Does TLS support lightweight cryptography defined by IOS/IEC 29192 standard? - ssl

does TLS support any of the lightweight cryptographic primitives defined in IOS/IEC 29192? like Clefia, Present or any others?

If you look at the TLS 1.2 cipher suites You will see that it is not containing any lightweight ciphers.
The TLS 1.3 actually has only 5 cipher suites. Due to the birthday attack on small block sized block ciphers, see sweet32, they are not even suitable for TLS, anymore.
The ChaCha20 as mentioned by Dave is a stream cipher.

Related

Can a TLS 1.2 server/client get by with just TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA?

I'm updating an embedded TLS 1.0 implementation to TLS 1.2 (devices with 1MB of code space or less, and no OS). At this point, I have AES-128 and AES-256 CBC ciphers working with SHA-1 and SHA-256 digests for a minimal implementation. The library cannot negotiate an SSLv2, SSLv3, TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1 connection.
I felt this would be sufficient, given that RFC 5246 states, "TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA is now the mandatory to implement cipher suite."
Yet as I read various postings on security blogs, I'm seeing recommendations that would have users disable that suite, and (for example) only allow the ECDHE_RSA or DHE_RSA variants.
So my question is whether devices using our library will interoperate with modern web browsers (as a server) and modern https/smtps/pop servers (as a client). Are there TLS 1.2 clients/servers that fail to negotiate a TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA connection?
I am not sure there are currently many servers supporting TLS that would fail negotiating TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA with TLSv1.2 as it is THE mandatory cipher suite for TLSv1.2.
However there are things to keep in mind:
TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA is mandatory for TLSv1.0 and TLSv1.1 but due to security reasons it is no longer supported by every server,
Mozilla recommends (and it is not the only one) to favor AES128 instead of AES256,
Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), allowed by DHE or ECDHE is now a must-have feature.
So if I can provide you with 4 cipher suites (the same number than you have), I would say these ones from the strongest to the weakest:
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
I would say that these 4 cipher suites bring enough security and compatibility with TLSv1.2 servers.
Now the question of supporting only TLSv1.2 is another question, but if you have enough space, I recommend you to add TLSv1.0 too (TLSv1.1 does not provide extra compatibility).
PS: The reason why AES128 is favored instead of AES256 is that some people think the extra security added by AES256 is (for now) worthless and that AES128 seems to be more resistant to timing attacks.
"So my question is whether devices using our library will interoperate with modern web browsers (as a server) and modern https/smtps/pop servers (as a client). Are there TLS 1.2 clients/servers that fail to negotiate a TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA connection?"
Yes there are plenty implementations that fail.
Most common:
Clients that still send a SSL2.0 Client Hello
Clients/Servers that only support PFS cipher suite
Servers that still not support TLS 1.2
Servers that no longer support TLS 1.2 - since those only support TLS 1.3
My recommendation is:
also support TLS 1.3 (not that hard to implement, I did it)
also support DHE
Or use a tool/site like https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/index.html and test the compatibility/security of your server until it's sufficient for you.

How to set up SSL protocols priority in OpenSSL

I am implementing an SSL Client using OpenSSL which
(1) only "speaks" TLS 1.2, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.0,
(2) set exactly this priority: TLS 1.2. If communication is not possible, use TLS 1.1. If not, TLS 1.0. If not, refuse connection.
I achieve (1) by using
SSL_CTX_set_options(m_ssl_ctx, SSL_OP_NO_SSLv2 | SSL_OP_NO_SSLv3);
But I don't know any way to achieve (2). Is there any "elegant" way to do this in OpenSSL or do I have to attempt several connections checking if communication was possible and, if not, attempt a lower protocol version?
Thanks.
There is no protocol priority setting. The client will announce the best version it can do to the server and the server will pick this or a lower version. If the version picked by the server is not supported by the client then the handshake will fail. This is not specific to OpenSSL but this is how SSL/TLS works.
Don't confuse this handshake between client and server with the TLS downgrading mechanism most browsers use. In this case browsers retry the SSL handshake on a new TCP connection with a lower version if the handshake with the better version failed. This behavior is to work around broken SSL/TLS implementations. These downgrades are mostly restricted to browsers, simpler TLS stacks are less tolerant and fail permanently if the first handshake failed.

