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Chinese CA Issues Certificates To Impersonate Google

Posted by Soulskill on from the doing-trust-wrong dept.

Trailrunner7 writes: Google security engineers, investigating fraudulent certificates issued for several of the company's domains, discovered that a Chinese certificate authority was using an intermediate CA, MCS Holdings, that issued the unauthorized Google certificates, and could have issued certificates for virtually any domain. Google's engineers were able to block the fraudulent certificates in the company's Chrome browser by pushing an update to the CRLset, which tracks revoked certificates. The company also alerted other browser vendors to the problem, which was discovered on March 20. Google contacted officials at CNNIC, the Chinese registrar who authorized the intermediate CA, and the officials said that they were working with MCS to issue certificates for domains that it registered. But, instead of simply doing that, and storing the private key for the registrar in a hardware security module, MCS put the key in a proxy device designed to intercept secure traffic.

10 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. The Web of trust only works by Virtucon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When we all agree to the same rules.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  2. Are the CAs that do this revoked? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Or at least their certs removed from valid CA Root lists that, for example, Mozilla uses. If not, why not? A trust has been breached.

    1. Re:Are the CAs that do this revoked? by BenJeremy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      THIS.

      Make an example out of them, at the very least. I doubt MCS or CNNIC will do anything to disengage themselves from the Chinese government (Most likely culprit here). Revoke their authority and put an end to this nonsense.

    2. Re:Are the CAs that do this revoked? by gnasher719 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It seems that you are right. It very much looks like there was a genuine Certificate Authority behind this, and that means an Internet death sentence needs to be issued - removing that Certificate Authority from the root certificates of Windows, MacOS X, iOS, Android, Linux etc.

    3. Re:Are the CAs that do this revoked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So are we going to revoke Verisign's root CA certificate (and screw up the millions of websites that use their certs) when we eventually find out that the NSA strong-armed them into doing the same thing?

    4. Re:Are the CAs that do this revoked? by Holi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If we are serious about trust then yes, otherwise this isn't the beginning of the end, it's just the end. If the cert's cannot be trusted and we are not willing to take the steps to preserve that trust then the whole internet economy goes poof.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    5. Re:Are the CAs that do this revoked? by sexconker · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We should. We won't.

      A system built around certificate authorities is broken by design. Self-signed certs are much more secure than anything stamped by a CA.
      And can we start using client certs, please? I should be able to walk into my bank and hand them a unique cert that they attach to my account and use for verification. Additionally, I should be able to request a unique cert on their end that they use only for my account so I can do my own verification.
      Since this is all self-signed shit, it can be easily automated.

      For revocation, all either party has to do is stop using/trusting the cert. No one can regenerate the bank's unique cert that I trust because there is no authority with that power. No one can regenerate mine. If the bank wants to issue a new cert, I have to go in and get the new cert and trust it. You can dumb down your trust if you want - the bank could mail you the cert, mail you a letter saying it's going to be changed, post the thumbprint of the cert on their site, to their support phone line, whatever. If I want to issue a new cert, I have to get them to trust me in a similar fashion.

      Doing it this way is more work, but you have ACTUAL trust, negotiated equally by both parties. You can choose convenience over security if you want, but you're not subject to some government/CA MITMing everything on a whim.

  3. Re:Google wants a monopoly... by Shoten · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...on processing of your private information. It is in its interests to make sure everything is secure until the moment it reaches their servers.

    And if you live there, China wants a monopoly on knowing your private information...plus incarcerating you and even killing you to harvest your transplantable organs should it find that it doesn't like something it learns about you. Like that you think Tibet should be free. Or if you worship the wrong god.

    Please do try to keep a sense of perspective?

    --

    For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
  4. At what point do we stop playing? by tekrat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sooner or later, greed trumps useability. Companies are going to screw one another over in attempts to dominate. We, the users of the internet, lose when these entities play their games on one another, and sooner or later we are going to take to take our marbles and go home -- it's not worth it to play.

    I feel we have already reached this state; between the NSA essentially hacking every router as it leaves the factory to China issuing false certs to Google putting their own interests at the top of every search, it seems that the time has come to either consider some international organization to regulate the internet, or abandon TCP/IP and start again with a whole new internet based on something else. Clean sheet.

    The way we are currently headed will breed a cesspool of an internet you can't trust for anything -- so why would you use it for shopping, news, banking, or any other activity if you KNOW that every single time you do, you will regret using this medium for anything?

    If Amazon, Google, CNN, and heck even Facebook want to stay in business, they need to learn to stop fucking around with their users, because I've essentially had it, and I'm guessing that I cannot be alone in my disdain and distrust of what has become of an internet I used to like.

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  5. Revoke the certs by Imagix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At a _minimum_ MCS's rights need to be revoked. There needs to be an independent audit of any cert that CNNIC has issued _at CNNIC's expense_, and of their operations (both CNNIC, and the organizations to which they've issued certs), or CNNIC should have its rights revoked as well. MCS is completely untrustable, and CNNIC has to prove that they are currently trustable. CNNIC's operations need to be audited or they may just turn around an issue a new cert to MCS. (Or "MCS" with a new name)