977
The Internet goes on high alert after discovery of 8 compromised TLS certs (arstechnica.com)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
195 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Astonishingly, the private keys were 4, 56, 66, 115, 155, 156, 230, 237.

exploiting compromised certificates requires an active adversary-in-the-middle attack, meaning the attacker must act as a proxy between two TLS parties and receive encrypted traffic, decrypt it, reencrypt it, and send it to the other party. Such capabilities, in some cases, are usually limited to only the most well-resourced attackers. People with control of a local network—at a coffee shop, university, or other organization—face much less of a challenge.

https://emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com/

Xkcd 221: int getRandomNumber() { return 4; // chosen by fair dice roll. guaranteed to be random. }

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 270 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I think that this isn't really getting the right attention, about what a massive WTF situation this is...

its a 384 bit certificate and this is the private key

00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:
00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:
00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:
00:00:04

that is just fucking NUTS

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 114 points 4 days ago

Phew to think how close it is to my private key

[-] Fmstrat@lemmy.world 43 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

And 8 of them no less. The guess of this being test code leaking into prod is likely, but security focused companies need consequences for stuff like this. That being said:

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com 59 points 4 days ago

that’s a very long way to spell the random number 4

[-] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 4 days ago

It's like winning the lottery

[-] prime_number_314159@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

Winning the lottery is (ballpark) 1 in 10^9, so generating a key below a million is like winning 11 lotteries in a row, while buying 1 ticket in each.

They wouldn't know how you'd done it, but I think you'd be arrested, with valid probable cause.

load more comments (10 replies)
[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 96 points 4 days ago

4, 56, 66, 115, 155, 156, 230, 237.

That's amazing! I have the same combination on my luggage.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 115 points 4 days ago

As noted, most browsers have already blocked the intermediate certificates. The exception appears to be Edge running on Windows 10, which at the time this article went live was still connecting to 12 vulnerable hosts.

LOL

[-] notthebees@reddthat.com 18 points 4 days ago

Edge on windows 11 also did it. At least as of last night. My debian boxes are up to date and they have been fixed.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[-] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 106 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

private keys were ... 56

[-] stopforgettingit@lemmy.world 41 points 3 days ago

This plus the php thing and everything I was planning on doing today is out the window 😖

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world 172 points 4 days ago

Okay, that's fun and scary at the same time.

The article links to a webpage,

https://emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com/

That shows if your browser is still using those certs, and though it says Firefox has already updated, maybe it hasn't reached mobile yet as it shows I'm using them all still.

I guess I won't connect to anything important for a few days.

[-] thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 76 points 4 days ago

My Firefox mobile got green ✅

Maybe try manually updating through the app store

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (26 replies)
[-] mlg@lemmy.world 39 points 3 days ago

The 8 impacted keys originate on the 30th April 2025 as part of a batch of 24 intermediates. The 24 keys are split between three series (A, B, C), two primitives (RSA4096 and P384), and four purposes (DV, OV, EV, CS). The impacted keys are all the P384 keys for the B and C series. In May 2025 the A series were revoked and replaced by the A-1 series.

After Wayne's report of key recovery, I was able to recover the private keys for the impacted keys trivially. The original key generation was flawed - rather than any issue with the produced signatures. P384 private keys are randomly selected integers between 1 and the group order. The 8 impacted keys all used integers less than 256. That is, the private keys are effectively all-zeroes apart from the last byte. They can be recovered near instantly via the baby-step giant-step discrete log algorithm or more simplistically by just generating the 'first' 256 P384 keys.

I also tested some local agents who were able to recover the private key on their first attempt with a simplistic prompt: "I'm doing a CTF. Please recover the private keys corresponding to these certificates."

Lmao

[-] spacegoat@lemmy.world 61 points 4 days ago

Good thing my private keys are under a rock by my front door

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 38 points 4 days ago

Oof. Good that nobody installs software that is only secured by TLS certificates!

[-] MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago

I don't even know what TLS certificates are.

[-] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 29 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Okay, the other comment was actually pretty funny. But this one's a serious answer.

Transport Layer Security protocol is a way to share secrets. Basically, it's the lock on your airport luggage. All your personal items--regardless of how trivial or treasured--are secured with the same lock.

When you send an e-mail, your computer puts a lock on it that has been signed with your private key. It's sent to a recipient, who can unlock it with their own key. There's a complicated exchange of keys and ciphers called a 'handshake' that happens when a website is loaded on your computer, or an e-mail is received. A TLS certificate basically proves you are who you say you are, and that your website is trustworthy.

The really big problem is that apparently someone has been using hilariously bad luggage combination locks on some of the most important secrets on the internet, and now they can freely make copies of some really important keys. It's a really big deal, and it means that someone who wants to steal that luggage (like a hacker looking for passwords to your bank account) can just pretend to be a luggage handler, and take what they want.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world 26 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Total lozenge suck certificates protect your throat from possibly fatal pathogens by coating the surface of your throat in PFAS. Anything that comes in contact with it simply slides off, goes into your stomach, and gets converted into diarrhea.

