Re: [hybi] workability (or otherwise) of HTTP upgrade

Adam posted his paper to the hybi list a few days ago, it is available here:

http://www.adambarth.com/experimental/websocket.pdf

I'd like to see more detail on the data than is found in the paper, but it seems to show a real-world hazard with use of Upgrade, since many intermediaries do not understand it and at least a few are confused into treating subsequent traffic as additional HTTP requests and responses.

 - Maciej

On Dec 6, 2010, at 3:17 PM, Mark Nottingham wrote:

> Adam --
> 
> It seems to me we can't really make any progress until we see that the assertion in your first sentence is true; it's certainly possible to construct an insecure use of Upgrade, but that doesn't prove that it's impossible to use it securely.
> 
> Any chance of getting that report?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> On 26/11/2010, at 5:54 PM, Adam Barth wrote:
> 
>> Using Upgrade for WebSockets is insecure in practice.  My colleagues
>> and I have run an experiment using live traffic on the Internet and
>> have successfully exploited a number of users using an Upgrade-based
>> handshake (our exploit is harmless by proves the concept).  I'm still
>> getting clearance from some affected vendors before releasing a report
>> on the experiment publicly.  It's looking like I'll be able to release
>> the report within a week.
>> 
>> Upgrade might well be useful for other purposes, and I think
>> definition in HTTP is fine.  The problem is that not everyone
>> implements Upgrade properly, which leaves room for an attack to
>> leverage an Upgrade-based WebSockets handshake in attacks.
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> Adam
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 9:06 PM, Greg Wilkins <gregw@webtide.com> wrote:
>>> I'm cross posting this message to both the hybi (websockets) and
>>> http-bis mailing list as I think this is an issue that is very
>>> relevant to both groups.
>>> 
>>> The hybi/websocket protocol, as currently proposed, has a handshake
>>> mechanism that is roughly based on the HTTP upgrade mechanism.
>>> Progress in the hybi/websocket mailing has ground to a halt because we
>>> appear unable to get a clear consensus between the two advocated ways
>>> forward:
>>> 
>>> 1) Make the "roughly based" HTTP upgrade mechanism a fully compliant
>>> HTTP upgrade.
>>> 2) Move away from HTTP upgrade and use another mechanism (potentially
>>> CONNECT or SSL extensions)
>>> 
>>> To paraphrase the arguments against 1), there are some that are
>>> concerned that an Upgrade based handshake will never be able to be
>>> adequately secured against cross protocol attacks from ws-browsers to
>>> non ws-servers. Also there is some concern that intermediaries might
>>> not well support Upgrade and that other mechanisms might have a higher
>>> success rate.
>>> 
>>> So I thought that it would be good to move that discussion from hybi
>>> to HTTP-bis so we can stall progress here.... no I mean so that we can
>>> get a wider view on the capabilities and vulnerabilities that might
>>> apply to Upgrade.
>>> 
>>> My understanding is that Upgrade was included in HTTP for precisely
>>> the reason that Websocket wishes to use it - ie to take an existing
>>> HTTP connection and to upgrade the protocol run over the connection to
>>> something with different capabilities than HTTP.
>>> I would also expect that if there are problems with lack of Upgrade
>>> support in intermediaries, then it would be easier to get
>>> intermediaries to be updated to a standard generic HTTP mechanism
>>> rather than some special purpose usage of CONNECT.
>>> 
>>> If websocket is unable to securely use Upgrade, then there must be
>>> some fundamental flaw in Upgrade that should either be fixed in
>>> httpbis (if allowed by the charter).   If Upgrade cannot be fixed,
>>> then perhaps httpbis needs to somehow deprecate the mechanism and we
>>> can look together for alternatives?
>>> 
>>> So I'd ask the httpbis readers, are there any reasons you know of that
>>> would prevent Upgrade being used for websocket?
>>> And I'd ask the hybi upgrade sceptics if they could perhaps voice
>>> their concerns about Upgrade in more detail than my paraphrasing
>>> above.
>>> 
>>> regards
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> hybi mailing list
>>> hybi@ietf.org
>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/hybi
>>> 
>> 
> 
> --
> Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> hybi mailing list
> hybi@ietf.org
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/hybi

Received on Monday, 6 December 2010 23:27:43 UTC