SSL Encryption and HTML

[genesiswave at gmail.com (James Costello)]

My bank uses SSL through out the session which I greatly appreciate and my
credit union redirects from the main site to separate window to login to
using SSL.
I think a simpler hack/hijack is to put up a copycat site that a user is
directed to via e-mail which has the same login handling as the main page of
the banks website with a minor redirect through the bad guys server to
capture the login information and then forward the client on to the
legitimate bank site, user is never prompted for the certificate information
because you can be legitimately redirected to https from http (as seen in
the original example).
One possible catch could be someone who has set their IE to notify them when
they move to a trusted site from a non trusted site and has set his/her bank
site up in the trusted zone instead of the default Internet zone.
I agree with Paul's assessment about the extended validation cert, if I
don't see it on my bank, I am not sure I would want to use the site without
verifiying the certificate (but really how many people outside of the
security community ever take the time to do that)

James

2008/10/28 Paul Asadoorian <paul at pauldotcom.com>

> My thoughts on SSL:
>
> 1) Spoofing the Certificate - This is successful more often than not,
> and since SSL is based on trust, well bad things can happen.  Remember
> the security conference where they spoofed bogus certs and most people,
> security people at that, accepted the invalid cert?  This is a major
> weakness in the concept of SSL (not necessarily the encryption
> implementation, which is good, just don't get caught using weak ciphers).
>
> 2) Certificate Authorities - If you can own the cert authority, you
> could make a big profit :)  Seriously, ever look at the CA's that are
> trusted in your browser?  There are some shady places in there, and you
> don't necessarily just trust them, you trust however has possession of
> their keys...
>
> 3) Extended Verification Certs - Firefox just recently included this by
> default in version 3, and I think its a good thing, and adds a layer
> (albeit a small one) to the security of SSL.  I like to see the green
> when I go to a web site (especially if its my bank ;)
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
> Cody Ray wrote:
> > Do you guys agree with the below statement?
> >
> > Although the login does not occur on a secure HTML page, the login is,
> > in fact, secure. We have all been well trained on how to check for
> > security. We all look down at our status bar at the bottom of the
> > browser to make sure there is a little lock or key that assures us that
> > everything is secure before we send anything. Well now there's a new
> > rule to learn: data can be sent securely even if you don't see these
> > icons of security. When you fill out an information form, or
> > application, or login, etc. you are filling out information on one page
> > and the information is being sent to a second page. We see the security
> > icons when the page that collects the information is secure. The
> > information can be sent securely if the collection page is not secure,
> > but the page where the information is sent to is secure. This is the
> > method we use on home page logins. If you want to assure yourself that
> > the information you are sending is secure and you don't see a security
> > icon, you can view the HTML source code. This may be intimidating for
> > some, but all you have to do is search to find the word "action=." This
> > will show you the location of the page that the information will be sent
> > to. If you see "action='_https://?',_"; you know that it is being sent
> > securely. If you see "action='_http://',_"; you know it is not secure.
> >
> >
> >     Information Encryption
> >
> > Your account information never travels the Internet without encryption
> > protection. When you click on "login", we encrypt your Online Banking ID
> > and password using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology, the highest
> > level of Internet security available. A secure connection is established
> > before your ID and password are transmitted and maintained for the
> > duration of your Online Banking session.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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>
> --
> Paul Asadoorian
> PaulDotCom Enterprises
> Web: http://pauldotcom.com
> Phone: 401.829.9552
>
>
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