Re: [TLS] Delegated Credentials: The impact of a hypothetical Bleichenbacher attack

[Nick Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

Hi Nimrod,

This is a working group document, so it's open to comments and suggestions
from anyone in the IETF community. Feel free to send a PR
https://github.com/tlswg/tls-subcerts and we can discuss on-list.

Nick

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 11:12 AM Nimrod Aviram <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> Hi Nick,
>
> Thank you again for the detailed explanation.
> We agree with your preference for option 1.
> Would it help if I contribute a draft of the new text for the security
> considerations section?
>
> best wishes,
> Nimrod
>
>
> On Fri, 20 Mar 2020 at 18:57, Nick Sullivan <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 9:23 AM Nimrod Aviram <[e-mail]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Nick,
>>>
>>> Thank you for the detailed response!
>>>
>>> In light of your explanation, we are curious why high-profile servers
>>> using Delegated Credentials need to support TLS-RSA? Most of the relevant
>>> clients (or all of them?) support ephemeral key exchange in TLS. So would
>>> it be possible to improve the state-of-the-art by forbidding TLS-RSA and
>>> demanding correct keyUsage, at least in such high-profile scenarios?
>>>
>>
>> This doesn't stop the attack, it just reduces the probability that a new
>> oracle will be exploitable in servers that implement DCs. If the oracle
>> exists in existing legacy servers where the cert is used, it doesn't matter
>> what DC-enabled servers do. Removing support for TLS-RSA in TLS 1.2 is a
>> valid TLS policy choice for today's age, but enforcing it in the protocol
>> document doesn't improve the security versus known attacks like DROWN.
>> Requiring EC keys for DC-enabled certificates is also an artificial
>> limitation that should be avoided -- not all CAs support EC certs and not
>> all software supports EC code.
>>
>> What you really want is to prevent keys from being used across different
>> contexts. I see two options for this:
>>
>> 1) Add strong wording in the security considerations section about how it
>> is dangerous to use the same key in different contexts. Advise implementers
>> to use DC-enabled certificates only for signing DCs, not for terminating
>> TLS or SSL -- if their software allows it.
>> 2) Enforce on the client-side that DC-enabled certificates can only be
>> used for DC handshakes. This option prevents DC certificates from being
>> used in an DC-capable server by DC-enabled clients, but it doesn't prevent
>> the certificate from being deployed on legacy services exposing an oracle.
>> The downside of this restriction is that it adds complexity for server
>> implementations (need the ability to load certificates dynamically based on
>> client hello), and operators (two certificates need to be managed per
>> service, not just one).
>>
>> My preference is for 1)
>>
>>
>>> Assuming this is not possible, we agree with your conclusion. It looks
>>> like the second alternative is more effective - to discourage the use
>>> of DC-enabled certificates in contexts where an oracle may be present.
>>> One possible defense-in-depth is to use DC only with EC certificates.
>>>
>>> best wishes,
>>> Robert, Juraj and Nimrod
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>>> From: Nick Sullivan <[e-mail]>
>>> Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2020 at 01:21
>>> Subject: Re: [TLS] Delegated Credentials: The impact of a hypothetical
>>> Bleichenbacher attack
>>> To: Nimrod Aviram <[e-mail]>
>>> Cc: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>, Juraj Somorovsky <
>>> [e-mail]>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hello Nimrod, Robert and Juraj,
>>>
>>> Thank you for the report!
>>>
>>> The fact that a single signature oracle computation can be used to
>>> create a DC and therefore intercept multiple connections for up to 7 days
>>> is something we considered when writing this specification. The mitigation
>>> you proposed in option 1 (requiring the keyEncipherment KeyUsage to not
>>> be present on DC-capable certificates) is sound in theory, but unlikely to
