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A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

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Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#21

Post by craftyguy »

plugger wrote: post #9
arca_vorago wrote: post #6

My main question is does it affect gpg as well?

According to the quote in the article, yes. The flaws “might reveal the plaintext of encrypted emails, including encrypted emails you sent in the past,” Sebastian Schinzel, a professor of computer security at Münster University of Applied Sciences, wrote on Twitter. “There are currently no reliable fixes for the vulnerability. If you use PGP/GPG or S/MIME for very sensitive communication, you should disable it in you…

>"If you use PGP/GPG or S/MIME for very sensitive communication, you should disable it in your email client for now.”

So folks relying on these thing for sensitive communication should do no communitcation until..??? Just trying to clarify.

Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#22

Post by jstanley »

rococode wrote: post #15
jstanley wrote: post #3

Given that they recommend against decrypting any email, it sounds like the bug is some sort of remote-code-execution against the decryption step, that would then allow (among ~anything else) exfiltration of keys, ciphertexts, and plaintexts. EDIT: Having read a bit more I'm not so convinced that this explanation makes sense.

The original tweet linked in the article [1] says "They might reveal the plaintext of encrypted emails, including encrypted emails sent in the past.", so at least that much is probably compromised. They also say there are currently no reliable fixes, which seems to suggest the problem is a flaw in PGP's design rather than a security bug in some specific library or tool, since a simple (but widespread) bug would most…

Good point.

I wonder what kind of flaw in PGP's design could make it unsafe to decrypt incoming mails.

Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#23

Post by avian »

jwilk wrote: post #16

This doesn't make sense. PGP is encryption software, whereas S/MIME is an encryption standard. It's like saying that a vulnerability affetcts users of OpenSSL and RSA.

It makes sense to me. They are saying that there is a bug in the way PGP (software) handles S/MIME (standard). People that are using both (the software and the standard) are at risk.

Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#24

Post by logicallee »

klez wrote: post #11
logicallee wrote: post #5

I think PGP should implement a centralized auto-update mechanism so that software can disable itself in cases as severe as listed (with advice to "immediately disable and/or uninstall tools that automatically decrypt PGP-encrypted email"). [I've removed an earlier longer version of this comment.]

Your comment presupposes that software never ever has bugs, which is clearly hard for any non trivial piece of code. Furthermore, the big is in the decryption part of pgp, so the security of the encrypted communication doesn't seem to be at risk (unless the bug can somehow be used to exfiltrate your keys).

[removed]

Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#25

Post by jstanley »

logicallee wrote: post #18
rococode wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree, although I want to give a better typewriter example. I'd say this announcement is much more similar to: ----- May 14th, 1918. Attention All Users of Typewriters: Stop Using Patented "Secret Envelopes". Recent research has demonstrated that under certain lighting conditions, "Secret Envelopes" become transparent. There are alternatives to "Secret Envelopes" and we urge you to use them instead for the…

[removed]

> my specific firm, non-negotiable suggestion about the infrastructural changes that PGP admins need to institute.

The good news is I don't think anyone is going to make the mistake of trying to negotiate your suggestion.

Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#26

Post by skunkworker »

jstanley wrote: post #22
rococode wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original tweet linked in the article [1] says "They might reveal the plaintext of encrypted emails, including encrypted emails sent in the past.", so at least that much is probably compromised. They also say there are currently no reliable fixes, which seems to suggest the problem is a flaw in PGP's design rather than a security bug in some specific library or tool, since a simple (but widespread) bug would most…

Good point. I wonder what kind of flaw in PGP's design could make it unsafe to decrypt incoming mails.

It'll be interesting to see the flaw that many pgp clients all seemed to implement in the same/similar ways.

Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#27

Post by jwilk »

plugger wrote: post #9
arca_vorago wrote: post #6

My main question is does it affect gpg as well?

According to the quote in the article, yes. The flaws “might reveal the plaintext of encrypted emails, including encrypted emails you sent in the past,” Sebastian Schinzel, a professor of computer security at Münster University of Applied Sciences, wrote on Twitter. “There are currently no reliable fixes for the vulnerability. If you use PGP/GPG or S/MIME for very sensitive communication, you should disable it in you…

I don't see any such quote in the article. :/

Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#28

Post by jstanley »

craftyguy wrote: post #21
plugger wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the quote in the article, yes. The flaws “might reveal the plaintext of encrypted emails, including encrypted emails you sent in the past,” Sebastian Schinzel, a professor of computer security at Münster University of Applied Sciences, wrote on Twitter. “There are currently no reliable fixes for the vulnerability. If you use PGP/GPG or S/MIME for very sensitive communication, you should disable it in you…

>"If you use PGP/GPG or S/MIME for very sensitive communication, you should disable it in your email client for now.” So folks relying on these thing for sensitive communication should do no communitcation until..??? Just trying to clarify.

Until a fix is released and they've installed it, one would assume.

The paper is being released tomorrow morning at 7am GMT so we should learn more then.

Re: A new set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME

#29

Post by rdl »

I've always handled PGP via cut-and-paste of the ascii armored block, through a text file on a ramdisk (or between systems), then using command-line pgp or gpg to decrypt, and the reverse. Not always on a VM or machine without external network access, but for signing keys for software and stuff, yes. It just seemed too easy to mess up auto-decrypt/auto-encrypt and accidentally send out cleartext -- the cut and paste or textfile intermediate step makes it verifiable.

Unless there's a protocol bug where the message itself can include "dump the secret key to a public keyserver on decrypt", I'm not too worried.

(I also don't use PGP for routine communications, because it's so inconvenient to use it, and due to lack of a good mobile solution. Signal, or for routine email, tls to a mail server I control is fine too.)

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