On 07.10.2011 07:10, William A. Rowe Jr. wrote:
> Exactly... we should default to a server with a preference for cryptographic
> strength, but I have no objection to offering a commented-out, clearly
> documented 'alternative' configuration favoring performance, provided that
> is clearly labeled as 'not for sensitive data'.

Now that the dust after the "BEAST" bang has settled somewhat (and
it's clear that it needs to / will be fixed on the client side [1][2][3]),
I think it's a good time to revisit the default setting for
SSLCipherSuite - at least for trunk and 2.4.

My proposal is something like the attached patch - thoughts, objections?

Kaspar


[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=665814
[2] http://codereview.chromium.org/7621002/
[3] http://my.opera.com/securitygroup/blog/2011/09/28/the-beast-ssl-tls-issue
Index: docs/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf.in
===================================================================
--- docs/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf.in   (revision 1201408)
+++ docs/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf.in   (working copy)
@@ -48,12 +48,19 @@
 #   SSL Cipher Suite:
 #   List the ciphers that the client is permitted to negotiate.
 #   See the mod_ssl documentation for a complete list.
-SSLCipherSuite RC4-SHA:AES128-SHA:ALL:!aNULL:!EXP:!LOW:!MD5:!SSLV2:!NULL
+SSLCipherSuite HIGH:MEDIUM:!aNULL:!MD5
 
-#   SSL Cipher Honor Order:
-#   On a busy HTTPS server you may want to enable this directive
-#   to force clients to use one of the faster ciphers like RC4-SHA
-#   or AES128-SHA in the order defined by SSLCipherSuite.
+#   Speed-optimized SSL Cipher configuration:
+#   If speed is your main concern (on busy HTTPS servers e.g.),
+#   you might want to force clients to specific, performance-
+#   optimized ciphers. In this case, prepend those ciphers
+#   to the SSLCipherSuite list, and enable SSLHonorCipherOrder.
+#   Caveat: by giving precedence to RC4-SHA and AES128-SHA
+#   (as in the example below), most connections will no longer
+#   have perfect forward secrecy - if the server's key is
+#   compromised, captures of past or future traffic must be
+#   considered compromised, too.
+#SSLCipherSuite RC4-SHA:AES128-SHA:HIGH:MEDIUM:!aNULL:!MD5
 #SSLHonorCipherOrder on 
 
 #   Pass Phrase Dialog:

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