StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised • Hacker News Board

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#61

Post by claudius » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 1:42 PM UTC

hnha wrote: post #20

pkteison wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should collect enough up front to make the revocation pre-paid. Refusing to revoke certs results in an unsafe internet and ruins the value of the entire service they are supposed to be providing.

They don't refuse, they charge money for this specific service. Protecting your keys is your obligation, not theirs.

Ensuring that valid certificates issued by them are only used by legitimate owners of the corresponding domains is their obligation.

Unfortunately, it seems as if Mozilla doesn’t care about the security of their users, otherwise this sorry excuse for a CA would have been dropped from their trust store already.

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#62

Post by mixedbit » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 1:57 PM UTC

Pacabel wrote: post #56

mixedbit wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any exploitable bug that allows to access private keys should invalidate certificates. There are many security vulnerabilities that don't give access to private keys.

Even if there's no publically-known way of using a particular security vulnerability to get access to private keys, how are we to be sure that somebody (perhaps malicious) didn't find a way and are just keeping it a secret?

If you understand a vulnerability, you can often tell for sure if it can lead to exposure of private keys. For example if a PHP app runs in a separate process with separate user credentials than nginx SSL endpoint, and if file access control flags for certificates are configured correctly, you can tell for sure that php bug alone won't allow for certificates access. This of course assumes that other components work correctly (like Linux access control mechanism), but without such assumptions you wouldn't be able to do anything productive.

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#63

Post by mitchty » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 2:08 PM UTC

claudius wrote: post #46

wut42 wrote: post #32

Let's admit StartSSL will revoke you. Then what ? Chrome will still don't check revoked certs. Mac OS X neither (and Safari). Only Firefox will...

That is a critical security flaw in Chrome (and your toy OS there with the fancy graphics). Arguing that someone else made a mistake which renders your mistake unimportant under some circumstances is neither excuse nor justification, in particular not for continuing to make that mistake.

toy OS? Honestly, grow up. The default in OSX is best effort. Its easy enough to change to require looking at revocations or fail the connection.

Anyone that cares about security is going to be looking at what their software does and ensure its configured securely. Not posting on hacker news about a "toy OS there with the fancy graphics" like a ninny.

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#64

Post by andreasvc » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 2:37 PM UTC

riquito wrote: post #51

andreasvc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is the power of revocations in cert issuer's hands? As long as the private key is private Because a major reason for revocation is when the private key has been compromised.

>> Why is the power of revocations in cert issuer's hands? As long as the private key is private >Because a major reason for revocation is when the private key has been compromised. His point is that whoever compromised the key is not interested to put it in the revocation list. If he does it... well, he did the good thing.

I see. Using the private key to revoke the certificate would be a denial of service attack, so requiring the CA for revocation avoids that, but admittedly it's not the first thing to worry about when a private key is compromised.

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#65

Post by pritambaral » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 2:58 PM UTC

Eiwatah4 wrote: post #60

pritambaral wrote: post #2

Why is the power of revocations in cert issuer's hands? As long as the private key is private, I don't see how a malicious entity could add your private key to the revocation list. In fact, a place in the revocation list should be reserved every time a cert is issued, possibly with a mechanism to trigger it with the private key. For example, if I send a message encrypted/signed with my private key to the revocation a…

What if someone hacked your server and stole, then deleted the private key? (Backing up private keys is bad practice.) What if the CA notices they issued a fraudulent certificate?

Hmm, I considered this possibility in a comment, incidentally two hours before yours, below. Let the CA have an ability to revoke certs, I'm not suggesting against that. I'm suggesting a method in addition to it.

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#66

Post by Tomte » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 3:49 PM UTC

tonylampada wrote: post #5

So now it's official. They got the evidence that the certificate is compromised yet they refuse to take action. If that's not violation of CA policy I don't know what is.

It isn't compromised. You yourself handed out your private key to others who may act on your behalf. Not by mistake, not by Heartbleed, not by some hacking event, but out of your clear will and as part of your policy how to handle the key.

In terms of your business transaction with StartSSL, the private key is still only known to "you".

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#67

Post by joesb » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 5:09 PM UTC

> Starcom's position is very firm and clear (and horrible, and against the security of the internet). [...] I won't be using their service again.

Funny the author didn't see it that way when he started using their service.

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#68

Post by jerf » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 8:28 PM UTC

Nanzikambe wrote: post #24

jamescun wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only their entry level certificate is free, they have higher priced options for the likes of wildcard and EV certificates. Once your root certificate has a good level of acceptance, the true cost of certificates is the validation process; actual certificate generation is negligible, hence certificates with little-to-no validation can be offered at little-to-no charge.

Fair play, now I know. The hand waving wild-eyed long-haired conspiracy theorist in me has been silenced .. for now :)

If you're interested in security or programming anywhere in the area of TLS, it's worth your time to set up your own CA, issue yourself certificates, figure out how to convince your local browser to accept them, etc.

Had I done that myself properly earlier, I'd have some less heartache in my future.

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#69

Post by mpyne » Sat, Apr 12, 2014, 9:44 PM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #66

tonylampada wrote: post #5

So now it's official. They got the evidence that the certificate is compromised yet they refuse to take action. If that's not violation of CA policy I don't know what is.

It isn't compromised. You yourself handed out your private key to others who may act on your behalf. Not by mistake, not by Heartbleed, not by some hacking event, but out of your clear will and as part of your policy how to handle the key. In terms of your business transaction with StartSSL, the private key is still only known to "you".

> It isn't compromised.

The private key being not private is the very definition of "compromised" when applied to the CA security architecture. Whether StartSSL has a different definition is completely immaterial to the Mozilla policy.

Now you're right that it's not StartSSL's fault that OpenSSL suffered Heartbleed, but nor is it the various end customers' fault (unless they introduced the bug themselves?). So pinning down the response to this as a simple exercise of assigning blame and responsibility completely misses the point and does nothing toward resolving what is admittedly a very difficult question.

Re: StartSSL, please revoke me – My private key has been compromised

#70

Post by Tomte » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 1:41 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #69

Tomte wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't compromised. You yourself handed out your private key to others who may act on your behalf. Not by mistake, not by Heartbleed, not by some hacking event, but out of your clear will and as part of your policy how to handle the key. In terms of your business transaction with StartSSL, the private key is still only known to "you".

> It isn't compromised. The private key being not private is the very definition of "compromised" when applied to the CA security architecture. Whether StartSSL has a different definition is completely immaterial to the Mozilla policy. Now you're right that it's not StartSSL's fault that OpenSSL suffered Heartbleed, but nor is it the various end customers' fault (unless they introduced the bug themselves?). So pinnin…

So in your opinion the one who actually buys and gets the certificate from the StartSSL web site must not share it with the system administrator? Or some second-in-command?

IMO, as long as the key is only known to people who the rightful owner explicitly wanted it to possess, it is not compromised.

This is just an extreme case of a troll wanting the whole world to have the key.

It has nothing to do with Heartbleed! Posting your private key in a gist on the web is not the same as being victim to some hacking because of a OpenSSL bug.