Comment by ROllerozxa
11 hours ago
Is this real? This seems so ridiculous it makes me wonder for how long this CA has been in circulation in systems and if it has been exploited by someone previously discovering it in that time (state level actor or not). My old phone running Android 6 does not have any certificate from EMudhra, at the very least.
Almost certainly noticed and quietly exploited by a state actor
The Web PKI uses certificate transparency, so we’ll have a definitive answer about whether this is/was exploited soon.
(But in any case, CT ensures that it can’t be “quiet.”)
There were no certificates from the compromised intermediates logged to CT prior to remediation by the browsers.
2 replies →
CT is great for browsers. Largely irrelevant for anything being fetched outside of a browser.
25 replies →
There are plenty of ways you would never be able to tell if a fake cert had been generated and used via this attack vector (let's ignore validation attacks):
1. CT does not do anything if a state actor demands a CA in its borders generate a cert without publishing to the CT logs (or a three-letter-agency doing this illicitly). They can put SCTs in the cert, and still not publish to the logs, nobody is auditing the logs for every cert every browser sees.
2. Browsers won't check for SCTs in certs if they come from a private CA. you can MITM any domain through ZScaler all day long and nobody will notice
3. Wildcard certs make it easy to make/renew a cert that looks normal but hides requests on new/different hosts
4. Non-Browsers do not validate SCTs
4 replies →
I admittedly don't know much about how CAs work but why would a state actor care about such an exploit? Wouldn't they just ask any local cert issuer and receive a "legitimate" cert?
If FBI went to Godaddy and said, “We need a cert for www.google.com”, Godaddy would most likely refuse. Issuing that cert would leave a trail that would be extremely undesirable for both FBI and Godaddy.
You could cloak where it's coming from more easily this way.
organized crime is generally as or more capable these days. they have bigger budgets than most nation states.
They are not exclusive to each other. The most successful criminal organizations work with, and from within, nation states, their intelligence agencies and law enforcement. Oh hi, we see you.
A grumpy state actor today.
Nope. You can find this from the Chrome Root Program.
> Because no TLS certificates chaining to these six intermediate CAs were logged to CT prior to our CRLSet block on October 17, no fraudulent certificates issued by these CAs could have been trusted by default in Chrome or other CT-enforcing browsers.
Not all TLS traffic involves a browser.
Apparently they've only been included in early October https://www.mail-archive.com/dev-security-policy@mozilla.org...
I'm not exactly sure which of the roots from eMudra were compromised, but the "emSign ECC Root CA - G3" which is mentioned in the OP site as one you should blacklist, is present on my phone which is running Android 12 with the last security update from three years ago. Having a better timeframe for when the impacted certificates appeared really would have been nice.
I believe Android updates things like CA certs independently of their monthly security patch. I'm not sure Android 12 uses the same system, but on newer Android I think those are shipped via Google Play system updates, which don't require waiting for the phone vendor.
1 reply →
None of the roots were compromised. (Some of) Their own sub-CAs for TLS certs, which are also cross-signed by Sectigo (since their own roots are rather recent), are affected.
How you have that root cert on your phone with a 3 year old CA set I have no idea, presumably something updated your CAs in the meantime? (Also, aren't you incredibly exposed to the general onslaught of vulnerabilities from the past 3 years?)
1 reply →
its well-known , we took certificates from them for our company. its due for renewal, iam pausing this for now.
I believe these intermediates chained up to a third party root.
They chain up to emSign & Comodo:
https://groups.google.com/a/mozilla.org/group/dev-security-p...
To be clear, emSign is another name for EMudhra, and Comodo is now known as Sectigo. (You can't just look at the organization name in a certificate subject; you have to consult the CCADB: https://www.agwa.name/blog/post/the_certificate_issuer_field...)
9 replies →
It's real.
[dead]