor 13y ago

All great points. The biggest issue I see with their apparent lack of consideration towards a passable SSL/TLS configuration is that it extends outside of their own corporate web space to impact their customers. As just one example: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ozsale.com.au https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ozsale.com.au You'll see in the Qualys report that the Akamai accelerated Ozsales gets an "F" & from the Qualys report you'll note that results in a PCI compliance failure (near the bottom of this report): https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.ozsale.com.au&s=23.204.176.90 https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.ozsale.co...

tmx 13y ago

> no sane client would ever use them Unfortunately, that's not the case. From RFC 5246: Note: some server implementations are known to implement version negotiation incorrectly. For example, there are buggy TLS 1.0 servers that simply close the connection when the client offers a version newer than TLS 1.0. Also, it is known that some servers will refuse the connection if any TLS extensions are included in ClientHello. Interoperability with such buggy servers is a complex topic beyond the scope of this document, and may require multiple connection attempts by the client. An attacker that can insert themselves between client and server can cause a negotiation failure - causing the client or server to negotiate a weaker protocol/cipher combination - so its still important to disable weak cipher suites on the server, especially with browsers as old as IE 6 or 7 still kicking around.

brians 13y ago

Indeed, it looks like that's a bug in the SSL labs rating scheme: given two trust paths, it takes the longer one. The Baltimore root is trusted, but also signed by the old GTE 1024-bit root. It's not clear to me what harm it does to have an appendix of old roots above a well-managed, trustworthy trusted root.

ivanr 13y ago
No, the issue is not with the trust paths. The old 1024-bit root is in Mozilla's trust store, where it's a danger to everyone. SSL Labs reuses their store, which is why the weak root shows up in the trust paths. Technically, the F for blogs.akamai.com was a bug (now corrected; the grade after the fix is C). I say "technically" not because I approve of export cipher suites, but because the implementation did not follow the documentation (the rating guide, linked from every report). Export suites are hopelessly weak and will be treated more harshly in the next guide revision. The new grade is certainly not something to be happy about.