Can we make it possible that browsers ignore self signed certificate?
or is it possible to just show a message to the user so that when they click on the confirm/approve/submit it stores a certificate exception?
Note: I am using PHP and ask about SSL for Facebook apps.
No it is not possible to make all browser ignore self signed certificates, the whole system relies on a trusted party to sign certificates to validate them.
If by ignore you mean to remove the warning, no, you cannot do that. It is one of the main principles of SSL trust to require the "chain of trust" to be in effect.
Furthermore, this is a browser-related problem, it does not matter what language you use at the back end. You can get some more information here, not much good news thought.
No, you can't make browsers accept your self-signed certificated.
However, you can get free SSL certificates from these two providers:
StartSSL / StartCom
CACert.org
I have no experience with CAcert however I have some with StartSSL; here is a step-by-step guide to get free SSL certificate with StartSSL I've written on my blog: http://nicolas.landier.org/2013/03/17/get-a-free-ssl-certificate-with-startssl/
Related
I'm currently developing a graph app for neo4j desktop. From what i figured out, app should be signed with neo4j#code-signer (which utilizes node-forge i presume).
It needs a certificate and private key (and password probably).
What i can't figure out is, what kind of certificate is actually needed?
I signed my app with self-signed certificate which produced a big untrusted warning in neo4j desktop (touche, i should have known).
I used my ssl key which enabled my HTTPS, but this produced an error in neo4j desktop:
Certificate keyUsage or basicConstraints conflict or indicate that
the certificate is not a CA. If the certificate is the only one in the
chain or isn't the first then the certificate must be a valid CA.
Both options did produce signature.pem file.
Do i need to buy a Code Signing Certificate for this? If so, standard or EV?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Maybe this is going to help somebody:
There wasn't any issue with my certificates.
I got an answer from neo4j offical, that they are (at the time being) signing apps internaly, and that there is no automated way to do this (yet).
I'm having a bit of trouble understanding a bit about SSL, namely self-signed vs certified.
First, is my assumption that a self-signed certificate will still prompt the common browser warning message?
Second, data from a https domain doesn't transfer to a http domain, right? So if I had my site at domain.com, and my api at api.domain.com, I would need two certs, and have both of them setup for https?
Last, I noticed there are free SSL certs at sites like StartSSL. This feels fishy, given it can easily cost $100 for a cert at other sites. Am I wrong in being concerned?
Using a self-signed certificate will cause browser warnings. Your assumption is correct.
It depends; some browsers may warn when this occurs. But you absolutely should serve all of your services on HTTPS, so that clients can authenticate your site(s) and so that the connection is private.
It is possible to support multiple domains on a single certificate, via the Subject Alternative Name (SAN, subjectAltName) X.509 certificate extension. You could also use separate certificates.
StartSSL is trusted by all browsers; their certificates will be accepted and there is nothing "fishy" about them. You could use StartSSL's free offering to obtain two certificates - one for each domain.
If you want a single certificate for multiple domains via the SAN extension, you will have to find a product that supports that, and it will probably not be free. The Let's Encrypt initiative is working to
change the landscape in this regard, but they have not yet launched.
I made an application, which communicates over the. net SSLStream, and for developing I used makecert.exe to create a self signed ssl certificate. Now Ive read in some microsoft article, that makecert should be used for testing only.
Now my question is: is the application safe with this cert, or which program can i make a safe and comparible cert?Any help will be greatly appreciated
Edit: The self signed Certificate is hardcoded into the client application and it compares it everytime it establish a connection, so man-in-the-middle attack couldnt work, but how random are the makecert Certificates?
I would recommend using OpenSSL to create a self-signed certificate used for production environment. I've never made thoughts about makecert.exe. To be honest: You want to achieve an encrypted transfer of your data using SSL between your Application and the server.
The hole certificate wont be displayed to the "user/customer". The only reason nowadays is to embedd a badge with "this is a secure page" to the page on which SSL is enabled.
If you are looking for this, you will definitely need a signed Certificate from a CA. If you are thinking about this, i recommend StartSSL, because it's far the cheapest and offers you for one time validation nearly unlimited wildcard certificates. Its trusted by microsoft and you can create a code-signing-cerficiate for free. (Onetime fee for validation only).
Concerning the randomness and security of the certificate:
If you are validating the fingerprint of the certificate you are connecting to, there should be less security concerns. (i.e. Fiddler won't work this way).
