Nit: That that key doesn’t technically encrypt traffic, if I understand correctly. It’s used to verify the identify of a website. So someone with this private key can’t directly read internet traffic. They can set up a man-in-the-middle attack, but they’d also have to compromise DNS to pull it off.
Comment on What is behind the current Lemmy meme about 4 being a private key?
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
There is a massive security incident this week where an Indian certificate authority used 4 as the private key they used to sign encrypted internet traffic with.
Knowing their secret key lets anyone forge certificates that they can use to snoop on or modify internet traffic.
All 8 of their private keys were under 255, so could be trivially guessed. These certificates were accepted by all major browsers and operating systems, as well as many programming languages and tools.
Indigobunting@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
invertedspear@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
It’s a little more complex than that. But if you want to encrypt, and you do want your site traffic encrypted, you use site certificate to give the client browser proof that you are who you say you are. You do this by establishing a chain of trust: “I got this proof that I am who I say I am from this major trusted certificate authority” you trust them and they trust me, so we’re all good. You’ve probably seen the warning that a site isn’t secure, and that’s because they let their certificate of trust expire.
This low entropy key means it’s trivial for me to fake that I have that major authority’s trust. The browser needs to be updated to no longer trust that authority. Until it does I can easily fake being anyone and say that compromised site vouches for me. I don’t even need to be a man in the middle, I just need to set up a way that your browser sends you to my fake server instead of the real one. Lots of ways to do that.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Yes, I think you’re correct
reksas@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I just dont understand why they would do this? Putting so shitty key is like they wanted to make it as insecure as possible. Even if the ones responsible were criminally stupid, they still should have understood that this is like leaving the whole thing unlocked.
And for such critical thing. Imagine if this wasnt discovered like this but instead by some competent malicious actor that had resources to coordinate some large scale attack and kept it hidden until just the right moment when they can strike at everything.
I also dont understand how little outrage there even is about this, we were really close to huge catastrophe. Or maybe i have misunderstood the severity of what happened.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
They are saying there were mistakes made with their key generation scripts:
We have done some preliminary assessment, there appears to be a flaw in the KGC script that was used on that specific day to create these ECC issuers. As for these ECC keys, our review of the KGC, assessment of the code and view of HSM keys so far indicate that a) a set of original ECC keys were created onboard as expected b) an approved deviation to our usual KGC to test a wrap/unwrap was introduced as these keys were meant for export for this instance c) a flaw in the code resulted in the second pair of keys being created onboard which were weaker d) these second pair of weaker keys were used by mistake to create the csr (because the key labels were similar) and signed by our root e) the CSR from these weaker keys were also sent over to Sectigo for cross signing (we verified the files sent over to Sectigo)
Source: bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2083449#c11
Personally I’m still a little confused why it makes any difference that the keys were intended for export to their European and US operations
lamp@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
By “export” I think they mean export off of the hardware security module (HSM). Not export geographically.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I’m not so sure. Because shortly after the above quote they answered this to the next question:
Is there any reason which may explain why the A and A-1 ECDSA keys appear to be unaffected by similar issues? The A and A-1 series were created in Entrust HSMs and were meant for deployment only in India.
And previously in Comment 10 they said about the bad keys
These ICAs were generated from the same key ceremony on Apr 30, 2025. The G3B and G3C ICAs were created for European and US operations respectively but they were not put into production except #2 in the list below but no end entity certificates were issued from these. The Code Signing issuers were not put into production also did not issue any certificates.
That’s why I think somehow the intended place of use made a difference in their process. But it could be you’re right and they still mean HSM export, because the keys need to go to the region of use, and aren’t transported physically in the HSM.
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Interesting question! Google spit this out and it makes sense:
The primary reason these specific keys/issuers were created was to solve data sovereignty and data residency requirements for customers in those regions.
Many European and US corporate clients operate under strict legal frameworks (like GDPR in Europe or various federal compliance standards in the US) that legally dictate where cryptographic infrastructure can live, where data can be decrypted, and who can possess the root or intermediate private keys.
Generating separate regional keys is a compliance mechanism to guarantee that a customer’s data or handshake traffic stays within their jurisdiction.
lamp@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Google is wrong. There is no security benefit to using an SSL certificate signer in your jurisdiction because a hacked or malicious certificate authority in another jurisdiction can man-in-the-middle you or your customers just as effectively.
Certificate authorities do not decrypt data or even transfer it on behalf of customers.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
But, since nobody would expect an organization like that to have a one digit key, wouldn’t that make it extremely hard to guess?
Half kidding here.
StabbingSky@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Not if you’re brute forcing it.
balsoft@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I think it technically was not “brute forcing”, but specifically someone tried generating private keys with numbers 0-255, and surprisingly found a few.
Hal@piefed.nz 2 weeks ago
So why did it take so long for someone to try it?
AmyAye@nord.pub 3 weeks ago
“Time to brute force this key, I guess I will go get some lun…. What do you mean it’s already done? Who uses 4????”
Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000100
scytale@piefed.zip 3 weeks ago
Security by obscurity is what it’s called in the industry, and yeah it’s not a good way to do it. Automation and scripts would make it trivial to guess.
theneverfox@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
It’s kinda like locking your door by putting a wedge in the crack. Probably, no one is going to try to open your door anyways, and probably, even if they did no one is going to take 5 seconds to examine the door and figure it out
But if someone does, it’s laughably easy to figure it out
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
Except this is internet and pretty much anybody on the planet could test the security of your doors.
I like the analogy but I think it doesn’t really apply when it comes to devices that are connected to the internet.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think their analogy is still good. Just add “…and your door opens onto Times Square.”
That doesn’t quite get the full scope, but it does imply the danger pretty well. Plus, if you add in “…Times Square of robots, and the robots are all thieves, and your most expensive possession is visibly sitting right inside, and…” it starts to get pretty unwieldy.
balsoft@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Well, someone did guess it so it’s not that hard. The entropy was really low.
davetortoise@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
‘Entropy’ doesnt apply here
klankin@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
It does doesn’t it?
The higher the number of bits, the more entropy in the system.
balsoft@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
No it absolutely does, the method they used to generate private keys ended up having just 8 shannons of entropy which led to the discovery we are discussing