Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives
Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic
From: Angelo Rodriguez <Angelo.Rodriguez () SOFTWARE DELL COM>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2016 16:10:06 +0000
I would like to offer a vendor perspective. Without SSL inspection, limited URL filtering can be done (using cert common name) but you cannot block keywords, perform complex filtering or inject block/splash pages. Likewise applications might show up as “https” or “SSL” so app visibility and control may be limited. Threats via IPS, malware and other vectors will also be hidden from the DPI engine and go right through (the way they do now on many legacy FW’s or those that are not inspecting SSL). Our own analysis from +1m active sensors (NGFW’s) shows encrypted traffic levels at nearly 60% and growing faster than http. In some places it will be lower/higher of course. Think of all the common use sites/apps (anything Google or MS, most social media sites, CRM and ERP, financials, medical, etc) that introduce threat vectors if they are not being inspected (via MitM or similar). Inspection is required to peform full URL, App control, IPS and malware prevention else, in effect you are only protecting ~50% of your traffic/users. I can only speak for specific roducts, but you have to specifically capture and export or mirror unencrypted traffic to see PII data. It does not appear in logs nor do the products I’m familiar with have onboard storage of captures, data is only kept in volatile memory during inspection. I fully understand the concerns and it’s brought up regularly in my interaction with Hied customers across NOAM, but there are many deployments and growing very quickly (for SSL inspection) across both Hied and K-12 (and commercial, FED, G500 acounts). Cheers, Angelo J. Rodriguez, CISSP Director, Sales Engineering Dell | Network Security mobile +1 512 297 1758; office +1 512 309 7006 From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of John LaPrad Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2016 9:22 AM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Inspecting encrypted traffic Thanks Brian for your thoughtful comments. I agree, there are serious issues with decrypting 'secure' connections. This topic came up at our institution and I want to give it a thorough examination. Encrypted traffic is increasing constantly. I did a URL analysis of our encrypted traffic to see where folks were going. It was somewhat similar to the non-encrypted traffic. In order of connection count: * browsing; educational, business, economy, news, * streaming media * phishing (blocked by url bad list) * advertisments * social media * training * games * shopping The traffic patterns are quite similar between encrypted and non-encrypted sessions (Netflix being one of the main differences). If the traffic is similar, the risks are also going to be similar. People have made a case for inspecting regular traffic (layer 7 firewalls are everywhere), couldn't the same case be made for encrypted traffic? For me, I see the same need to inspect it as regular traffic. Just because it's encrypted doesn't mean it's more secure from malware or bad intentions then un-encrypted traffic. There was a time when encryption was only used for financials, but that is no longer the case. However, the reasons you mention; enduser trust, privacy, compliance are important. I'm not sure yet what we'll do, but I do see it coming though. John ________________________________ From: "Brian Epstein" <bepstein () ias edu<mailto:bepstein () ias edu>> To: "John LaPrad" <jrl () svsu edu<mailto:jrl () svsu edu>>, "The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv" <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>> Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2016 5:30:15 PM Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Inspecting encrypted traffic -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Hi John, I believe you are speaking about a feature called SSL Bump or an authorized man in the middle (MitM) proxy. The only way I know to implement this is to install a trusted CA or certificate on every client machine you have so that they "trust" your man in the middle box. Then, your box decrypts and re-encrypts all traffic. The client is tricked into thinking they are connecting to a real server, while your MitM box is actually doing that leg of the communication. We don't do this for two reasons. First, is your concern about privacy issues. As a user, I would be quite perturbed about having someone sniffing what I thought was private traffic. You will probably have a few savvy users that will figure out what is going on by looking at the certs and make a big stink about it. It might not be worth the negative press. Secondly