Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: SSL Filtering - OFFTOPIC


From: "Kurt Seifried" <listuser () seifried org>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:34:07 -0600

Now you can buy products off-the-shelf that man-in-the-middle SSL with
the "new feature" called SSL Filtering; both WebWasher and Secure
Computing are offering this functionality.

Not new, I remember discussing this years ago, however implementation is
another story.

In summary, the transparent SSL proxy dynamically issues certificates
for any SSL server you try to communicate with (e.g. "etrade.com"),
which allows it to act as though it were the actual server and proxy,
decrypt, and filter all SSL information from the server. Somehow or
another, your browser must trust the proxy server's own root CA. Of
course, your company's security policy will surely require you to do so.

If you control the client to such a degree (being able to force installation
of root authority certificates) then it's a moot point. If however you can
trick the client into installing such a certificate, and maybe fiddle their
DNS server settings at the same time, you have a larger problem. Like the
SWEN virus did.....

Personally I think this is going to be a huge area. Why dick around stealing
credit card numbers/etc when you can simply sieze someone's online
banking/brokering credentials, or a few hundred such accounts oh, just like
Van T. Dinh did:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/33320.html

$90,000 for the cost of sending someone a small trojan. Not a bad
risk/reward ratio, if you can figure out how to launder the money.

Things will probably get a lot worse before they get well and truly bad, to
say nothing of when they get utterly horrible.

Sort of wish I'd patented this now ("one-click financial fraud"?).

Kurt Seifried, kurt () seifried org
A15B BEE5 B391 B9AD B0EF
AEB0 AD63 0B4E AD56 E574
http://seifried.org/security/

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html


Current thread: