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Mozilla To Support Public Key Pinning In Firefox 32

Posted by Soulskill on from the pin-the-key-on-the-fox dept.

Trailrunner7 writes: Mozilla is planning to add support for public-key pinning in its Firefox browser in an upcoming version. In version 32, which would be the next stable version of the browser, Firefox will have key pins for a long list of sites, including many of Mozilla's own sites, all of the sites pinned in Google Chrome and several Twitter sites. Public-key pinning has emerged as an important defense against a variety of attacks, especially man-in-the-middle attacks and the issuance of fraudulent certificates. The function essentially ties a public key, or set of keys, issued by known-good certificate authorities to a given domain. So if a user's browser encounters a site that's presenting a certificate that isn't included in the set of pinned public keys for that domain, it will then reject the connection. The idea is to prevent attackers from using fake certificates in order to intercept secure traffic between a user and the target site.

19 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wreak havoc on corporate networks, SSL observat by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry! I'm totally wrong! The corporate MITM will work just fine once it is updated:

    The UA will not be able to detect and thwart a MITM attacking the
          UA's first connection to the host. (However, the requirement that
          the MITM provide an X.509 certificate chain that can pass the UA's
          validation requirements, without error, mitigates this risk
          somewhat.) Worse, such a MITM can inject its own PKP header into the
          HTTP stream, and pin the UA to its own keys. To avoid post facto
          detection, the attacker would have to be in a position to intercept
          all future requests to the host from that UA.

  2. Good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Lets patch an inherently broken system with another inherently broken system that does not scale and will cause a whole new range of unwanted side-effects and problems.

  3. Please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What ever public-key pinning is. How about a stable 64-bit version for Windows, and actually fix the bugs in their software (yeah, Thunderbird too) that have been actively open for *years* instead of wasting time a mobile OS that nobody uses, and features that aren't really relevant. Hell, just working on the things that are broken might fix the issues they're pushing through as new features.

    1. Re:Please... by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      Try Pale Moon friend. Its based on FF so you can keep your plugins, has a native 64bit build, oh and the best part NO STUPID NEW UI, in fact the devs have stated they will NOT be going to the new UI PERIOD. its fast, stable, works so well in fact I've started using it as my default browser even over my beloved Comodo Dragon because its even snappier, just a really great browser all around.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:Please... by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How about a stable 64-bit version for Windows,

      THere were stable builds for Windows. The problem was people needed plugins which weren't available (because a 64-bit browser can't run 32-bit plugins without a thunk layer). Chrome did it because Chrome ships with the plugins recompiled for 64-bit (because Google has the source code to Flash and all that).

      It's the same reason why Microsoft actively discourages use of the 64-bit version of Office.

      Though, other than being "64-bit", is there a real reason for having a 64-bit browser?

  4. Re: Not far enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If Mozilla would just implement DANE that would solve the problem.

  5. When will it support killing CPU-hogging tabs? by Kethinov · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When will Firefox support killing CPU-hogging tabs individually?

    That's the only killer feature from Chrome I'm waiting for to switch back to Firefox.

    In Chrome, if I've got 50 tabs open (not uncommon) and one of them starts spiking my CPU, I can pull open Activity Monitor (on OS X) and kill the "Google Chrome Helper" that's eating all the CPU.

    That kills the one tab that was the problem, not the whole browser. And lets me reload it when I actually care about that tab again.

    I haven't found a similar way to imitate this workflow in Firefox.

    The whole noscript / flashblock / adblock / etc approach hasn't worked. Tried it with Firefox, still had constant CPU issues after whitelisting sites I need JS or Flash turned on for, still had no way to kill runaway processes individually.

    --
    You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
    1. Re:When will it support killing CPU-hogging tabs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They are too busy ruining the user interface and removing customization features to actually copy any of the good features of Chrome.

    2. Re:When will it support killing CPU-hogging tabs? by Etzos · · Score: 3, Informative

      Probably sometime after electrolysis[1] (e10s) lands. That's probably going to take a while because there's a lot to do between now and when it will be deemed release ready (add-on compatibility, switching some internal components over to e10s friendly versions, memory checks, and various other odds and ends).

      If it's flash or other plugins that were causing the CPU usage then recent versions of Firefox already have that covered. Plugins can be set to click to activate (so it will only run on sites you enable it for) and if one does run out of control then killing the "plugin-container" child process will kill all of the plugins (which can then be reloaded by reloading the tab). As for Javascript running out of control for a particular tab, there's no current solution.

      [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Elect...

  6. Re:Wreak havoc on corporate networks, SSL observat by BitZtream · · Score: 2

    Then perhaps you should browse personal sites on your own dime, not the company network.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  7. Why a hardcoded list? by diamondmagic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why does the list have to be hardcoded? Why not pull the records from DNSSEC... there's a whole specification for this, RFC6698

    --
    Wonder what the public key field is for?
    1. Re:Why a hardcoded list? by Nimey · · Score: 2

      Because hardly anyone uses DNSSEC, ISPs included.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    2. Re:Why a hardcoded list? by Nimey · · Score: 2

      Look, I said I was sorry, I didn't know she was your mom!

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    3. Re:Why a hardcoded list? by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      Uhm no, you can't MITM DNSSEC, you can't do anything except a denial of service unless you control one of three entities:

      • ICANN
      • that particular TLD
      • the registrar your victim uses

      That is, unless someone is stupid enough to trust some external DNS server, but no reasonable DNSSEC client would use a dumb stub resolver this way.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    4. Re:Why a hardcoded list? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Many of the registrars ARE controlled by the enemy which these days is usually the state. In some places the government just forces them to issue dodgy certificates, in others GCHQ or the NSA just hacks them.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Why a hardcoded list? by Rich0 · · Score: 2

      Many of the registrars ARE controlled by the enemy which these days is usually the state. In some places the government just forces them to issue dodgy certificates, in others GCHQ or the NSA just hacks them.

      Keep in mind that you would have to have control of the registrar that issued the domain. With SSL today anybody on the trusted CA list can impersonate any website anywhere. With DNSSEC Verisign certainly could impersonate .com websites, and Iran certainly could impersonate .ir websites, but neither party could impersonate the other's websites. That is a BIG reduction in the vulnerability space, even if it isn't perfect.

      If the NSA really does has everybody under their thumbs, then face it, you aren't going to be able to evade them using anything likely to ever become mainstream. We can't judge every security improvement solely on whether it solves "the NSA is out to get me."

    6. Re:Why a hardcoded list? by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      The .cn TLD is can be MITMed by the Chinese government, yes. That's why you need to host your chinese-dissident page in a TLD of any country that hates China (ie, almost any of them). Same for a site that reveals wrongdoings of the NSA. Any point other than ICANN can be avoided by simply chosing a different TLD, and ICANN itself can be secured by pinning TLD keys.

      This goes in sharp contrast with the CA cartel model, where you need to trust the sum (rather than alternative) of 400+ entities, some of which are known to be actively engaged in MITM, like CNNIC or Etisalat.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  8. Re:Wreak havoc on corporate networks, SSL observat by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sorry! I'm totally wrong! The corporate MITM will work just fine once it is updated:

    Props for correcting yourself. Integrity's sexy.

  9. Re: Not far enough by marka63 · · Score: 2

    Not DANE the people, DANE (DNS based Authentication of Named Entities) http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc... Mozilla are in a position to both publish TLSA record and authenticate the CERT.