On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Aanjhan R <[email protected]> wrote:
> In short you are OK *in general*. But then one can do slightly
> sophisticated attacks. IMO security is always an illusion :)

Commercial proxy/content-filtering solutions use SSL proxy
(fancy word for a man-in-the-middle-attack) and break open
HTTPS connections.  These devices terminate the HTTPS
connection on the proxy appliance itself, create a new HTTPS
connection to the server.  The SSL cert presented to the client
browser is generated on the proxy appliance and signed using
a custom CA.  If that CA is installed on your browser (through
corporate policy) there is no warning on the client browser that
your connection is terminated in between.

If the appliance re-signs the client side SSL cert using the
private keys of Verisign/Thwate/etc (Govt security organizations
have access to most CA private keys), this man-in-the-middle
attack is *very* hard to detect.

- Raja
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