Re: [websec] Kathleen Moriarty's Discuss on draft-ietf-websec-key-pinning-19: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

[Ryan Sleevi <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 8:15 PM, Kathleen Moriarty <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> Kathleen Moriarty has entered the following ballot position for
> draft-ietf-websec-key-pinning-19: Discuss
>
> When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to all
> email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to cut this
> introductory paragraph, however.)
>
>
> Please refer to http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html
> for more information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.
>
>
> The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-websec-key-pinning/
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> DISCUSS:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Overall the draft is very good, thank you for writing it.  I just wanted
> to discuss some of the security/privacy considerations and see if we
> could improve the language and make sure the set of concerns are clear.
>
> The privacy consideration section reads more like possible attack
> scenarios that would fit into the security considerations.  What privacy
> related concerns result from these attacks?  Having that spelled out to
> differentiate the risks as privacy only would be helpful (if appropriate)
> or moving this into the security consideration section *IF* it is more
> generically applicable.  If I am missing something and this is only
> privacy related, it would be good to understand that in this discussion.
>  Adding some text on how these attacks could be used to expose privacy
> related information would be helpful too.
>

The first paragraph spells out precisely why this is listed as a privacy
consideration:

   Hosts can use HSTS or HPKP as a "super-cookie", by setting distinct
   policies for a number of subdomains.  For example, assume example.com
   wishes to track distinct UAs without explicitly setting a cookie, or
   if a previously-set cookie is deleted from the UA's cookie store.

Neither of these attacks undermine the protections afforded by HPKP.
Indeed, they exist precisely BECAUSE of HPKP offering a new means of web
storage. Essentially, all storage mechanisms introduced when dealing with
sites - whether it be cookies, new APIs like IndexedDB, exposure of
persistent storage such as cryptographic keys, or, as in both HSTS and
HPKP, remembering data about a previously visited site - represent new and
potential ways to uniquely identify a user, which the two examples spell
out.


>
> For the first example, it seems it is the possibility that a report goes
> outside out the intended scope is the concern.  The mitigation seems to
> be provided in the last sentence of #4, but couldn't this be other
> information leakage and not just privacy?  Let me know if I am missing
> something that explains why this is privacy specific.
>

I'm not sure how that was reached, as the description of the risk was
explicitly enumerated

   and the ability to pin arbitrary identifiers to distinguish UAs.

This is also reiterated in the #2 and #3.

The same applies to the second example, which hopefully the above
explanation is sufficient to demonstrate how the spec already highlights,
in several means, how this is a privacy issue (distinguishing the user
independent of cookies, aka a "super-cookie")


>
> In #3 of the second example, the last sentence includes the following
> clause:
>           and giving some UAs no
>           Valid Pinning Header for other subdomains (causing subsequent
>           requests for m.fingerprint.example.com to succeed).
>
> Does this mean that these subdomains are succeeding when they should
> fail?  It might just be me, but that is not clear in the text (or if they
> are supposed to succeed).  It sounds like they are not supposed to
> succeed and this is the security issue.  How is this privacy specific?
> Again, this may just be me, but an explanation would be helpful.


Do the above references to the existing portions of the spec make this
clearer?

As noted above, the attack is about identifying and tracking users through
means other than cookies. Such attacks are also known as "super-cookies",
which is the term explicitly used in the introduction of these attacks.

As noted, the attacker is the site serving the headers itself, which is why
it's a privacy issue.


>
> In the last sentence of the privacy considerations section, what is meant
> by the description "forensic attacker"?  I find this term confusing.  Was
> this intended to mean that techniques used in forensic analysis could be
> used by an attacker to discern information that could be of interest?  If
> that's the case, I think it would be clearer to the reader if that were
> stated instead.
>

This was in response to Alissa Cooper's YES vote, in which a threat model
of an attacker with physical access to the machine attempts to recover
state of the user's browsing history, which the UA had otherwise cleared.

Per Eric Lawrence's feedback, this third section will be reworked into it's
own privacy consideration bullet, and hopefully you'll find the
clarification suitable.


>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> COMMENT:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I agree with Richard's comment that the document is well written and an
> important document, thank you for writing it.  The style changed a little
> toward the end and I had some trouble with long sentences in the security
> & privacy considerations sections.  This should be easy enough to fix and
> may be done with the RFC editor anyway.
>
> To Richard's point on operational concerns versus security concerns, are
> there explicit security attacks that could occur with the max-age
> variations described?
>
> In 4.2, I can't see this being more than an operational concern since it
> fails when overlapping pin sets are not used.  Are we missing a gap that
> leads to a security concern?
>

I suppose it depends on your threat model and how you view domain authority.

In the example given, subdomain.example.com is bypassing the pins set for
example.com+includeSubDomains, depending on timing. That is, if example.com
is visited first, then subdomain.example.com MUST be
equal-to-or-a-subset-of the pins for example.com, by virtue of the known
pinned host evaluation.

Thus if example.com wishes to administer pins for their domain (and all
subdomains), it's necessary for them to prevent subdomains from setting the
header.

Now, you can see this as an operational concern if you view the example.com
and subdomain.example.com as the same administrative entity, but that's
sometimes not the case (e.g. shared hosting sites like Amazon AWS, GitHub's
pages, or Google AppEngine)



>
> 4.3 makes sense to me as a security concern that drives operational
> practices.
>
>
>