[Users] [Bug 2738] Erroneous rotation of SSL certificates

[Colin Leroy]

On 28 September 2012 at 12h57, ratinox at gweep.net wrote:

Hi, 

> > 'correct'.  If it wants to bark about it, it should do so in a
> > functional way which enhances security and is usable.  What it  
> 
> Automatically accepting multiple certificates for a socket is a
> security risk. For example, a certificate obtained from a compromised
> CA can be used in MITM attacks. DigiNotar revealed last year that it
> was tricked into issuing a valid wild card SSL cert for Google. Prior
> to that, Comodo revealed that it had been tricked into issuing valid
> certificates for Google, Yahoo and Skype.
> 
> >From an algorithmic perspective there is no difference between
> >Google's  
> "rotating" of SSL certificates and a third party MITM attack using a
> valid but illegal certificate on a spoofed IP. The trust chains link
> back to valid CAs and valid signatures. The only reliable way to
> determine a certificate's authenticity is using the Mark I Eyeball to
> compare certificates to known and verified goods every time the
> certificates change. Anything else leaves your accounts
> silently vulnerable to MITM attacks.

Thanks for your comment, which explains things better than I would
have done :) I'm going to paste it on the bug report.

-- 
Colin
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