is the liability and compliance aspect that you mention. If you do this MitM service, you will now have clear text of credit card information, banking passwords, and other PII. Depending on how you are collecting this data, you may have to worry about things like PCI compliance, HIPAA, FERPA or other regulations that you didn't have to worry about before. You don't really get to choose to decrypt only the viruses. I would recommend steering clear of this avenue. I believe Squid was one of the first places that started offering this, and even their documentation states: "WARNING: HTTPS was designed to give users an expectation of privacy and security. Decrypting HTTPS tunnels without user consent or knowledge may violate ethical norms and may be illegal in your jurisdiction. Squid decryption features described here and elsewhere are designed for deployment with user consent or, at the very least, in environments where decryption without consent is legal. These features also illustrate why users should be careful with trusting HTTPS connections and why the weakest link in the chain of HTTPS protections is rather fragile. Decrypting HTTPS tunnels constitutes a man-in-the-middle attack from the overall network security point of view. Attack tools are an equivalent of an atomic bomb in real world: Make sure you understand what you are doing and that your decision makers have enough information to make wise choices." - - http://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/SslBump Instead, we have focused on installing good anti-malware on the machines we control, and put them into network segments separated from the machines we don't control. We are looking into network access control (NAC) solutions and authenticated network devices using 802.1x. True, we won't catch as much stuff as if we did the MitM decrypt and scan method, but for us, our users' confidence and satisfaction is more important. Different rules for different schools. If I was a bank, my attitude may differ as well. Good luck in your endeavors, look forward to hearing what you decide. Thanks, ep On 01/19/2016 01:53 PM, John LaPrad wrote:
Hello all, I'm looking into the possibility of decrypting and inspecting encrypted traffic to and from the Internet for viruses, malware etc.... Is anyone doing this? We have Palo Alto firewalls and they support decryption, inspection, re-encryption. I'm concerned about privacy issues, could it impact compliance in any way, user acceptance. I appreciate any feed back. Thanks in advance for your time; John LaPrad Manager of Technical Services Saginaw Valley State University Phone: 989-964-7134 jrl () svsu edu<mailto:jrl () svsu edu>
- -- Brian Epstein <bepstein () ias edu<mailto:bepstein () ias edu>> +1 609-734-8179 Manager, Network and Security Institute for Advanced Study Key fingerprint = A6F3 9F5A 26C5 5847 79ED C34C C0E5 244A 55CA 2B78 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJWnrj3AAoJEMDlJEpVyit4VpwP/i5+IMDyI3QpimR8WVVAEqAq YL92vK4JpFn0Htf9upLF0a10G+Jzz5QHTCe51cMocIN+B5EzUYzkYzlpxXc84nor YD45LEGk9lGt88oz/AgZgrXKsm514nNt1CeiNpeqE8tQ5Oun9w01iuZgb3pU6dIc 45Jtf0dXHTd8FNMmCx2kBrgkk8OA5p6rypKiYX3l0KxVrM8145/Uh129yUSfllTC QSXvYQulNb+hymDWZBC1l5kGZJFF9pGhhAeM5jFo1/nBHL5iqD2NuJnxJcuCjsMb juTWLk3w0Wth9wBefswxxLaOJ9uZSePs5E/5GywvXylC63bxQ27RYxViUwHo1GWW fMwmnyoAd3YGXs0xNFuJIXgDbd5tW3SBxO3mYjykuXJuN415LKvhwhykC5pG9URA OhY5J1c/pcpiiNqsU2ewCnycAprRnZULebdc3ywCjijcCJI55DGPZeXRU9GDjrBp vGD6AZMi3t7FiIOD/lkkFZFGqmxf0CZHn1fM3EJbv0FbVbe7pt8YvNmGKo/7fLmx k0Q4mN+Z185s5At06hpotuHmMiB92bYbjPBkyrkpx6UpMWFmAWIaumYom+egkgl1 nF3UAUc7XNAEBLQyVegLEMTi1hvi/hEbIU07lDBlkdwVqzp/ZXfEmxM/xj602WaY FpUlJJwEClX/VZSk6NWE =8r17 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Current thread:
- Inspecting encrypted traffic John LaPrad (Jan 19)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Jim Cheetham (Jan 19)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Alex Keller (Jan 19)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic John LaPrad (Jan 19)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Brian Epstein (Jan 19)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic John LaPrad (Jan 20)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Angelo Rodriguez (Jan 20)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Jim Cheetham (Jan 20)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Dexter Caldwell (Jan 20)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Dexter Caldwell (Jan 20)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Nathaniel Hall (Jan 20)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic John LaPrad (Jan 20)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Brian Epstein (Jan 20)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic John LaPrad (Jan 21)
- Re: Inspecting encrypted traffic Michael Anderson (Jan 21)