Slashdot Mirror
Google Finds Vulnerability In SSL 3.0 Web Encryption
AlbanX sends word that security researchers from Google have published details on a vulnerability in SSL 3.0 that can allow an attacker to calculate the plaintext of encrypted communications. Google's Bodo Moller writes,
SSL 3.0 is nearly 15 years old, but support for it remains widespread. Most importantly, nearly all browsers support it and, in order to work around bugs in HTTPS servers, browsers will retry failed connections with older protocol versions, including SSL 3.0. Because a network attacker can cause connection failures, they can trigger the use of SSL 3.0 and then exploit this issue. Disabling SSL 3.0 support, or CBC-mode ciphers with SSL 3.0, is sufficient to mitigate this issue, but presents significant compatibility problems, even today. Therefore our recommended response (PDF) is to support TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV. This is a mechanism that solves the problems caused by retrying failed connections and thus prevents attackers from inducing browsers to use SSL 3.0. It also prevents downgrades from TLS 1.2 to 1.1 or 1.0 and so may help prevent future attacks.
I'm confused, are you advocating security or compatibility.
But the point is that "making your software secure out of the box" would mean making it fail to work with lots of existing websites. So are you suggesting, instead of giving the user a button to "break the web", just to permanently "break" it for them?
Most users don't tend to appreciate that sort of thing, which is basically the entire problem of web security in a nutshell.
In this case, the new browser software version will break any server that only supports SSL3.0. When practically every user fails to connect to your server, including your own people, you know you have a problem to fix. Creating some work for web site owners in the interest of their own security.
I'm saying that if you gave the users the option of breaking some of the web, some small percentage of users would do it without understanding the consequences. This creates a situation that is much harder to deal with. If users report the problem to web site owners, or browser vendors, tracing the source of the problem is more difficult.
This is the same reason that Firefox no longer has a prominent option to disable Javascript. Users would disable it, then complain that web sites don't work without telling anyone that they had changed anything. The cost of supporting that option was too high.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
In this case, Security is indeed not optional, since you have no option to have it whatsoever - you are handing all your security over to Chrome and the website operator's good intentions.