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Hackers Break Browser SSL/TLS Encryption

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 4:39 pm
by Sabre
Slashdot
First time accepted submitter CaVp writes with an article in The Register about an exploit that appears to affect all browsers and can decrypt an active TLS session. From the article:
"Researchers have discovered a serious weakness in virtually all websites protected by the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to silently decrypt data that's passing between a webserver and an end-user browser."
A full disclosure is scheduled for Friday September 23rd at the Ekoparty conference. Note that this only affects SSL 2.0 and TLS 1.0; unfortunately most web servers are misconfigured to still accept SSL 2.0, and TLS 1.1 and 1.2 have seen limited deployment. The practicality of the attack remains to be determined (for one it isn't very fast, but if the intent is just to decrypt the data for later use that isn't an impediment).
The vulnerability resides in versions 1.0 and earlier of TLS, or transport layer security, the successor to the secure sockets layer technology that serves as the internet's foundation of trust. Although versions 1.1 and 1.2 of TLS aren't susceptible, they remain almost entirely unsupported in browsers and websites alike, making encrypted transactions on PayPal, GMail, and just about every other website vulnerable to eavesdropping by hackers who are able to control the connection between the end user and the website he's visiting.
Practical or not, I bet some one/group/country finds a way to make it very practical.

Re: Hackers Break Browser SSL/TLS Encryption

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:39 pm
by complacent
Sabre wrote:
The vulnerability resides in versions 1.0 and earlier of TLS, or transport layer security, the successor to the secure sockets layer technology that serves as the internet's foundation of trust. Although versions 1.1 and 1.2 of TLS aren't susceptible, they remain almost entirely unsupported in browsers and websites alike, making encrypted transactions on PayPal, GMail, and just about every other website vulnerable to eavesdropping by hackers who are able to control the connection between the end user and the website he's visiting.
Practical or not, I bet some one/group/country finds a way to make it very practical.
that sounds familiar... the ability to renegotiate an existing connection based on a different certificate (like one on a card, for an organization) has been messy. i think they even talked about it at shmoo one year.

doh!

Re: Hackers Break Browser SSL/TLS Encryption

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 5:31 pm
by Sabre
^^ I believe you are right about the Shoo talk.

BTW, interesting that Google is the only one publically saying they have a fix: The Reg