HTTPS: (Sub)Standard Security pt.3

In the first post in this series on the deficiencies of standardized security systems I promised a post on "X.509 certificates". By this I intended to discuss the commonly used system for authenticating and securing communications with web sites, widely known as SSL. As SSL (or to be precise, TLS) is just one component of this system (and is also used for other purposes) I will use the term "HTTPS system", though in fact the same system is used for more than just the HTTPS protocol.

DigiNotar: When is a secure network not secure?

The Dutch government report (PDF) on the DigiNotar hack has confirmed what I suspected:

The separation of critical components was not functioning or was not in place. We have strong indications that the CA-servers, although physically very securely placed in a tempest proof environment, were accessible over the network from the management LAN.

These guys at DigiNotar are living in the nineties. These days the most important attack vector by far is through the network and not physical access. DigiNotar, like many others, invested more effort in defending against the less important attack.

But don't mock them. If you use a disk encryption technology like PointSec or PGP Disk and think it gives you any signficant protection, you may be making the same mistake - assuming an attack involving physical access. It's quite likely hackers already have control of your computer even though it's physically in your possession. You should do what you can to prevent network-based attacks (firewall, anti-virus), but even then you must not assume you're 100% secure. If you have anything that is truly secret just don't put it on a computer you connect to the Internet.

There's been a paradigm shift in the world of corporate security. Instead of traveling and trying to physically access the information of a single company, hackers can use technologies like Remote Access Trojans to attempt attacks on hundreds of companies from the comfort of their own home and with less risk of getting caught by law enforcement. Too many security teams, not just RSA and DigiNotar, haven't yet fully adjusted to this situation.

BTW, the full paragraph in the report begins with another sentence:

The most critical servers contain malicious software that can normally be detected by anti-virus software. The separation of critical components was not functioning or was not in place. We have strong indications that the CA-servers, although physically very securely placed in a tempest proof environment, were accessible over the network from the management LAN.

Which reminds me yet again of this XKCD classic:

DigiNotar: Intruder issued fake certificates

Dutch certificate authority DigiNotar revealed that the fake Google certificates signed by them were due to an intrusion into their system. The didn't give any details on how this was done.

I would assume the attacker didn't physically enter DigiNotar's facilities but instead accessed their network through the Internet. If so, this is yet another case of a security system being breached because the owner did not keep highly sensitive assets properly segregated from computers with access to the open internet.  RSA are not alone.

Or as Randall Munroe of XKCD puts it: