TestSSLServer

Overview

TestSSLServer is a command-line tool which contacts a SSL/TLS server and obtains some information on its configuration. It aims at providing (part of) the functionality of Internet-based tools like Qualys SSL Server Test, but without the requirement of the server being Internet-reachable. You can use TestSSLServer on your internal network, to test your servers while they are not (yet) accessible from the outside.

Gathered information includes the following:

• Supported protocol versions (SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 are tested).

• For each protocol version, the supported cipher suites; an attempt is also made at determining the algorithm used by the server to select the cipher suite.

• Certificate(s) used by the server, which are then locally decoded to determine key type, size, and hash function used in the signature.

• Type and size of ephemeral Diffie-Hellman parameters (or elliptic curve for ECDHE cipher suites).

• Support of Deflate compression.

The analysis is performed by repeatedly connecting to the target server, with different variants of ClientHello messages, and analysing the server's answer. It shall be noted that TestSSLServer includes no cryptographic algorithm whatsoever; as such, it is incapable of completing any SSL/TLS handshake. It sends a ClientHello, then obtains the server's response up to the next ServerHelloDone message, at which points it closes the connection.

Note: although the information which is gathered from the server is nominally public, some server administrators could be somewhat dismayed at your using the tool on their servers, and there may be laws against it (in the same way that port scanning third-party servers with nmap is a matter of delicacy, both morally and legally). You should use TestSSLServer only to scan your own servers, and that's what it was designed to do.

License

License is MIT-like: you acknowledge that the code is provided without any guarantee of anything, and that I am not liable for anything which follows from using it. Subject to these conditions, you can do whatever you want with the code. See the LICENSE file in the source code for the legal wording.

Installation

The source code is obtained from GitHub; use the "Download ZIP" to obtain a fresh snapshot, or use git to clone the repository. In the source tree, you will find the simple build scripts, build.cmd (for Windows) and build.sh (for Linux and OS X).

The Windows script invokes the command-line compiler (csc.exe) that is found in the v2.0.50727 .NET framework. This framework is installed by default on Windows 7. More recent versions of Windows do not have the .NET 2.0 framework, but a more recent version (4.x or later). Though these framework versions are not completely compatible with each other, TestSSLServer uses only features that work identically on both, so you can compile TestSSLServer with either .NET version. The resulting TestSSLServer.exe is stand-alone and needs no further "installation"; you simply copy the file where you want it to be, and run it from a console (cmd.exe) with the appropriate arguments.

The Linux / OS X script tries to invoke the Mono C# compiler under the names mono-csc (which works on Ubuntu) and dmcs (which works on OS X). On Ubuntu, install the mono-devel package; it should pull as dependencies the runtime and the compiler. On OS X, fetch a package from the Mono project and install it; it should provide the mono command-line tool to run compiled asemblies, and dmcs to invoke the C# compiler.

Usage

On Windows, the compiled TestSSLServer.exe file can be launched as is. On Linux and OS X, use mono TestSSLServer.exe.

General usage:

TestSSLServer.exe [ options ] servername [ port ]

The servername is the name of IP address of the target server. If the port is not specified, then 443 is used.

Options are:

• -h

  Print an helper message. You also get it by running the tool without any argument.

• -v

  Enable verbose operations. During data gathering, TestSSLServer will print some information that documents the actions; in particular, it will display an extra "." character for each connection.

• -all

  Gather information for all possible cipher suites. By default, TestSSLServer only tests for the cipher suites that it knows about, which are the (currently) 323 cipher suites registered at the IANA. With the -all command-line flag, TestSSLServer will test for all possible 65533 cipher suites (excluding the special cipher suites 0x0000, 0x00FF and 0x5600, which are not real cipher suites).

• -min version

  Test only protocol versions greater than or equal to the specified version (the version is specified as a string: SSLv2, SSLv3, TLSv1, TLSv1.1 or TLSv1.2).

• -max version

  Test only protocol versions lower than or equal to the specified version (the version is specified as a string: SSLv2, SSLv3, TLSv1, TLSv1.1 or TLSv1.2).

• -sni name

  Set the "server name" to be sent as part of the Server Name Extension (SNI) in the ClientHello message. By default, the SNI will contain a copy of the servername command-line parameter; this option allows to override the name. By using the name "-", the SNI extension is disabled.

• -certs

  In the output report, include the full server certificate(s) in PEM format.

• -t delay

  Set the timeout delay (in seconds). This timeout is applied when waiting for response bytes from the server, for the SSLv2 test connection, and for the SSLv3/TLS connections until an actual SSL-like answer was obtained (a ServerHello or an alert). If the timeout is reached for SSLv3/TLS, then the server is assumed to implement a non-SSL protocol, and processing stops.

  By default, a 20-second delay is applied, so that connecting to a non-SSL server may not stall for more than 40 seconds. Use 0 to deactivate the timeout (read will block indefinitely).

• -prox name:port

  Use the specified HTTP proxy to perform connections to the server. (TestSSLServer does not support proxy authentication yet.)

• -proxssl

  Use SSL/TLS to open the connection to the HTTP proxy.

• -ec

  Add a "supported curves" extension to the ClientHello for most connections, testing extension-less EC support only at the end of the process. This is the default and it maximizes the chances of detection of elliptic-curve based cipher suites: some servers might not allow negotiation of an EC cipher suite in the absence of the extension.

• -noec

  Do not add a "supported curves" extension in the ClientHello for most connections. That extension will be added only for some specific connections at the end, and only if the server still selected some EC-based suites. This option should be used only if a target server appears to be allergic to elliptic curves and refuses to respond in the presence of the "supported curves" extension.

  Using this extension may miss some supported cipher suites, if the server does not support EC-based suites without the client extension.

• -text fname

  Produce a text report (readable by humans) into the designated file. If fname is "-", then the report is written on standard output.

  If neither -text nor -json is used, the text report will be written on standard output.

• -json fname

  Produce a JSON report (parsable) into the designated file. If fname is "-", then the report is written on standard output.

  If neither -text nor -json is used, the text report will be written on standard output.

• -log fname

  Produce a text-based log of all connection attempts (hexadecimal dump of all bytes in both directions) in the specified file.

For example, to make a text report in file "test.txt" for server "www.example.com" on port 443, use:

TestSSLServer.exe -v -text test.txt www.example.com 443

JSON Format

A single JSON object is produced. It contains the following fields:

• connectionName: a string value that contains the server name (as used for opening the connection)

• connectionPort: the server port, as a number.

• SNI: the server name used in the SNI extension. This is null if no SNI extension was sent.

• SSLv2: present only if the server supports SSL 2.0, this field is a sub-object with the following contents:

  • suites: an array of objects, for all SSL 2.0 cipher suites supported by the server, in the order the server sent them (in SSL 2.0, that order has no real significance because the client selects the cipher suite, not the server). Each such object contains two fields:

    • id: the cipher suite identifier (24-bit integer)

    • name: the cipher suite symbolic name

• SSLv3, TLSv1.0, TLSv1.1 and TLSv1.2: each of these fields is defined if and only if the corresponding protocol version is supported. When defined, the value is an object with the following contents:

  • suiteSelection: a string value, that is either client, server or complex. If the value is client, then the server uses the client's preferred order of cipher suite, selecting the first in the ClientHello message that the server also supports. If the value is server, then the server enforces its own preferences, using its most preferred cipher suite among those supported by the client. If the selection algorithm follows neither model, then the value of this field is complex.

  • suites: an array of objects, for all cipher suites supported by that version. If the suite selection algorithm is server, then the suites are listed in the server's preference order (most preferred comes first); otherwise, the array order has no significance. Each array element represents a cipher suite, and is an object with the following fields:

    • id: the cipher suite identifier (16-bit integer)

    • name: the cipher suite symbolic name. If the cipher suite is not known by TestSSLServer, then the symbolic name will begin with "UNKNOWN_SUITE" followed by the suite value.

    If the cipher suite is known to TestSSLServer, the following fields also appear:

    • strength: the encryption strength, as an integer from 0 to 3. 0 is "unencrypted", 1 is "very weak" (40-bit keys), 2 is "less weak" (56-bit DES), and 3 is "strong" (in practice, 112-bit keys or more). Strength 1 can be broken by basic amateurs; strength 2 can still be broken but requires dedication and a hardware budget of several thousands of dollars. Strength 3 is way beyond existing technology, even if billions of dollars are thrown at the effort.

    • forwardSecrecy: a boolean value which is true if the key exchange uses ephemeral key pairs, which are discarded after usage. When a suite providing forward secrecy is used, theft of the server's secrets cannot help with decrypting past sessions.

    • anonymous: a boolean value which is true for cipher suites that do NOT imply server authentication. Such cipher suites are thus inherently vulnerable to server impersonation.

    • serverKeyType: a symbolic string that qualifies the type of the server "permanent" key (corresponding to its certificate). This is "RSA", "DSA", "DH", "EC" (for elliptic curves), or "none". Note that PSK and SRP cipher suites may have type "none" (there is no server certificate) but can still ensure server authentication through a shared secret.

• ssl2Cert: if SSL 2.0 is supported, then this field is en object that describes the server certificate as used in SSL 2.0. This is a single certificate, since SSL 2.0 does not allow for sending a chain. See below for certificate object contents.

• ssl3Chains: an array of all certificate chains used by the server (for SSL 3.0 and later versions). Each chain is an object that contains the following fields:

  • length: the chain length (a number).

  • decoded: a boolean value which is false if at least one certificate could not be decoded by TestSSLServer. If that field is true, then the three next fields (namesMatch, includesRoot and signHashes) are present.

  • namesMatch: a boolean value which is true when all the names match along the chain (the subjectDN field of each certificate is identical to the issuerDN field of the previous certificate in the chain; note that SSL/TLS chains are in "reverse order", the server certificate itself coming first).

  • includesRoot: a boolean value which is true if the last certificate in the chain appears to be self-issued (its subjectDN and issuerDN are identical). Root certificates are traditionally self-issued.

  • signHashes: an array of strings, which are the names of the hash functions used for the signatures of all certificates in the chain (not counting self-issued certificates).

  • certificates: an array of objects, for all the certificates in the chain, in the order they appeared in the Certificate message from the server. In SSL/TLS, the server's certificate should appear first, and each subsequent certificate belongs to a Certification Authority that issued the previous certificate. The root certificate may or may not appear at the end of the list (the TLS standard allows both its presence and its omission).

    Each certificate object contains the following fields:

    • tumbprint: the SHA-1 hash of the encoded certificate, in uppercase hexadecimal. This value should match the thumbprints computed by Microsoft's code.

    • decodable: a boolean value which is true if that specific certificate could be decoded successfully.

    • decodeError: that field is present only if the certificate could NOT be decoded; it is a string value that qualifies the decoding error.

    • PEM: the complete certificate in PEM format (Base64 with header and footer); this field is present only if TestSSLServer was invoked with the -certs command-line option.

    All the following fields appear only if the certificate could be decoded:

    • serialHex: the certificate serial number (uppercase hexadecimal, with a leading zero added if needed to have an even number of digits).

    • subject: the certificate subjectDN, in standard string representation (RFC 4514).

    • issuer: the certificate issuerDN, in standard string representation (RFC 4514).

    • validFrom: the date and time of start of validity for the certificate; format is "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss UTC" and contains the date in UTC.

    • validTo: the date and time of end of validity for the certificate; format is "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss UTC" and contains the date in UTC.

    • keyType: the type of public key in the certificate; this is "RSA", "DSA", "EC", or "UNKOWN" if the public key type was not recognized.

    • keySize: the size of the public key, in bits. For RSA, this is the size of the composite modulus. For DSA, this is the size of the prime moduls. For elliptic curves (EC), this is the value k such that 2^k is closest to the order of the subgroup of prime order produced by the conventional generator.

    • keyCurve: if the key type is EC (elliptic curve) and uses a "named curve", then this is the curve symbolic name (if TestSSLServer recognized it) or the curve OID (if it did not).

    • signHash: the name of the hash function used for the signature applied to this certificate. If the hash function could not be recognized, this string will be "UNKNOWN".

    • serverNames: this field is present only for the first certificate of the chain (the server's own certificate); it is an array of strings, containing all the names of type dNSName in the certificate's Server Alternative Names extension. If the certificate does not have a SAN extension, or if its SAN extension does not contain any dNSName, then this array contains only the Common Name from the subjectDN (or is empty if the subjectDN does not contain any Common Name either).

      These names are supposed to be checked by the client, to match the expected server name (e.g. from the URL, if the client is a Web browser).

• deflateCompress: a boolean value set to true if the server appears to support Deflate compression.

• serverTime: the estimated notion of time by the server. In the SSL/TLS handshake, the client and server send each other the current time, counted in seconds since the Epoch (January 1st, 1970, at midnight). Not all implementation follow this convention. If the server explicitly declined sending its sytem type, this field will contain "none". If the server sent random bytes instead of its system time, then this field will contain "random". If the server really sent its system time, then that time will be represented as "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss UTC".

  (The measure is actually an average of the offset between the client's time and the server's time, over all successful handshakes; the specified time is the result of applying that offset to the client's time when the report is generated.)

• serverTimeOffsetMillis: the offset between the server's time and the client's time, in milliseconds. This field is present only if the server indeed sends its system time. Since the time field in a SSL/TLS handshake is an integral number of seconds, it is expected that the offset may reach several hundreds of milliseconds, even if the client and server are perfectly synchronized.

• secureRenegotiation: a boolean value, set to true if the server supports the Secure Renegotiation extension (RFC 5746).

• rfc7366EtM: a boolean value, set to true if the server supports the Encrypt-then-MAC extension (RFC 7366). This extension is nominally a good thing; however, OpenSSL versions 1.1.0a to 1.1.0d are affected by a bug in which support of this extension allows a denial-of-service attack. TestSSLServer does not test for this vulnerability, since, when present, it crashes the server. If TestSSLServer reports support for the extension, then you should check that the server does not use a vulnerable OpenSSL version.

• ssl2HelloFormat: a boolean value, set to true if the server supports a ClientHello for SSLv3+ sent in SSLv2 format. Some old clients support for SSLv2 and SSLv3, and send the ClientHello in SSLv2 format. Supporting this format for the ClientHello only is not a problem (contrary to full SSLv2 support), but it is recommended to ultimately drop that format, notably because the SSLv2 format has no room for TLS extensions.

• minDHSize: the size (in bits) of the smallest Diffie-Hellman modulus that the server is willing to use in a cipher suite that uses ephemeral DH parameters. This field is present only if such a cipher suite is supported by the server.

• kxReuseDH: a boolean value, set to true if the server was detected to reuse DH parameters (for DHE or DH_anon cipher suites). This field is present only if such a cipher suite is supported by the server. Note that DH parameters reuse is not guaranteed to be detected, especially in some load-balancing setups.

• minECSize: the size (in bits) of the smallest elliptic curve that the server is willing to use in an ECDHE cipher suite. This field is present only if the server supports an ECDHE cipher suite, and takes into account only the handshakes in which the client did NOT send a "supported curves" extension: this size thus qualifies the elliptic curves that the servers spontaneously selects.

• minECSizeExt: the size (in bits) of the smallest elliptic curve that the server accepts to use for an ECDHE cipher suite, in the presence of a "supported curve" extension from the client. If there is no such curve, then this field is not present.

• kxReuseECDH: a boolean value, set to true if the server was detected to reuse ECDH parameters (for ECDHE or ECDH_anon cipher suites). This field is present only if such a cipher suite is supported by the server. Note that ECDH parameters reuse is not guaranteed to be detected, especially in some load-balancing setups.

• namedCurves: this field is an array that contains the list of named elliptic curves that the server supports. It is included only if that list is not empty. Each array element is an object that contains the following fields:

  • name: the curve symbolic name.

  • size: the curve size (in bits).

  • spontaneous: a boolean value which is true if the server spontaneously selects that curve (without a "supported curve" extension from the client).

  If the server can send explicit curve parameters (curve equation parameters and similar values, instead of a symbolic name), then the array may contain the curves "explicitPrime" and "explicitChar2", for the two types of curves supported by SSL/TLS. These special curves do not have a "spontaneous" field because their parameters are, by definition, chosen by the server.

• warnings: this field is an array of "warnings" which are elements that TestSSLServer deems worth mentioning. Each warning is an object that contains two fields:

  • id: the symbolic identifier for the warning (5 characters).

  • text: the warning message, for human consumption.

Warnings

Each "warning" indicates a condition which may imply a vulnerability of some kind.

• CP001: Server supports compression.

  Compression makes data length depend on data contents, thereby leaking information, since encryption does not hide length. This can be leveraged in some contexts to reveal secret values (attack "CRIME"). SSL/TLS-level compression should be disabled. Compression, if used at all in a protocol, should be applied at the application level (e.g. HTTP compression), with great care.

• CS001: Server supports unencrypted cipher suites.

  The server accepts to use cipher suites with no encryption of data at all.

• CS002: Server supports very weak cipher suites (40 bits).

  The server accepts to use cipher suites whose encryption can be efficiently broken by amateurs.

• CS003: Server supports very weak cipher suites (56 bits).

  The server accepts to use cipher suites whose encryption can be broken by small organizations.

• CS004: Server supports unrecognized cipher suites (unknown strength).

  Among the cipher suites supported by the server are suites about which TestSSLServer has no knowledge. Their encryption strength cannot be reported.

• CS005: Server supports RC4.

  RC4 has known biases which can be used to leak secret elements in case of repeated connections with the same contents; this might be applicable to Web contexts. RC4 is explicitly prohibited by RFC 7465.

• CS006: Server supports cipher suites with no forward secrecy.

  The server accepts to use some cipher suites that do not ensure forward secrecy; an ulterior compromise of the server's private key may thus endanger the confidentiality of past sessions.

• PV001: Server needs short ClientHello.

  TestSSLServer detected that the server was allergic to perfectly standard but somewhat large ClientHello messages. This indicates a server implementation strategy with a too small input buffer.

• PV002: Server supports SSL 2.0.

  SSL 2.0 has severe issues, and is explicitly forbidden by RFC 6176. Recently, a new padding oracle attack has been described, which leverages a SSL 2.0 server to decrypt a TLS key exchange, thus demonstrating that SSL 2.0 support is harmful even when it is not actually used by normal clients.

• PV003: Server supports SSL 3.0.

  SSL 3.0 has an unfixable flaw in its support for block ciphers in CBC mode, allowing for a leak on encrypted data (attack "Poodle"). SSL 3.0 should not be used. Recent clients and servers can use a mechanism (fallback detection) to ensure that an active attacker will not force them to use SSL 3.0 even though they both support a more recent protocol. However, clients and server which are not able to use at least TLS 1.0 are very old, since TLS 1.0 was defined in 1999. It is thus recommended to disable SSL 3.0 support.

• PV004: Server does not tolerate extensions.

  TestSSLServer could not complete any handshake when it sends extensions in the ClientHello, but removing them allowed the handshake to complete. This is a server flaw that indicates and old and unmaintained software base.

• PV005: Server claims to support SSL 2.0, but with no cipher suite.

  This may happen on some servers where SSL 2.0 was not fully deactivated, but all cipher suites were removed from what it supports. The server sends an empty list, so it does not really support SSL 2.0, it merely claims to do so. Some other SSL scanning tools wrongly indicate this occurrence as "supports SSL 2.0", which is why this warning is included.

• RN001: Server does not support secure renegotiation.

  The server does not appear to support the Secure Renegotiation extension (RFC 5746). Depending on whether the server supports renegotiations at all, and on the client authentication model implemented by the server, this may allow some active attacks.

• SK001: Some Server Key Exchange messages could not be processed.

  At least one of the ServerKeyExchange messages sent by the server could not be understood by TestSSLServer. Any assessment of security is thus incomplete.

• SK002: Server uses DH parameters smaller than 2048 bits.

  DH parameters which are too small are potentially vulnerable to offline breaks, thereby revealing the contents of recorded sessions. A minimum size of 2048 bits is recommended for Diffie-Hellman.

• SK003: Server chooses ECDH parameters smaller than 192 bits.

  When the cipher suite uses ephemeral ECDH parameters, and the client does not send a "supported curves" extension, the server may elect to use a curve which is sufficiently small to allow offline breakage. The server should choose curves of at least 192 bits.

• SK004: Server supports ECDH parameters smaller than 192 bits (if requested).

  When the client sends a "supported curves" extension, it can induce the server to use with ECDHE a curve of insufficient size to ensure protection against offline breakage. This is less serious than the SK003 warning, since the client has to ask for such curves explicitly.

• XC001: At least one of the non-self-issued certificates sent by the server is signed with, as support hash function, a weak or deprecated hash function (MD2, MD5 or SHA-1), or a hash function that was not recognized.

