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Does this kill the business model for normal CAs, or is there something worth going to another CA for? Also, how trivial/hard will it be for a state agent to g

by drostie 12y ago

Does this kill the business model for normal CAs, or is there something worth going to another CA for? Also, how trivial/hard will it be for a state agent to generate its own certificate-signing traffic and use the Let's Encrypt CA to sign arbitrary domains of their choosing?

StavrosK 12y ago
I'm thinking someone could spoof a DNS entry for the signing server and prove that they own any domain they want, is that prevented somehow?
- sbierwagen 12y ago
  If an attacker can spoof DNS, they can just create A records that point to their own server, and MITM from that. Public key pinning would protect against that class of attacks: https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinning https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinn...
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    Whose DNS layer? If they own the user's, no. If they own the server's, maybe, if they could convince the CA to sign a certificate they control. Otherwise, they couldn't really do anything.
sbierwagen 12y ago
It doesn't issue EV certs, so the business model for traditional CAs will be those.
- raesene3 12y ago
  I don't think EV SSL certificates have been a big success (though that's just a personal opinion rather something backed with specific data) For me the differentiation in the browser presentation of EV against ordinary SSL doesn't provide much additional security. Most users don't notice the difference and even if they do, wouldn't remember which sites had an EV certificate, such that they would notice it changing back to non-EV
  - RaleyField 12y ago
    I wouldn't login to my bank's website if it didn't present me with green EV url bar. Same with paypal, amazon and basically anything to do with money has to have EV for me. I might be slightly paranoid, but I thought the point of ssl was EV.
    - mcpherrinm 12y ago
      Amazon doesn't have an EV cert.
Wilya 12y ago
CA also offer more expensive tiers of certificates, that include EV, or a warranty for commercial transactions. I've never used those, and I don't know how relevant these are for companies, though.

by drostie 12y ago

StavrosK 12y ago

I'm thinking someone could spoof a DNS entry for the signing server and prove that they own any domain they want, is that prevented somehow?

sbierwagen 12y ago
If an attacker can spoof DNS, they can just create A records that point to their own server, and MITM from that. Public key pinning would protect against that class of attacks: https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinning https://wiki.mozilla.org/SecurityEngineering/Public_Key_Pinn...
- StavrosK 12y ago
  Whose DNS layer? If they own the user's, no. If they own the server's, maybe, if they could convince the CA to sign a certificate they control. Otherwise, they couldn't really do anything.

sbierwagen 12y ago

It doesn't issue EV certs, so the business model for traditional CAs will be those.

raesene3 12y ago
I don't think EV SSL certificates have been a big success (though that's just a personal opinion rather something backed with specific data) For me the differentiation in the browser presentation of EV against ordinary SSL doesn't provide much additional security. Most users don't notice the difference and even if they do, wouldn't remember which sites had an EV certificate, such that they would notice it changing back to non-EV
- RaleyField 12y ago
  I wouldn't login to my bank's website if it didn't present me with green EV url bar. Same with paypal, amazon and basically anything to do with money has to have EV for me. I might be slightly paranoid, but I thought the point of ssl was EV.
  - mcpherrinm 12y ago
    Amazon doesn't have an EV cert.

Wilya 12y ago

CA also offer more expensive tiers of certificates, that include EV, or a warranty for commercial transactions. I've never used those, and I don't know how relevant these are for companies, though.