Hopefully the validation summit next week will lay out the assumptions on what 
needs to happen outside of the CAs’ control to properly perform domain 
validation.  Accurate technical descriptions of what’s needed for successful 
domain validation will help evaluate each method and we’ll be able to more 
clearly evaluate the risk, and you’ve hit several important points in your 
email.

While methods 9 and 10 are still in the BRs, I’ve written them off because the 
root programs have mandated mitigations to permit their temporary continued 
use.  It sounds like they may be updated to specify the mitigations, which is 
good – we need TLS based method.


From: Ryan Sleevi [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2018 4:09 PM
To: Doug Beattie <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]; IETF ACME <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Acme] ALPN based TLS challenge



On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 3:33 PM, Doug Beattie 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

I would find it a bit surprising if the CABF adopted a domain validation method 
that relied on the web hosting provider claiming to do the right thing (to 
separate users on shared IP addresses so they cannot request certs from the 
other customers on that IP address).

I'm surprised that it's seen as surprising, as this is already the implicit 
assumption for the validation methods within the CA/Browser Forum's Baseline 
Requirements.

Notable among the comparisons would be to 3.2.2.4.4, which makes a presumption 
that the email provider for the domain has not only observed RFC 2142 Section 
5, but also the CA/Browser Forum specific aliases of "admin" and "administrator"

Yes, that is true, but in this case the domain owner is protecting their 
domain.  The potential abuse of method 10 or 6 when servers that permit 
multiple customers on one IP address don’t implement the proper mitigations 
would open up any domain on shared IP address to improper domain validation.  
The discussions and comparisons of each method would likely highlight this as a 
smaller risk and one that the domain owner can mitigate themselves.

Alternatively, one might consider the comparison to 3.2.2.4.6, in which the 
presumption is made that the /.well-known/ path is restricted from general 
access. Section 8.3 of ACME ( 
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-acme-acme-09#section-8.3 ) specifically 
encourages the following of redirects when dereferencing the /.well-known/, but 
this understandably opens up attacks should a blanket redirect be used.


That said, I do think the artificial distinction between "web hosting provider" 
may be detrimental. Given the existing of the CA/Browser Forum's 3.2.2.4.8, one 
can equally see an attack made under such shared-hosting scenarios by any CA 
that utilizes the .8 methods of validation, in that multiple tenants on that IP 
would have access to respond for that IP (under 3.2.2.5)

Agree, and you didn’t even bring up the “any other method” buried in .8 which 
is even worse.
Has anyone discussed this with the CABF?  I’d recommend that someone send this 
out to the public list for feedback.

Considering that the method described is consistent with 3.2.2.4.10 in the 
Baseline Requirements, did you mean to suggest conversations with Root Store 
programs that might otherwise restrict the usage of methods beyond that of the 
Baseline Requirements, such as forbidding 3.2.2.4.1, .5, .9 and .10 without 
specific mitigations?

Having a clear set of approved mitigations for these methods is necessary.  If 
ALPN is to be listed as an approved method and the mitigations are clearly 
called out in method 10 (or a new method), then it will be clear to everyone 
how they can be used. Right now it’s not at all clear how 9 and 10 can be used, 
other than to propose mitigation to the root programs for review, and even when 
that is done, the approvals seem to be temporary (LE to phase out all use of 
TLS-SNI-01).

Anyway, this is probably getting a bit off-topic for this list and we should 
bring it back to the CAB Public or Validation list where it belongs.


As one such Root Store operator, we're happy to see this method progress within 
the IETF, and believe it provides suitable mitigations for the issues 
disclosed. In retrospect, the introduction of the TLS-SNI method as specified 
in https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-acme-acme-09#section-8.4 , is 
functionally no different than introducing a new e-mail alias in the 3.2.2.4.4 
method of validation - that is, presuming that all at-risk domains (such as 
those that allow arbitrary e-mail registration) must now take steps to block. 
The proposed method provides an opt-in, rather than an opt-out, and thus 
provides suitable mitigation.

Much like a domain holder could choose a hosting provider that permits 
arbitrary modification to /.well-known/ or arbitrary DNS modification, I do not 
believe this introduces any additional security holes compared to the 
presently-industry-accepted methods of validating domain control.


Doug

From: Acme [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On 
Behalf Of Daniel McCarney
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2018 2:14 PM
Cc: IETF ACME <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [Acme] ALPN based TLS challenge

+1

The WG should adopt this document. I will volunteer to help review if adopted.


On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 12:02 PM, Richard Barnes 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
+1

This approach is a major improvement from earlier efforts at a TLS-based 
challenge.  It follows normal TLS processing logic much more closely, differing 
only in the fact that the certificate presented has an extra extension.  
Minimizing the differences w.r.t. normal behavior seems like a good approach to 
avoiding the sorts of corner cases that have tripped up earlier flavors of 
TLS-based challenges.

Before this is finalized as an RFC, we should verify empirically that most 
hosting providers will be secure in the presence of this challenge.  But I'm 
convinced that the approach in Roland's document is likely enough to work that 
we should go ahead and develop a specification, which we can test as it matures.

--Richard


On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 11:41 AM, Stephen Farrell 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:


On 23/02/18 16:31, Salz, Rich wrote:
>
>> Here is the ID:
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-shoemaker-acme-tls-alpn/
>
> Should the WG adopt this document?

Yes.

Having a sufficiently secure mechanism that works on port 443 is
a good thing in general. I'm not sure how many folks were using
tls-sni-01 for new domains (I was) but whatever that number was,
is I think evidence that a port 443 scheme fills a read need.

I assume that if problems are found with the new mechanism
(whether those be technical, due to odd deployments or I guess
even cabforum politics;-) then we'd recognise that and stop
the work. The fact that we did that to tls-sni-02 hould be
re-assuring wrt this.

If one accepts the two assertions above then adoption seems
like a no-brainer.

S.

> Speak up now, we'll make a
> consensus decision next week.  Also if you are able to help work on
> it.  If adopted, I would expect this to be on the agenda for London
> next month, even if it's just to briefly introduce it.
>
>
> _______________________________________________ Acme mailing list
> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/acme
>
--
PGP key change time for me.
New-ID 7B172BEA; old-ID 805F8DA2 expires Jan 24 2018.
NewWithOld sigs in keyservers.
Sorry if that mucks something up;-)

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