>>> be effective in practice since many servers (including many of the ones
>>> identified in DROWN) ignore the requirement that keyEncipherment
>>> KeyUsage is present. Stating this requirement in the text of this document
>>> is unlikely to prevent existing oracles from being leveraged if the
>>> certificate is used in multiple contexts and is likely to introduce
>>> complexity on the CA side, so I'm inclined not to include this requirement.
>>> I'd be happy to hear an argument to the contrary, though.
>>>
>>> I'm more inclined to incorporate some text into the security
>>> considerations to discourage the use of DC-enabled certificates in
>>> contexts where an oracle may be present. Servers may even go as far as to
>>> use a different certificate for DC-enabled handshakes vs regular handshakes
>>> --- although very few servers support this sort of dynamic certificate
>>> switching in practice so it would be difficult to make a hard requirement
>>> here.
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 6:08 AM Nimrod Aviram <[e-mail]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi folks,
>>>>
>>>> We're writing to ask (and share some concerns) about the potential
>>>> impact
>>>> of a Bleichenbacher attack when delegated credentials are in use.
>>>>
>>>> This issue is already discussed in the standard:
>>>> In Section 3:
>>>> ```   It was noted in [XPROT] that certificates in use by servers that
>>>>    support outdated protocols such as SSLv2 can be used to forge
>>>>    signatures for certificates that contain the keyEncipherment KeyUsage
>>>>    ([RFC5280] section 4.2.1.3).  In order to prevent this type of cross-
>>>>    protocol attack, we define a new DelegationUsage extension to X.509
>>>>    that permits use of delegated credentials.  (See Section 4.2.)
>>>> ```
>>>>
>>>> And Section 4.2:
>>>> ```   The client MUST NOT accept a delegated credential unless
>>>>    the server's end-entity certificate satisfies the following criteria:
>>>>
>>>>    *  It has the DelegationUsage extension.
>>>>
>>>>    *  It has the digitalSignature KeyUsage (see the KeyUsage extension
>>>>       defined in [RFC5280]).
>>>> ```
>>>>
>>>> Currently, it seems the standard does not discuss the common situation
>>>> where the certificate has both the digitalSignature and keyEncipherment
>>>> KeyUsages.
>>>> If we understand correctly, for such certificates using Bleichenbacher's
>>>> attack to forge a single signature once over a delegated credential,
>>>> would grant an attacker the equivalent of a man-in-the-middle
>>>> certificate.
>>>> Section 3 mentions SSLv2, and this protocol indeed enabled a severe form
>>>> of Bleichenbacher's attack, but these attacks are not limited to older
>>>> protocol versions.
>>>> There have been implementations of TLS 1.2 vulnerable to
>>>> Bleichenbacher's
>>>> attack, even by server operators as competent as Facebook, as discussed
>>>> e..g. in the ROBOT paper.
>>>>
>>>> Also, coming back to SSLv2, one problem at the time was that the
>>>> recommended way to disable SSLv2 in OpenSSL did not in fact disable
>>>> SSLv2. Administrators who followed the guidelines falsely assumed they
>>>> had disabled the protocol, but had no way to verify it was disabled. It
>>>> would be prudent to assume this may happen again, e.g. administrators
>>>> will
>>>> be unaware that they have obsolete or vulnerable cryptography enabled.
>>>>
>>>> In light of the above, we would recommend one of two alternatives:
>>>> 1. Change the text in Section 4.2 to say "[the certificate] has the
>>>> digitalSignature KeyUsage, and does not have the keyEncipherment
>>>> KeyUsage.
>>>> Furthermore, the certificate does not share its public key with any
>>>> certificate that has the keyEncipherment KeyUsage."
>>>> - or -
>>>> 2. Add text in the Security Considerations Section explaining that:
>>>> 2.1. The recommended way for server operators to defend in depth against
>>>> this type of attack is to use a certificate as in alternative 1 with
>>>> delegated credentials.
>>>> 2.2. Absent that, server operators should be aware of this risk.
>>>>
>>>> We would be happy to continue the discussion and help in any way.
>>>>
>>>> best wishes,
>>>> Juraj, Robert and Nimrod
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>>>