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DailyTech – Huge Hole in Open Source Software Found, Leaves Millions Vulnerable
Posted on: May 23, 2008
- In: - | DailyTech | Found | Hole | Huge | in | Leaves | Millions | Open Source | Software | Vulnerable
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It is incredible just how big the effects of the newly discovered error in open source key generation is
For all the criticism of Microsoft and its security flaws, the software giant has made an impressive turnaround. While Vista has been derided for a variety of reasons, most would agree that it’s much more secure than Windows XP. Recently, a hacker conference showed just how vulnerable systems running Mac OS X are, due to their slow rate of patches. The Mac machine was hijacked within 10 minutes, while the Linux and Windows boxes survived the day.
Now an even worse security flaw has been found in some of the basic code used by a wide variety of Linux security programs. The error originated back in May 2006 when workers on the open-source security project committed a grave and unrealized error.
A simple programming error reduced the entropy in the generated program keys created by the OpenSSL library. Why does this matter? The OpenSSL library’s key generation and other routines are used by the SSH remote access program, the IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN), the Apache Web server, secure email clients, programs that offer secure internet portals and more.
Just two lines of code created crippling security holes in four different open source operating systems, 25 application programs, and millions of internet-attached computer systems. The vulnerability was publicly discovered for the first time May 13, after having left the door open nearly two years. A patch has been distributed, but that can do nothing to repair the damage that has occurred to compromise systems. Worse yet, it appears that through the installation of compromised keys on other systems, numerous systems not even running the code have likely been compromised.
To understand the error fully, a basic discussion on cryptography is essential. On a network anyone can peek at traffic, which is bad news for anyone sharing personal information. However, by using keys, information can be encrypted and then decrypted on the other side by a friendly computer with the proper key. As a “secure key” is typically 128 bits, which is 2128 or about 3.4*1038, the possibility of breaking the key by merely by a brute force attack is out of the realm of modern computing power. A brute force attack simply involves guessing every single number, but to try to do this on a number of this size would take many years.
DailyTech – Huge Hole in Open Source Software Found, Leaves Millions Vulnerable
Posted on: May 23, 2008
- In: - | DailyTech | Found | Hole | Huge | in | Leaves | Millions | Open Source | Software | Vulnerable
- Leave a Comment
It is incredible just how big the effects of the newly discovered error in open source key generation is
For all the criticism of Microsoft and its security flaws, the software giant has made an impressive turnaround. While Vista has been derided for a variety of reasons, most would agree that it’s much more secure than Windows XP. Recently, a hacker conference showed just how vulnerable systems running Mac OS X are, due to their slow rate of patches. The Mac machine was hijacked within 10 minutes, while the Linux and Windows boxes survived the day.
Now an even worse security flaw has been found in some of the basic code used by a wide variety of Linux security programs. The error originated back in May 2006 when workers on the open-source security project committed a grave and unrealized error.
A simple programming error reduced the entropy in the generated program keys created by the OpenSSL library. Why does this matter? The OpenSSL library’s key generation and other routines are used by the SSH remote access program, the IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN), the Apache Web server, secure email clients, programs that offer secure internet portals and more.
Just two lines of code created crippling security holes in four different open source operating systems, 25 application programs, and millions of internet-attached computer systems. The vulnerability was publicly discovered for the first time May 13, after having left the door open nearly two years. A patch has been distributed, but that can do nothing to repair the damage that has occurred to compromise systems. Worse yet, it appears that through the installation of compromised keys on other systems, numerous systems not even running the code have likely been compromised.
To understand the error fully, a basic discussion on cryptography is essential. On a network anyone can peek at traffic, which is bad news for anyone sharing personal information. However, by using keys, information can be encrypted and then decrypted on the other side by a friendly computer with the proper key. As a “secure key” is typically 128 bits, which is 2128 or about 3.4*1038, the possibility of breaking the key by merely by a brute force attack is out of the realm of modern computing power. A brute force attack simply involves guessing every single number, but to try to do this on a number of this size would take many years.
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