On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 10:03 AM, Jakob Bohm <jb-open...@wisemo.com> wrote: > On 10/29/2012 7:05 PM, Jeffrey Walton wrote: >> >> On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Jakob Bohm <jb-open...@wisemo.com> >> wrote: >>> >>> On 10/27/2012 10:58 PM, Jeffrey Walton wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 11:00 AM, Alban D. <blan...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Hi everyone, >>>>> >>>>> iSEC Partners just released a paper that provides detailed guidelines >>>>> and sample code on how to properly do certificate validation with >>>>> OpenSSL: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> http://www.isecpartners.com/blog/2012/10/14/the-lurking-menace-of-broken-tls-validation.html >>>>> >>>>> It is not trivial and so I thought this reference material could be >>>>> useful to people on this mailing list. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ] Supporting wildcard certificates requires manually parsing >>>> ] the name to find the wildcard character, ensuring that it is >>>> ] in a valid location within the domain, and then trying to >>>> ] match the pattern with the server's expected hostname. >>>> Don''t do it because it violates the Principal of Least Privilege. Why >>>> should users be asked to trust the receptionist's machine in the lobby >>>> or a developer's machine with nearly anything installed? >>>> >>>> If you are in a multi-domain environment (such as Apache with virtual >>>> hosts), use multiple certificates or Server Name Indication (SNI). >>>> >>> >>> You obviously don't understand the proper uses and necessity of >>> wildcard certificates: >> >> Actually, I do. Its not a risk I am willing to accept. As a security >> architect, I am more than happy to kick software that follows the >> practice. >> > > If you truly understand the part of my post that you removed > (especially item 3), then your beliefs about its insecurity and your > insistence on blocking it on behalf of others not so deluded are pure > security theater. > > I will repeat my item 3 here for reference: > > >> 3. Being covered by a wildcard certificates name match does not give >> a computer access to the private key needed to actually use that >> certificate. The security model is that the wildcard cert identifies >> the organization, and the organization only installs the private key >> on trusted servers > > Put another way, a wildcard certificate identifies a person or organization, > not a particular computer. The person/org decides > which computers are trusted to represent them at the relevant level > of assurance. It is the closest available approximation of giving > the person/org a path-constrained intermediary CA, with the path > constraint enforced for the DNS path, not the X.400 path. I've been in a shop where the development team set up a game server on a development box.The box was then put on the internet. The private key was not in an HSM, it was ripped the filesystem of an Apaches server.
Its not just small shops that abuse things. Diginotar's private key was compromised too. So big shops which get audited also fail. I really don't care how the bad guy gets the private key. I expect it to happen. Jeff ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List openssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org
