[websec] HSTS Hole Punching

tav <tav@espians.com> Tue, 15 January 2013 22:57 UTC

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Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:57:36 +0000
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From: tav <tav@espians.com>
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Subject: [websec] HSTS Hole Punching
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Hi there,

I realise that this proposal might be rather late in the process, but
would it be possible to add a list of excluded subdomains in the STS
header?

My use case is that I am setting up a new service which has the STS
header set so that users might have a more secure experience. However,
for the purposes of sending referrer path information to non-HTTPS
sites, I have one subdomain which does redirects over plain HTTP, e.g.
http://from.espra.com/some/referrer/path.

In an ideal world, I would be able to set a comprehensive STS header
which excluded just that one subdomain, e.g.

  Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains;
exclude=from.espra.com

And since having an exclude implicitly suggests includeSubdomains, it
could be shortened to just:

  Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; exclude=from.espra.com

There are, of course, alternative solutions, e.g. using another domain
for the HTTP redirect or setting STS on individual subdomains without
specifying includeSubdomains. But this seems like it would be a more
elegant and secure solution.

Thank you for your time!

-- 
All the best, tav

plex:espians/tav | tav@espians.com | +44 (0) 7809 569 369
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