OpenSSL let the server and client negotiate the method

Following a really outdated tutorial I managed to create an HTTPS server using OpenSSL with TLS1.2, and I'm very proud of it ;)
However TLS 1.2 is only supported in latest browsers and I would like to have some kind of negotiation of the protocol between the client and server, which I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not able to find how! So that if the client only supports TLS1.0, well use that. And if it only supports SSLv3, use that. Not sure about SSLv2, maybe better leave that...
The code I use right now is:
SSL_library_init();
OpenSSL_add_all_algorithms();
SSL_load_error_strings();
ssl_method = TLSv1_2_server_method();
ssl_ctx = SSL_CTX_new(ssl_method);
Then the server certificates are loaded and the ssl_ctx is shared among all connections. When a client is accepted by the server socket it is encapsulated in an SSL object (whatever it represents):
ssl = SSL_new(ssl_ctx);
SSL_set_fd(ssl, client_socket);
SSL_accept(ssl);
So I guess that something has to be changed in the ssl_ctx creation to allow more methods... Any idea?
<rant> No decent, extensive documentation can be found for OpenSSL, the best available is a 10 years old tutorial! </rant>
Thanks in advance.
You do this by using SSLv23_method() (and friends) instead of a specific method (e.g. TLSv1_2_server_method() in your example). This sends the SSLv2 ClientHello but also specifies the highest protocol supported. The somewhat outdated man page says:
SSLv23_method(void), SSLv23_server_method(void), SSLv23_client_method(void)
A TLS/SSL connection established with these methods will understand
the SSLv2, SSLv3, and TLSv1 protocol. A client will send out SSLv2
client hello messages and will indicate that it also understands SSLv3
and TLSv1. A server will understand SSLv2, SSLv3, and TLSv1 client
hello messages. This is the best choice when compatibility is a
concern.
This online man page doesn't discuss the newer TLSv1_1 and TLSv1_2 protocols, but I verified in the 1.0.1g source of s23_clnt.c that SSLv23_method() includes them.
You then limit the protocols you actually accept with SSL_CTX_set_options():
The list of protocols available can later be limited using the
SSL_OP_NO_SSLv2, SSL_OP_NO_SSLv3, SSL_OP_NO_TLSv1 options of the
SSL_CTX_set_options() or SSL_set_options() functions. Using these
options it is possible to choose e.g. SSLv23_server_method() and be
able to negotiate with all possible clients, but to only allow newer
protocols like SSLv3 or TLSv1.
Note, however, that you can't enable arbitrary sets of protocols, only contiguous protocols in SSLv2, SSLv3, TLSv1, TLSv1_1, TLSv1_2. For example, you can't choose only SSLv3 and TLSv1_1, omitting TLSv1. This comment in the source explains why:
SSL_OP_NO_X disables all protocols above X if there are some protocols below X enabled. This is required in order to maintain "version capability" vector contiguous. So that if application wants to disable TLS1.0 in favour of TLS1>=1, it would be insufficient to pass SSL_NO_TLSv1, the answer is SSL_OP_NO_TLSv1|SSL_OP_NO_SSLv3|SSL_OP_NO_SSLv2.

In which cases can an SSL server omit sending the certificate?

I'm trying to figure out the SSL handshake process. After reading up on TLS in Wikipedia I've seen that
The server sends its Certificate message (depending on the selected cipher suite, this may be omitted by the server)
I've also seen such behavior in real-life sniffs, but only in cases where the user eventually received an "Invalid certificate" warning.
I was wondering in which cases can a server omit the certificate? How can the client verify the server's identity in this case then? Or is it only reserved to cases where the server have no certificate and gives up on sending a fake one, knowing that the user will see a browser warning anyway?
Thanks!
Some cipher suites don't rely on certificates:
The anonymous cipher suites, defined in the main TLS RFC (the names containing DH_anon). Some of them can provide encryption, but without authentication, which is insecure. Section A.5 says the following about them:
The following cipher suites are used for completely anonymous
Diffie-Hellman communications in which neither party is
authenticated. Note that this mode is vulnerable to man-in-the-
middle attacks. Using this mode therefore is of limited use: These
cipher suites MUST NOT be used by TLS 1.2 implementations unless the
application layer has specifically requested to allow anonymous key
exchange. (Anonymous key exchange may sometimes be acceptable, for
example, to support opportunistic encryption when no set-up for
authentication is in place, or when TLS is used as part of more
complex security protocols that have other means to ensure
authentication.)
Kerberos cipher suites, in which case the identification is done via the Kerberos ticket, and the name is verified against the Kerberos principal name (host/MachineName#Realm).
Pre-Shared Keys cipher suites (see section on PSK Identity Encoding).
There is one valid case for anonymous ciphers: the opportunistic encryption of e-mail over SMTP with STARTTLS. As an MITM could easily prevent the use of TLS, there is no use in protecting agains MITM at the TLS level.
If the client knows that he will proceed anyway, even if the certificate was invalid, the can request an anonymous ciphersuite saving the server the generation of a signature and himself the verification the certificate and the signature.

Configuring SSL cipher suites for Jetty

I am trying to set the allowed ssl cipher suites for the embedded jetty server in my application. If I only use IncludeCipherSuites setting for SslContextFactory in the xml file setting for some reason when I run sslscan it only lists the ciphers for TLSv1.2 and not TLSv1.1 or TLSv1.0. I need to be able to have jetty use all three TLS versions. Is there anyway I can set the IncludeCipherSuites for Jetty so that I can set the list correctly.
Jetty 9.3.8 disables the SLOTH vulnerable ciphers that prevent proper encryption with the latest versions of Chrome (if you re-enable the SLOTH vulnerable ciphers you'll see a broken padlock icon in Chrome).
You'll want to setup a ${jetty.base}/etc/tweak-ssl.xml and appropriate entry in your ${jetty.base}/start.ini
Note: you should be using a split ${jetty.home} and ${jetty.base} directory structure and not modifying the ${jetty.home} contents
Documented here: https://www.eclipse.org/jetty/documentation/current/configuring-ssl.html#configuring-sslcontextfactory-cipherSuites
As for what configuration to use, that's up to you decide.
Know that excludes win over includes. If the cipher suite is excluded, no addition of it in the includes list will enable it.
Also be aware, that the JVM itself is also disabling various old protocols and cipher suites, following the same guidelines and updated specs that Jetty is with regards to security. In the near future you'll have to also re-enable those ciphers and protocols at the JVM level.