30 Days of Brave
Brave is a web browser available for multiple platforms that aims to provide additional security and privacy features – plus a novel monetization scheme for publishers. I gave it 30 days to see if it was worth using. I switched on all platforms I use to give it a fair shot, I normally use Chrome which made the switch less painful, though the results were very much mixed. There are some things I honestly liked about it, some things I really disliked, and at least one thing that just made me mad.
Read more…Confide, Screenshots, and Imaginary Threats
Recently Vice published a story about a lawsuit against the makers of the ‘secure’ messaging application Confide. This isn’t just a lawsuit, it’s a class-action lawsuit and brought by Edelson PC – an amazingly successful (and sometimes hated1) law firm – this isn’t a simple case. The complaint includes a very important point: Specifically, Confide fails to deliver on two of the three requirements that it espouses as necessary for confidential communications: ephemerality and screenshot protection.
Read more…Shadow Brokers, Equation Group, Oh My…
Yet again, a group known as The Shadow Brokers is in the news, with yet another leak from what is widely accepted as the NSA (Equation Group1 in APT terms). This release is, to many, the most important release of this leaked stolen material from the most elite and secretive hacking operation in the world. This is a collection of a few notes on this highly unusual operation. If you haven’t read this excellent overview of the most recent release by Dan Goodin, you should do that now.
Read more…Looking for value in EV Certificates
When you are looking for TLS (SSL) certificates, there are three different types available, and vary widely by price and level of effort required to acquire them. Which one you choose impacts how your certificate is treated by browsers; the question for today is, are EV certificates worth the money? To answer this, we need to understand what the differences are just what you are getting for your money. The Three Options For many, the choice of certificate type has more to do with price than type – and for that matter, not that many people even understand that there are real differences in the types of certificates that a certificate authority (CA) can issue.
Read more…YAWAST 0.5 Released
Today, I’ve released the latest version of YAWAST, a security scanner for web applications that provides basic information about the application, and performs common checks so that you can move on to the fun part of testing more quickly. YAWAST also remains the only tool I’ve found that can perform an accurate test for SWEET32. Here is the change log for version 0.5.0: #35 – Add check for SameSite cookie attribute #53 – Added checks for .
Read more…On the need for an open Security Journal
The information security industry, and more significantly, the hacking community are prolific producers of incredibly valuable research; yet much of it is lost to most of those that need to see it. Unlike academic research which is typically published in journals (with varying degrees of openness), most research conducted within the community is presented at a conference – and occasionally with an accompanying blog post. There is no journal, no central source that this knowledge goes to; if you aren’t at the right conference, or follow the right people on Twitter, there’s a great chance you’ll never know it happened.
Read more…TLS Certificates from the Top Million Sites
Thanks to the recent WoSign / StartCom issues with misused or flawed certificates, there was a question about how many of the certificates issued were actually active – so this seemed to be a good time to run a scan against the Alexa top 1 million sites to see what I could find. Scan information: The scan was ran with an 8 second timeout – so any server that couldn’t complete a handshake within 8 seconds isn’t counted.
Read more…Ruby + GCM Nonce Reuse: When your language sets you up to fail…
A couple hours ago, Mike Santillana posted to oss-security about a rather interesting find in Ruby’s OpenSSL library; in this case, the flaw is subtle – so much so that it’s unlikely that anyone would notice it, and it’s a matter of a seemingly insignificant choice that determines if your code is affected. When performing AES-GCM encryption, if you set the key first, then the IV, and you are fine – set the IV first, you’re in trouble.
Read more…Testing for SWEET32 with YAWAST
Testing for SWEET32 isn’t simple – when the vulnerability was announced, some argued that the best solution was to assume that if a TLS server supported any of the 3DES cipher suites, consider it vulnerable. The problem is, it’s not that simple. On my employer’s corporate blog, I wrote about practical advice for dealing with SWEET32 – and pointed out that there are ways around the vulnerability, and some are quite simple.
Read more…Developers: Placing Trust in Strangers
Much has been said, especially recently, about that mess of dependencies that modern applications have – and for those of us working in application security, there is good reason to be concerned about how these dependencies are being handled. While working on YAWAST, I was adding a new feature, and as a result, I needed a new dependency – ssllabs.rb. While most Ruby dependencies are delivered via Gems, ssllabs.rb is a little different – it pulls directly from Github:
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About Me
Security Architect at 1Password. Security researcher, engineer and software developer with more than 20 years of experience.
Work: I primarily focus on application security, usable security, secure communications, and cryptography. I build and lead strong and dynamic teams, who cover all facets of security and privacy.
Writing: I write about my research, security in general, development and software design, and leadership through my blog, essays, and various publications. I also engage in some creating writing when I can.
Photography: I am a purist fine art photographer, working primarily in black & white, and focused on sharing new perspectives of the world. Limited edition prints of my work are available on my online gallery. I also have a background in photojournalism, and volunteer in this field when I can.