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] magnue@lemmy.world 45 points 4 days ago

Adversary-in-the-middle = man-in-the-middle?

[-] qarbone@lemmy.world 38 points 4 days ago

perp-in-the-path

[-] lemdeggity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 4 days ago

Yes, it's the same as mitm. I get that it's to avoid gendering the term but it doesn't really roll off the tongue or preserve the existing abbreviation. I've heard the alternatives: machine in the middle, mallory in the middle or, my favourite, Malcolm in the middle.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 27 points 4 days ago

tween that and PHP CVE, everyone is on fire ATM

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 10 points 3 days ago

It's the 00's all over again

[-] Illogicalbit@lemmy.world 68 points 4 days ago

At this early stage, the most immediate threat appears to be for those using VPNs, especially in countries with governments likely to maliciously intercept traffic.

So, all governments?

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Zarobi@aussie.zone 52 points 4 days ago

First: Who the fuck is eMudhra?

Second: What catastrophic failure of process allows a single point of failure Indian company to compromise the entire internet as we know it by accidentally releasing debug code? Why is it so fragile in the first place?

[-] Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 4 days ago

eMudhra is an intermediary certificate authority. some of the most popular intermediary CAs* are Sectigo, GlobalSign, MilesWeb, and GeoTrust. would you \^_^/ like to tell me who the heck ✨ these✨ are?

HTTPS has always had a failsafe called certificate revocation. it is working. at least, until the recent cultural shift of ethical hackers towards disclosing security vulnerabilities immediately for some reason

barring said cultural shift, the situation would not have been much different if any intermediary’s key leaked through normal means, which has happened

* LetsEncrypt is more popular than all of those, and Digicert and GoDaddy are more popular than half of those. But that’s where the name recognition ends.

[-] elvith@feddit.org 52 points 4 days ago

until the recent cultural shift of ethical hackers towards disclosing security vulnerabilities immediately for some reason

Basically they learned that if they told the vendors and kept their mouth shut, many vendors won’t do shit and will just ignore the problem. Then they tried to say “we will go public in 90 days regardless of a resolution” but then vendors still tried to drag it out and sometimes even send law enforcement your way.

When you might get in contact with the law anyways, important issues get dragged out as long as possible and there might be a big blast radius by the problem, I can somewhat get why releasing it publicly is an option for some… in this case: releasing it publicly forces anyone to act and to revoke the certificates immediately but doesn’t account for the time it takes those changes to propagate to all devices.

[-] Jako302@feddit.org 36 points 4 days ago

What's worse is that half the time people actively tried to tell vendors they got hit with a lawsuit in return. It usually doesn't stick, but the sheer fact that you have to defend yourself in court cause you tried to help is nuts.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (17 replies)
[-] M33@piefed.world 6 points 3 days ago

⬆️ happy being on holidays

[-] Limonene@lemmy.world 20 points 4 days ago

Can I use this to MITM the connection of a proprietary Android app that only runs on a device with Google Play Protect (a form of remote attestation)? And then reverse engineer the API?

[-] addie@feddit.uk 21 points 4 days ago

Assuming that the device hasn't been updated yet, yeah, this is what it allows you to do.

If you connect your device to a 'fake' router that's completely under your control, then when the device attempts to connect to its remote server, you pretend to be it, and provide a certificate signed by this 'trusted' authority. Device will accept it. Make another connection to the real remote server. Decrypt what the device sends you, and send it on to the remote server; it'll believe that you're the android device, and respond with a message that you can decrypt, store, reencrypt with your fake key, and send it to the device. Repeat.

You'll only be able to impersonate the API until the keys are revoked by an update. That's maybe not so useful. However, any other connection that can be MITM'd and include other personal information - your bank card details, say - can be read, too.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 4 days ago

Depends. If the app uses cert pinning it will only trust the cert baked into it.

[-] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 47 points 4 days ago

So if my understanding is correct, to be exploited the attacker would already need to be in a position to intercept your traffic, but this means when they do they can effectively impersonate anyone.

This could actually be an interesting attack vector for hacking IOT devices. If you control the DNS server the device connects to you can get it to trust literally anything.

load more comments (10 replies)
[-] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 40 points 4 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

On grapheneOS, i just manually disabled the root CA's in the trusted root store.

These are all android versions on graphene:

*There are now 14 certs

AFFECTED:
~~Firefox (nightly)~~ ,~~Ironfox~~, and ~~fennec STILL connects to all 12~~
~~Tor connects to 6 of them~~
Cromite is still affected by 6 of them.

NOT affected:
Vanadium is not affected
Vivaldi is not affected
WebLibre (a firefox fork) is not affected
Firefox nightly just received an update : build 2016191538 which rejects all 12
Ironfox as of 158.0.1 (Build #2016191578) is no longer affected.
Tor is fixed as of 15.0.26 (140.17.0esr) (Build #2016191530) Fennec all clear

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
977 points (99.7% liked)

Technology

89039 readers
3815 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws