Security Collapse In the HTTPS Market

CowboyRobot writes: HTTPS has evolved into the de facto standard for secure Web browsing. Through the certificate-based authentication protocol, Web services and Internet users first authenticate one another ("shake hands") using a TLS/SSL certificate, encrypt Web communications end-to-end, and show a padlock in the browser to signal that a communication is secure. In recent years, HTTPS has become an essential technology to protect social, political, and economic activities online. At the same time, widely reported security incidents (such as DigiNotar's breach, Apple's #gotofail, and OpenSSL's Heartbleed) have exposed systemic security vulnerabilities of HTTPS to a global audience. The Edward Snowden revelations (notably around operation BULLRUN, MUSCULAR, and the lesser-known FLYING PIG program to query certificate metadata on a dragnet scale) have driven the point home that HTTPS is both a major target of government hacking and eavesdropping, as well as an effective measure against dragnet content surveillance when Internet traffic traverses global networks. HTTPS, in short, is an absolutely critical but fundamentally flawed cybersecurity technology.

Comments

broken implementation! = bad protocol

[raymorris]

OpenSSL's heartbleeed bug was a bug in openssl, a buffer overrun that didn't really have anything to do with ssl. A similar bug in any other server software would be approximately as bad. Where https protocol specified a ping, openssl instead leaked the contents of arbitrary memory locations .

Apple's goto bug was Apple's bug. Again, little to do with the protocol. Ssl/tls/https didn't fail here, the company failed to implement https.

The one "fault" of the protocol in the cited cases could be that it isn't brain-dead simple. Since the standard isn't idiot-proof, idiots can screw it up.

Re:Technical flaws are beside the point

[timeOday]

Give the article some credit, that is largely what it is about:

To evaluate both legal and technological solutions, an understanding of the economic incentives of the stakeholders in the HTTPS ecosystem, most notably the CAs, is essential. This article outlines the systemic vulnerabilities of HTTPS, maps the thriving market for certificates, and analyzes the suggested regulatory and technological solutions on both sides of the Atlantic. The findings show existing yet surprising market patterns and perverse incentives: not unlike the financial sector, the HTTPS market is full of information asymmetries and negative externalities, as a handful of CAs dominate the market and have become "too big to fail." Unfortunately, the proposed E.U. legislation will reinforce systemic vulnerabilities, and the proposed technological solutions are far from being adopted at scale. The systemic vulnerabilities in this crucial technology are likely to persist for years to come.

Most all the responses I see to this story so far are kneejerk response to the summary, not very relevant.