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  • Time to make you secure from FREAK Vulnerability

Time to make you secure from FREAK Vulnerability

Pierluigi Paganini March 06, 2015

FREAK, a new major security flaw that left users of Apple and Google devices exposed to MITM attack while visiting supposedly secure Websites.

Few days back security researchers group (named as SMACK ) made everyone aware of a new SSL/TLS vulnerability, termed as FREAK (CVE-2015-0204). FREAK stands for Factoring Attack on RSA-EXPORT Keys. After POODLE, it is another catastrophic SSL/TLS vulnerability. FREAK vulnerability enables malicious attackers to do the MITM attack between the vulnerable clients and servers on encrypted channel. Attackers are forcefully making sure that vulnerable clients and servers must use older and weaker ‘Export-grade’ cryptography. This export-grade encryption uses 512-bit RSA keys. This export-grade encryption can be easily decrypted and it’s very easy to hamper its integrity.

ROOT of the problem:

In 1990s, the US government endeavored to direct the export of items using “robust” encryption and gadgets were stacked with weaker “export-grade” encryption before being dispatched out of the nation. Around then, it was permitted a most extreme key length of 512 bits for “export-grade” encryption. Later in 2000, due to an amendment in US export laws, merchants were allowed to incorporate 128-bit ciphers in their items and were able to disseminate these everywhere throughout the world. The main issue is that “export-grade” cryptography backings was never evacuated and now after three decades, FREAK vulnerability, anticipatively making it easier for hackers and malicious attackers to interpret the site’s private key and decode passwords, login, and other delicate data from HTTPS associations.

OK, now let me know how it works:

According to Professor Matthew Green, cryptographer and research professor at Johns Hopkins University, to understand the working of FREAK it’s necessary to understand working of MITM attack:

  1. In the client’s Hello message, client asks for a standard ‘RSA’ cipher suite from the server.
  2. The MITM attacker hamper the integrity of this message and changes this message to ask for ‘Export RSA’.
  3. The server responds to the client’s request with a 512-bit export RSA key, signed with its long-term key.
  4. The client accepts this weak key from the server due to the OpenSSL/ Secure Transport bug.
  5. The attacker factors the RSA modulus to recover the corresponding RSA decryption key.
  6. When the client encrypts the ‘pre-master secret’ to the server, the attacker can now decrypt it to recover the TLS ‘master secret’.
  7. From here on out, the attacker sees plain text and can inject anything it wants.

If only server is vulnerable, it’s not guarantee that the attack will be successful. For the attack to be successful, both browser and server must have to support Export-grade cipher suites..not guarantee that the attack will be successful. For the attack to be successful, both browser and server must have to support Export-grade cipher suites.

How to check whether you are safe from FREAK attack or not?

Everyone is not vulnerable to FREAK attack. To check whether your browser is vulnerable to this attack or not, visit www.freakattack.com. If your browser is safe from FREAK attack, then it will prompt a message, ‘Good News! Your browser appears to be safe from the FREAK Attack!’, else it will prompt a Warning message that your browser is vulnerable to CVE-2015-0204. Best way to make yourself free from this attack is to update your browser.

freak

Is there any similarity between FREAK and POODLE?

POODLE vulnerability stands for ‘Padding Oracle on Downgraded Legacy Encryption’. It allows malicious attackers to lower down the SSL/TLS communication to the possible weakest version. FREAK is similar to POODLE in a way that it affects those SSL/TLS implementations that supports and accepts export versions of protocols that uses RSA algorithm.

APPLE and GOOGLE plans to tackle FREAK:

Apple is planning to introduce fixes for Safari on OS X and iOS next week. On the other hand Google has already handed over patch to the concerned ones. Google is also planning to make sure that all the websites must disable the support for export certificates.

HTTPS Sites that support RSA Export Suites:

According to Alexa Top 10K, following are the some websites that support RSA Export suites as of Tuesday, March 3, 9:00 PM EST. This list is quite long; you can go for the full list at suites as of Tuesday, March 3, 9:00 PM EST. This list is quite long; you can go for the full list at https://freakattack.com/vulnerable.txt .

