CA/Maintenance and Enforcement: Difference between revisions

# Carefully reviewing [[CA/Application_Process|CA applications for root inclusion]].

#* A Mozilla representative reviews relevant [https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Incident_Dashboard incident reports] and the CA’s responses

#** compliance with [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/ Mozilla's Root Store Policy,]

#** compliance with [https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Required_or_Recommended_Practices Mozilla's Required Practices], and

#* [https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Communications CA Communications]

#* If a CA does not respond to Mozilla's communications within the timeframe specified in the communication or does not provide a copy of its annual audit statement within 15 months of the end of its previous annual audit period, then Mozilla may take action up to and including [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/#73-removals removal of the root(s) from the program].

When a security threat or potential certificate mis-issuance arises with a CA in Mozilla's program we consider the impact and risk to the end-users to decide on the action to take. The following considerations are taken into account:

   

Mozilla relies on audit statements submitted by either the CA or an auditor to confirm a CA's compliance with Mozilla's [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/ Root Store Policy]. Statements obtained from an auditor are assumed legitimate. Audit statements provided by a CA are verified for legitimacy with the auditor.  The

= Risks to Consumers =

Possession of a mis-issued certificate alone does not allow an attacker to do anything. The attacker also needs some control over the victim's network connection. This means that the most likely attacks are either very localized (public WiFi, local network compromise) or very broad (governments). An attacker armed with a fraudulent certificate and an ability to control their victim’s network could impersonate websites in a way that would be undetectable to most users. The end users could be deceived into revealing personal information such as usernames and passwords, or downloading malware (containing malicious content or software) if they believe it’s coming from a trusted site.

* Re-direct users to a fake site -- Users on a compromised network could be directed to sites using a fraudulent certificate and mistake them for the legitimate sites.

** In a rogue hotspot, “www.mybank.com” might resolve to an attacker’s server (instead of the real thing) and the HTTPS connection may never happen.  Many users might not notice this and end up logging into an attacker’s website.

[https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/ Mozilla's Root Store Policy] describes the steps that Mozilla takes to evaluate and respond to security concerns related to certificate operation and issuance. The following list may be used as a guideline of what to expect when certain types of issues are found, but this list is non-binding because the necessary actions and responses will vary depending on the situation.

* Depending on the situation, also consider adding the certificates to [https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2015/03/03/revoking-intermediate-certificates-introducing-onecrl/ OneCRL].

'''Problem:''' CA mis-issued a large number (e.g. hundreds) of end-entity certificates that they can enumerate

* Depending on the situation, also consider adding the intermediate CA certificate(s) to [https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2015/03/03/revoking-intermediate-certificates-introducing-onecrl/ OneCRL], distrusting the root certificate that the mis-issued certificates chain up to, or all of the root certificates owned by that CA.

'''Problem:''' CA failed to supply proper audit documentation, or audit report contains numerous and/or serious qualifications

* Depending on the situation, also consider requiring the CA to undergo new period-of-time audits as soon as the problems have been resolved. If the same problems are included on the new audit reports, they must state the dates on which the problems were resolved.

In addition to evaluating the severity of a specific incident, Mozilla considers the totality of known issues and patterns of behavior in a CA's response to those issues. When Mozilla believes that sufficient evidence is available to establish an ongoing pattern of neglect or incompetence, an Issues List may be created. Mozilla will compile the facts of known problems of a particular CA and create a wiki page listing them. Mozilla may then ask the community to consider a response to the combined set of issues based on the perceived risk to users. This response typically involves distrust of the CA's currently included roots, or requiring the CA to undergo more frequent audits until the Mozilla community’s trust in the CA has been adequately restored.

* https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Camerfirma_Issues

* https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/PROCERT_Issues

* If the certificate to be Actively Distrusted is used by a large portion of the internet population, immediately distrusting the certificate could make many high-traffic websites no longer be reachable, giving the appearance of a large network outage, or users might take actions (such as permanently trusting the bad cert) to bypass error messages.

** Possible Scenario: A root certificate that is chained to by many high-traffic websites is compromised and has to be Actively Distrusted. This is done and an update to Firefox pushed out. Then a large number of users can no longer browse to the high-traffic websites, giving the appearance of an outage, costing those high-traffic websites loss in money, causing frustration and confusion to end users who are regular customers of those websites. Many end-users are likely to manually-override the error, permanently trusting the certificate. Then if they later accidentally browse one of the corresponding malicious websites, they will not get an error.

* Distrusting a certificate requires a release to the NSS root module, and users have to choose to upgrade to the new version. Firefox users are protected from distrusted certificates that are added to [https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2015/03/03/revoking-intermediate-certificates-introducing-onecrl/ OneCRL].