Text Output

When use with the -text option (or no output option at all), TestSSLServer produces a text report which contains the same information as the JSON report, with a layout meant for immediate human consumption.

The text report begins with the information about the server name and port, and SNI extension contents. Then follow the supported versions and, for each of them, the supported cipher suites. For instance, you may get this:

  SSLv3:
     server selection: uses client preferences
     3-- (key:  RSA)  RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
     3-- (key:  RSA)  RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
     3-- (key:  RSA)  RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
     3-- (key:  RSA)  RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
     3-- (key:  RSA)  RSA_WITH_CAMELLIA_128_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  DHE_RSA_WITH_CAMELLIA_128_CBC_SHA
     3-- (key:  RSA)  RSA_WITH_CAMELLIA_256_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  DHE_RSA_WITH_CAMELLIA_256_CBC_SHA
     3-- (key:  RSA)  RSA_WITH_SEED_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  DHE_RSA_WITH_SEED_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  ECDHE_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  ECDHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
     3f- (key:  RSA)  ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
  TLSv1.0: idem

This output means that both SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 are supported. For SSL 3.0, TestSSLServer noticed that the server faithfully follows the client preferences; the cipher suites are then listed in no particular order (in fact, they are ordered by their numerical 16-bit identifier). For each cipher suite, the first three characters are synthetic flags about the cipher suite:

• First character is 0, 1, 2 or 3, for the strength of the symmetric encryption (0 is unencrypted, 1 is very weak, 2 is weak, and 3 is strong).

• Second character is "f" if the suite offers forward secrecy, "-" otherwise.

• Third character is "A" if the suite is anonymous (server is NOT authenticated), "-" otherwise.

This, "3f-" is good, and anything else is worrying to some degree.

The "TLSv1.0: idem" line means that TLS 1.0 is also supported, with exactly the same list of cipher suites (and selection algorithm) as SSL 3.0; otherwise, TestSSLServer would have listed the suite in the same way as it did for SSL 3.0.

After the protocol versions and cipher suites, TestSSLServer lists out the certificate chains sent by the server. Most servers will always send the same chain, but some may have alternate chains (e.g. if the server has both a RSA certificate and an ECDSA certificate, and chooses one or the other depending on the selected cipher suite). Each chain is printed out; certificates are given in SSL/TLS order (first certificate is the server's own certificate, followed by the CA certificate which issued it, and so on). For each certificate, the thumbprint, serial number, subject and issuer DN, validity dates, key type, key size, curve name (if appropriate), and hash function for signature, are printed, optionally followed by the full certificate (PEM format) if requested with -certs. The server names (dNSName in SAN extension) are also printed for the first certificate in each chain.

After the certificate chains, TestSSLServer prints some more information, as detailed for the JSON output: compression support, server system time, support for secure renegotiation, minimum sizes for DH and ECDH parameters, and supported named curves.

Finally, the list of warnings is printed, ordered by their 5-character symbolic identifiers.

Some Notes

BEAST Attack

A previous version of TestSSLServer was "testing for BEAST". I removed the explicit test because it was perennially misinterpreted, and the remedy is worse.

BEAST attack is a Chosen Plaintext Attack in which the attacker can both observe the connection from the outside, and dynamically choose part of the data that gets encrypted in the tunnel; the target is a secret data element that also gets encrypted at a predictable place. The practical setup is hostile Javascript that issues requests to an external server, and tries to extract the cookie value sent to that server. The attack applies when using a block cipher in CBC mode with SSL 3.0 or TLS 1.0 (TLS 1.1 and later are immune because they use per-record random IV, while previous versions use the last block of each record as IV for the next).

The BEAST attack no longer works, for two reasons:

1. Actual exploit requires choosing the exact value of some specific bytes in the plaintext, and a Javascript code running in a Web browser under the cover of the SOP (Same Origin Policy) cannot do that. The demonstration had to resort to using a draft version of the WebSockets protocol, or a hole in the Java VM implementation, to be able to leverage the attacks. Both methods have long been fixed (and if they still apply on your browser, then your browser has not been updated for several years and you have a lot of much bigger holes to worry about).

2. SSL/TLS libraries have implemented a generic workaround known as the "1/n-1 split", by which each record, upon sending, is split into two successive records, the first one containing a single byte of plaintext. The "1/n-1 split" is, conceptually, reusing a the MAC on each record as a randomization source for the IV for CBC encryption, which prevents the attack.

One should note that the BEAST attack happens on the client side, not on the server. Nevertheless, there is a fashion for testing the server for "BEAST vulnerability". The idea is that the server may save a vulnerable client, by enforcing use of a non-CBC cipher suite even if the client would prefer a CBC cipher suite. Correspondingly, some tools give good grades to servers that act that way.

Unfortunately, this is all wrong. As pointed out above, the BEAST attack should not work, regardless of the server cipher suite selection algorithm. On the other hand, enforcing a non-CBC cipher suite in SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 means using RC4, which has very real biases that are not fixed (and not fixable) in modern libraries. Trying to make the server "BEAST secure" really means lowering encryption security, not increasing it. So don't do that.

If someone talks to you about BEAST, point them to the paragraph above. Alternatively, if the auditor hordes prove impermeable to science and just want to tick boxes in their checklists, disable SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 support altogether. You should not allow SSL 3.0 anyway.

Weak Suites and Keys

In SSL/TLS, client and server negotiate security parameters. Therefore, if both support strong cipher suites and keys, all should be fine, even if they would potentially support weak cipher suites as well?

Not so fast. The handshake is protected: once the cryptography has occurred, the client and server send verification messages (Finished), protected by the newly negotiated algorithms and keys, and the contents of these messages are basically a hash of all preceding messages, including the ClientHello. Therefore, alterations by attackers, who try to make client and server negotiate a weak cipher suite, should be detected at that point. Unless the weak cipher suite is so weak that it can be broken right away, dynamically, so that the attacker can then unravel the encryption in real time, and "fix" the Finished messages.

This is exactly what was done with the so-called "Logjam" and "FREAK" attacks, that rely on support of export cipher suites with awfully weak key exchange parameters (512-bit RSA or DH).

On a similar note, a recent attack ("DROWN" -- yet another example of that weird fashion of witty acronyms) leverages SSL 2.0 support to break a TLS key exchange that used the same private key. That attack is a clear example of how support for a weak protocol version can be harmful even if normal clients do not use it.

Therefore, all weak cipher suites and keys should be disabled.

Un-warned Conditions

TestSSLServer's warnings are supposed to point at conditions for which an actual vulnerability or possible weakness has been demonstrated. It won't warn about configurations that are merely unfashionable. The most conspicuous example is cipher suites that use MD5. MD5 is very weak with regards to collisions; but when a cipher suite uses MD5 (e.g. RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5), it does so as part of HMAC, and there is no known way to break HMAC/MD5. Therefore, TestSSLServer does not emit a warning for MD5 usage in a cipher suite, even though some other SSL-testing tools may give a "bad grade" when MD5 is encountered.

RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 would still get a warning, though, because of its use of RC4. And use of MD5 in the signature of a certificate would also be reported, because that one can be unsafe.

Untested Conditions

TestSSLServer does not try to push the server implementation to its limits. Its goal is not to find implementation flaws, only configuration flaws.

For instance, TestSSLServer does not try to test the quality of the random generation on the server side; it does not either check that the sent DH or ECDH parameters, or the server's public/private key pair, are mathematically sound.

Since TestSSLServer never completes any handshake, it cannot test for post-handshake options, in particular whether the server would allow renegotiations at all.

Some tests that TestSSLServer does not perform right now, but may implement in a future version:

• Detection of support of other extensions such as Maximum Fragment Length, Truncated HMAC, or OCSP stapling.

• Detection of reuse of (EC)DH parameters. In DHE and ECDHE cipher suites, the server sends ephemeral key exchange parameters, but it may keep them around for some time. The longer such parameters are reused, the less "forward secure" the connection becomes, so this is a trade-off between efficiency and security.

• Support for session tickets (RFC 5077).

• Better analysis of X.509 certificates. TestSSLServer could, for instance, try to validate the server chain with the platform-provided facilities (System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates). Ideally, it would include its own, extension X.509 validation library, but this is considerable work, both for development and maintenance, so it will probably not happen any time soon (or ever).

Author

Question and comments can be sent to: Thomas Pornin <pornin@bolet.org>

Sometimes I even answer.