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German Health Insurance Card CA Loses Secret Key
Christiane writes "The SSL Root CA responsible for issuing the German digital health insurance card lost its secret private key during a test enrollment. After their Hardware Security Module (HSM) dutifully deleted its crypto keys during a power outage, it was all 'Oops, why is there no backup?' All issued cards must be replaced: 'Gematik spokesman Daniel Poeschkens poured scorn on the statement that Gematik had insisted on the service provider carrying out a test without backing up the root CA private keys. "We did not decide against a back-up service. The fact of the matter is that the service provider took over the running of the test system, so it also has to warrant its continuous operation. How it fulfills this obligation is its own responsibility."'"
Not even a month ago you chided them because there were too many copies (some of them even offsite, they just didn't know who had them now), now you chew them out for having too few. Make up your effing mind!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Once again, misleading title to a different summary.
For fuck's sake, the Germans didn't lose the key.
The SSL Root CA lost that.
Get the facts right.
For a second i was wondering how Germans could that stupid. That is unlike the Germany i know. And exactly as i suspected, the German insurer had been insisting the root CA for backup while the CA thought it was unnecessary.
Is it the German company's fault?
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Don't blame the cards for the stupidity of their administrators.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Maybe they should check with the NSA or CIA? They've got a backdoor into EVERY system, and may still have the key saved on a laptop lying around somewhere.
I'd rather the key be lost, than stolen, hacked, made-public, etc. At least it didn't breach security in the typical manner.
There are two fundamental ways to fail as a CA. There must be exactly one party in effective possession of the private key of the root cert. If the number of parties becomes less than or more than one, fail.
Mistakes happen, of course, and certificate infrastructures can be enormously complex. But if you're going to do any kind of risk mitigation, the absolutely most basic place to start would be with these two scenarios.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
I'm confused, isn't this sort of problem exactly why you carry out system tests?
Sending out new cards to card testers during a systems test is hardly extraordinary.
Poeschkens claimed, "I know nothing! noth-thing!" and proceeded to blame the problem on a man he would only identify as "Hogan."
Bark less. Wag more.
For those of you who are wondering what CA is, it stands for Certificate Authority. You see, the Germans have a hard time functioning without a constant stream of praise, so they have this authority in place that prints and sends certificates to people. Every day thousands of Germans get congratualted for crossing the street, for finding their car keys or for eating their 1000th potato of the month. You know you've walked into a German household when you see the wallpaper of framed certificates.
The problem here is that the company deleted the certificate-printing program since they thought someone was trying to hack in and print more certificates for themselves- no one is THAT special so they had to stop him. They forgot to have another program ready to print more certificates, so now Germany is under threat of entering a depression since they no longer get certificates telling them how special they are.
On a serious note: I don't follow this article very well with all the acronyms being spelled out but not explained, and no background knowledge of anything going on here. If someone would care to explain what is going on here to someone that has never heard the term CA, you should get a +5 informative easily.
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