Re: openssl default ciphers

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor <dkg () fifthhorseman net>]

On 11/04/2013 12:16 PM, Stefan Bühler wrote:

> while working on the lighttpd SNI bug I realized that openssl defaults
> to a very bad set of ciphers.
>
> I also couldn't find a sane recommendation from upstream openssl to use
> as default, as "DEFAULT" obviously is not a good choice. (I also don't
> see any reason why "DEFAULT" includes export and "LOW" ciphers...)
>
> Is 'DEFAULT@STRENGTH:!LOW:!EXP' (should
> be similar to 'HIGH:MEDIUM:!aNULL') a reasonably default?
>
> I don't want to enforce PFS or break compatibility on purpose; so I
> think the default could be a little bit less "secure" than what I would
> actually recommend to use.
>
> So I'm not interested in how to get a super extra secure cipher set
> (there are many cipher strings in the wild by various folks for that),
> but more in a reasonable lower bound.

There is ongoing discussion on one of the major users of OpenSSL 
(apache) about what the defaults should be for that user:

 https://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=49559#c11

I agree that the OpenSSL defaults seem too lax.

        --dkg