Re: [TLS] Third Option?

[Martin Rex <[e-mail]>]

Yoav Nir wrote:
> 
> What do you (as a vendor) tell your customers when they know they are
> vulnerable and call you for a fix?
> 
> Have TLS 1.3 code ready and tell them to upgrade to it.  Asking customers
> to move to newer release in order to fix security problems is something
> the market understands. (did not say 'likes').

I haven't seen a market that understand this.
Vendors have been shipping very annoying auto-update functionality
in order to get at least a part of the installed base to upgrade.

Outside of the commodity market, you may get to see some customer's
lawyers if you suggest "moving to a newer release" instead of providing
a patch to defects in your products.


> - There's no signaling that renegotiations are disabled.
>   The browser cannot show me that I'm talking to a secured server.

Yes, I feel so much safer when I know that I'm talking to an TLS-updated
rogue server.  The difference this update will make is much smaller
as some try to make you believe.  It is definitely not like you
are competely and hopelessly insecure without it, and
top-notch invincible as soon as you deploy it.

The endpoint identifications used by application protocols on top of
TLS contains plenty of weaknesses itself.  So it's not like you
should stop worrying.  It's just that your focus shifts and you
have to worry more about other things now, some of which may me
much harder to fix.


-Martin