I ran a quick test on the Newsblur site to make sure the cryptography (specifically the TLS encryption) was setup correctly. First, kudos on making TLSv1.2 available. According to SSLLabs (https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analy…), though, you have a bad cipher in your configuration that could become a vector for a downgrade crypto attack. I wonder if this could be remedied? Thanks!
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I used a standard certificate from RapidSSL. If you have an issue with the cert, please take it up with them. I’m going to be renewing it in a few months.
you arent special or important enough to have your newsblur traffic spied on
it’s not about the certificate. it’s about your webserver and the cipher’s that it supports.
I guess bigger problem is weaker algortithm in list then lack of FS.
shouldn’t you have some weaker algorithms to be interoperable with older browsers?
This user is not reporting a problem with NewsBlur’s certificate. He’s reporting a problem with your server’s SSL/TLS core configuration.
Providing cryptography for a website does not end with installing a PKI certificate.
This is a useful guide to configuring server-side SSL, including a discussion of perfect forward secrecy: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Ser…
This is a common misconception.
If you’ve been following major news stories any time in the last three months or so, you might be aware that everyone posting here, you included, is continually subject to having his/her traffic intercepted and stored for an indefinite amount of time, no matter the content.
The problem is sufficiently pervasive and so very unlikely to be solved via political means that most Internet traffic is moving to strong encryption. The next HTTP standard is very likely to require encryption at all times.
kouk: No. The problem is that if you have MITM situation (i.e. attacker acting as a proxy between you and server) he can alter the packets and allow for weak algorithm to be chosen. So the strength of connection is as strong as the strength of weakest algorithm. (The MITM attack can occur for example with DHCP spoofing on open WiFi).
Besides all modern browsers - and by modern I mean everything from IE 6.0 - support strong crypto.
ok, understood.
I don’t think the admins should downplay this. It is a valid observation.
In case you are referring to me, I am in no way an admin or connected to newsblur in any way besides being a user…just someone who finds the OMGZORZ PRISMSSS!!!~ stuff pretty comical. yes there are some serious implications to it, but newsblur traffic is not one of them.
All Internet traffic being routed through the USA, and most Internet traffic passing through major Internet exchanges elsewhere in the world, is being intercepted and stored by Five Eyes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes ) or some other government.
So, yes, NewsBlur traffic is directly affected. All traffic routed on the public Internet is. Much traffic routed on non-public portions of the Internet is also affected. Unfortunately, we’ve also learned that many crucial cryptography standards have been weakened deliberately, making everyone less safe.
It’s not only crucial to use cryptography wherever possible. It’s also crucial to use the best cryptography we know of, and to implement it correctly.
After a quick review of the NewsBlur PKI certificate, I would recommend that, upon renewal, you use a 4,096-bit RSA key, and move from SHA-1 to SHA512 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2 ) hashing. It’s becoming widely recognized that SHA-1 will most likely fall prey to viable collision attacks within the next five years. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1 )
Unfortunately, the AddTrust root CA certificate, as well as the COMODO, and EssentialSSL certificates in your certificate’s chain of trust, are also using SHA-1. If there is a stronger chain of trust available through these issuers, you will probably have to take steps to ensure that your next certificate is not issued via the one you are tied to now.
If you cannot obtain a certificate through a stronger chain of trust, you may have to seek an alternate issuer.
The best resource I know of for finding this sort of information is https://www.mozilla.org/projects/secu… . The actual list of included root and intermediate certificates is located at https://www.mozilla.org/projects/secu…
One other note: NewsBlur accessed via SSL/TLS still has dependencies located at http://icons.newsblur.com/ . To avoid compromising security, all page dependencies should require SSL/TLS. Unencrypted resources are subject to injection attacks.
For a very recent example of why this is bad, this is a link to a recent discovery of vulnerabilities in two very common JPEG handling libraries, complete with working proof of concept exploit: http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/fu…
Well said 9ttL2DurVffs.
I’ll be implementing this as soon as I have a chance to test out the HAProxy server. It might take a couple days.
sweet, now we can all follow the al qaeda rss feed without worry!