SSL is based on RSA Algorithm so when generating a private/public keypair with a keysize of 2048 or even 4096 (max. on StartSSL) there shouldn't be any security concerns. How to create the Certificate you will find here If you wont trust RSA, you shoudn't trust anyone ;)
Keep in mind that most universities using self signed certificates created using OpenSSL. Its now FIPS certificated and allowes you a wide bunch of settings to achieve fit your system.
It's safe if you find some secure way to get the certificate to everyone who uses your application. Otherwise, they'll have no way to know they're really talking to your application. Anyone else can run makecert just like you did, and nobody will have any way to know whether they're really talking to you. A certificate issued by a CA bind your identity to a certificate, allowing clients to know they're really talking to the right service.
When you punch https://www.amazon.com into your browser, how do you know you're sending your credit card information to Amazon and not an imposter? Well, Amazon has a certificate that was issued for www.amazon.com by a certification authority. An imposter could not get such a certificate -- the authority wouldn't issue it.
But if Amazon used a self-signed certificate ... well, anyone can do that. So how would I know I was actually talking to Amazon? I would have to know ahead of time which self-signed certificate that claimed to be for www.amazon.com was the right one. I wouldn't have a CA's stamp of approval to tell me.
you hardcoded your password (as a long cert) into your application, and you are asking if it's safe?
all I need is a copy of your code or wherever you stored it and I can hack all the apps you ever write. plus you cannot update or change it.
Self-signed certificates say essentially "I certify that I am I. Signed: I". Look up how to set up you own certificate authority (it depends on your choosen environment, and there are several options). Use that authority to issue certificates, and set the servers and clients to trust your CA. No need to pay $$$$ for them, plus you know exactly under what conditions you hand out certificates.
I run an nginx-powered application and I recently turned my attention to using it over https. This is the module in nginx that does this: http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpSslModule
However, I'm somewhat unclear about what is actually required to run a site over https.
What else is there to do to serve my site over ssl? What is the role of the certificate, and is it a requirement that I purchase it from somewhere?
You need a certificate to prove to your user that the server they're connected to is indeed the one intended (and not a MITM attacker).
If your server is to be used by a limited number of users to whom you could give a certificate explicitly, you could use a self-signed certificate or create your own certification authority (CA).
Otherwise, if you want your certificate to be recognised by most browsers, you'll need to get one from a commercial CA.
You should find more details in this answer. You may also be interested in this.
I need to implement a SSL certificate for a website, I've got three questions after some research.
1) I believe i need to buy a SSL certificate and ask my host to install it. My question is do you need to alter any code for the website for the certificate?
2) Before I buy the certificate, the website is going to be built for a couple of month at least. I'm just wondering is there a developing SSL certificate I can use for the developing environment?
3) Or do I have to use self assigned certificate? If so are there any good tutorials on how to create a SSL self assigned certificate on a local machine (wamp) and a developing url site?
Thank you very much.
Sam :)
1) No, you do not need to alter any code on your website at all in order to use an installed SSL certificate. It is as simple as prefixing your desired destination link with the HTTPS: protocol specification instead of the typical HTTP: protocol. However, if you want to determine if your site visitor is using an encrypted page before they do something, such as submit a web form with potentially sensitive data, then depending on what you are developing your site in, you will need to detect if the current page request has been sent over HTTP or HTTPS, then if it is an HTTP requested page, you probably want to redirect the page request to the HTTPS version before proceeding.
2) Other than creating your own "self signed" certificate (more on this in #3), no your only option for a publicly valid SSL certificate is to obtain one from a publicly recognized Certificate Authority (CA). Long story short, a certificate of the same key length using the same encryption standard supported by your server and visitor's web browser, is no stronger or weaker regardless of vendor for purposes of encryption. So you can simply shop by price for your SSL certs. I have no affiliation with GoDaddy, but have been using them for years for public SSL certificates.
3) You certainly can create your own self signed certificate. The methods for doing this vary based on your host server and version. The limitation to a self signed certificate, is that if you go to share this with anyone, you get that warning message from your browser that the certificate is not published from a verifiable source. In most current browsers, it looks like a big scary message that something is wrong and they attempt to warn your user away from doing this. However, of course, there is certainly nothing wrong with using a self signed certificate. This is obviously true for your own development uses. Even a self signed certificate of the same key length and encryption method is as cryptographically secure as a commercially provided certificate. If you want to use a self signed certificate, just search for instruction for doing that for your server OS and version for details. Once it is installed, you will get the warning from your browser when you try to browse to a page over HTTPS. Your browser should show you an option to permanently remember and accept your self signed certificate, after which you will no longer see that warning while that certificate remains installed and valid.