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Null Character Hack Allows SSL Spoofing

Posted by timothy on from the cannot-anticipate-all-evil dept.

eldavojohn writes "Two researchers, Dan Kaminsky and Moxie Marlinspike, came up with exact same way to fake being a popular website with authentication from a certificate authority. Wired has the details: 'When an attacker who owns his own domain — badguy.com — requests a certificate from the CA, the CA, using contact information from Whois records, sends him an email asking to confirm his ownership of the site. But an attacker can also request a certificate for a subdomain of his site, such as Paypal.com\0.badguy.com, using the null character \0 in the URL. The CA will issue the certificate for a domain like PayPal.com\0.badguy.com because the hacker legitimately owns the root domain badguy.com. Then, due to a flaw found in the way SSL is implemented in many browsers, Firefox and others theoretically can be fooled into reading his certificate as if it were one that came from the authentic PayPal site. Basically when these vulnerable browsers check the domain name contained in the attacker's certificate, they stop reading any characters that follow the "\0 in the name.'"

7 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. \0wned by Hatta · · Score: 4, Funny

    \0\0ps.

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    1. Re:\0wned by Lord+Fury · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't get it, you didn't post anything.

    2. Re:\0wned by LucidBeast · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just came to say Moxie Marlinspike is just about the coolest name I've ever seen...

  2. Dan Kaminski, would you STOP ALREADY !! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Go do something else for a while. If it were not for you we all would be safer !!

  3. So now... by mhkohne · · Score: 5, Funny

    All we have to do is get the CAs to pay attention to the certs they issue, correct?

    Uh-oh. We're screwed.

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  4. Re:When C Strings Attack! by Anonymous+Cowar · · Score: 4, Funny

    Two strings walk into a bar.

    The first string says to the bartender, "Give me a beer." The bartender turns to the second string and says, "and what about for you?" To which the second string replies, "I would also like a beer#@a9101gb230b81;kajf3#$B89*#()*13!$%#@$"" and goes on and on spewing gibberish.

    The bartender, shocked, asks the first string, "What is your buddy's problem?"

    The first string answers, "Oh, you'll have to excuse him, he isn't null terminated."

  5. Paypal.com versus Badguy.com by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't get it.

    Isn't this just the same company?

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