Re: Using SSL accelerators in firewalls

[Scott Walker Register <scott.register () us checkpoint com>]

It also depends on what you're using your SSL for, and how tightly you can couple
your firewall with your web application.  If you're basically building a "clientless" VPN,
then doing SSL decryption on the firewall gives you authentication, content filtering,
per-page access control to your web server, etc.  In this scenario, the firewall and the
web server don't have to be very aware of each other.  If you can't trust the connection between
your firewall and your web server, you could always re-encrypt - but you probably have some
other issues to deal with.  If you're trying to authenticate the user to the web server using
SSL, or do some kind of single-sign-on at the firewall which is passed on to the web server,
then this kind of deployment only makes sense if your firewall and web server can exchange 
meaningful information about users and connections.  IMHO.
-SwR


------------------------
  From: Ryan McBride <mcbride () countersiege com>
  Subject: Re: [fw-wiz] Using SSL accelerators in firewalls
  Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 09:09:37 -0400
  To: firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com


> On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 02:18:33PM +1000, Darren Reed wrote:
> > There would seem to be a growing trend in using SSL accelerators not
> > next to the web server but attached to a firewall so that it isn't
> > https traffic that passes through but http.
> >
> > To me this screams out "bad design" as the end-to-end encryption is
> > lost in the process and the security of transactions eroded.
> >
> > What do others think?  Is this becoming a "done thing" that is more
> > and more acceptable to corporates or is this just an isolated thing?
>
> I've seen it in several production environments, and I believe it's
> becoming increasingly common.
>
> - It allows you to place a network IDS in a position where you can sniff
>   the http traffic and look for application layer attacks.
>
> - It allows you to do load balancing, caching, and application layer
>   filtering with an intermediate box or boxes that you couldn't do on a
>   raw SSL stream.
>
> Yes, there the drawback of a potential loss of confidentiality on the
> unencrypted segment, but if the system is carefully architected (network
> segment for this purpose only, good filtering, etc) the risks can be
> minimized. If they compromise your webserver, they can get the traffic
> anyways - in the cases of webserver software with poor security
> engineering,  the intermediate box can actually improve security by
> blocking some classes of attacks.
>
> -Ryan
>
> -- 
> Ryan T. McBride, CISSP - mcbride () countersiege com
> Countersiege Systems Corporation - http://www.countersiege.com
> PGP key fingerprint = 8BA0 A58C 5038 9157 59C3  F9E6 6DDA 6611 BF4C 776B
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---------------End of Original Message-----------------

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