Can SSL and TOR be intercepted?
Secure Socket Layer
De-facto standard to encrypt communications Can ensure the identity of the peer
Prerequisite to decrypt a communication: You have to monitor it!
Most of the SSL attacks are MITM-based
Physically in the middle Rogue AP, ISP, etc.
Logically in the middle Take a look at our 2003 BlackHat presentation…
Ok but…can SSL be intercepted?
Three attacks’ categories
Protocol design and math Chain of trust The User
Let’s start with…
Protocol design and math
Weak encryption can be easily cracked Protocol and algorithms are negotiated during the handshake This “attack” can be performed passively
Weak encryption can be easily cracked ~ 70%* of the Internet uses only “strong” encryption What’s “weak” and what’s “easy”? Ask the NSA… * Trustworthy Internet Movement 2014/10/3 on web sites
SSLv2 Downgrade Attack No integrity check on the handshake Weaker encryption algorithms can be forced
SSLv2 Downgrade Attack SSLv2 disabled by default on most systems
SSLv3 is vulnerable as well… POODLE attack (September 2014) could be used to decrypt HTTPS cookies
SSLv3 is vulnerable as well… Most browsers dismissed SSLv3 Providers are going to dismiss it as well
Protocol versionWebsite Support SSL % SSL % TLS % TLS % TLS % Website coverage
TLS Logjam attack Published on May 2015 Forces TLS connection with weak key
TLS Logjam attack Vendors are patching
Implementation-specific attacks OpenSSL "Heartbleed" (CVE ) Oracle Java JSSE (CVE ) OpenSSL "Freak" (CVE ) And many others...
Implementation-specific attacks Keep your system up to date! Google’s Nogotofail tests connections for known bugs and weak configurations
Chain of Trust
If you have the private key you can see the traffic! Very hard to detect This “attack” can be performed passively if no PFS is used
If you have the private key you can see the traffic! Don’t give your private key to anyone ;) Forward Secrecy available on almost 40% of the websites
Custom CA on the client device Often used by AVs to inspect traffic Sometimes used by vendors to insert Ads
Custom CA on the client device Don’t install untrusted CA certificates Keep your OS/AV up to date
Rogue CA A malicious CA can sign fake certificates CAs’ certificates were stolen in the past (eg: Diginotar 2011) Allows any “active” probe to impersonate any website
Rogue CA Public Key Pinning EFF SSL Observatory monitors trusted CAs Google and Facebook actively search for rogue CAs
Rogue CA In December % of all connections to Facebook were established with forged certificates In 2014 Google found evidence from France and India of certificates signed by rogue Cas In 2015 Google removed all China NIC and EV CAs from their products
Future alternatives to the Chain of Trust Trust Assertion for Certificate Keys DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities
The User
SSL Strip attack Intercept the “redirect to HTTPS” reply HTTP-to-HTTPS Proxy for the whole communication Replace HTTPS with HTTP in any link
SSL Strip attack Pay attention to the “lock” Servers using HSTS can force HTTPS on the clients HTTPS Everywhere plugin doesn’t allow HTTP connections Mozilla pushes for full HTTPS