Alexa Rank               Domain                                              Address Tested

27                                sohu.com                                           123.125.116.19

182                              businessinsider.com                            64.27.101.155

234                              ppomppu.co.kr                                   110.45.151.212

243                              smzdm.com                                       114.113.158.226

247                              americanexpress.com                          23.13.171.41

251                              jabong.com                                        23.203.7.176

273                              groupon.com                                      184.26.49.170

290                              bloomberg.com                                   69.191.212.191

442                              4shared.com                                      208.88.224.136

448                              npr.org                                                216.35.221.76

519                              hatena.ne.jp                                       59.106.194.19hatena.ne.jp                                       59.106.194.19

615                              instructables.com                                74.50.63.27

629                              airtel.in                                               125.19.135.93airtel.in                                               125.19.135.93

649                              kohls.com                                          23.202.240.45

767                              adplxmd.com                                     205.186.187.178

795                              mit.edu                                              23.202.254.127

799                              tinyurl.com                                        23.220.249.147

808                              suning.com                                        122.228.85.93

820                              saramin.co.kr                                     182.162.86.29

891                              vi-view.com                                       50.97.32.135

903                              itau.com.br                                         23.38.106.190

951                              huaban.com                                       115.238.54.162

959                              zomato.com                                       54.151.251.33

960                              nationalgeographic.com                     74.217.81.233

999                              marriott.com                                      23.45.45.5

1001                            jobrapido.com                                    46.105.106.82

1029                            forever21.com                                    23.202.233.118

1089                            wiocha.pl                                           195.225.138.234wiocha.pl                                           195.225.138.234

1150                            axisbank.com                                     119.226.139.40

1180                            clarin.com                                          200.42.136.212

1236                            mgid.com                                           208.94.232.200

1247                            jcpenney.com                                     23.49.180.228

1261                            wowhead.com                                               23.199.195.58

1297                            gaana.com                                          223.165.30.26

1313                            mtime.com                                         59.151.32.20

1360                            refinery29.com                                   50.22.34.136

1361                            vente-privee.com                                185.45.180.3

1364                            ynet.co.il                                            192.115.80.55

1383                            dhgate.com                                        124.42.15.198

1411                            vesti.ru                                                           80.247.32.206vesti.ru                                                           80.247.32.206

1424                            adxcore.com                                      188.165.36.101

1456                            sweet-page.com                                  50.97.32.133

1484                            binaryprofessional.com                      50.7.157.122

1502                            globososo.com                                    184.173.140.162

1571                            estadao.com.br                                   23.199.200.37

1573                            jcrew.com                                          23.37.8.44

1586                            17173.com                                         220.181.90.240

1599                            bmi.ir                                                  89.235.64.67bmi.ir                                                  89.235.64.67

1620                            zdnet.com                                          50.112.160.88

1646                            accountonline.com                             192.193.200.101

1662                            umich.edu                                          141.211.243.44

1680                            cornell.edu                                         128.253.173.241

1684                            lg.com                                                165.244.62.23

1693                            uludagsozluk.com                              188.132.225.181

1722                            yixun.com                                          111.30.131.20

1738                            priceminister.com                               212.23.167.62

1856                            ibtimes.co.uk                                     64.147.114.55

1860                            extra.com.br                                       23.221.0.145

1864                            jiameng.com                                      117.78.2.204

1866                            ihg.com                                              23.202.251.213

1878                            miui.com                                            42.62.48.148

1902                            syosetu.com                                       111.64.91.10

1915                            thrillist.com                                        50.57.33.153

 

About the Author

MANISH KUMAR MISHRA E-Mail: mishra25manish@gmail.com

(ISO27001,C|EH v8 certified Information Security professional)
MS in Cyber Law and Information Security
Institute: Indian Institute Of Information Technology (IIIT)- Allahabad

Edited by Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  Drones, Privacy)


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CVE-2015-0204 encryption FREAK man-in-the-middle RSA-EXPORT Keys SSL/TLS

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