Re: HTTP Alternative Services: What about TLS client certificates?

On Mar 30, 2015, at 10:26 AM, Ilari Liusvaara wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 10:10:20AM -0700, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
>> On Mar 29, 2015, at 2:12 PM, Jann Horn wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> I've looked through draft-ietf-httpbis-alt-svc-04 and didn't see anything that
>>> explicitly forbids the use of TLS client certificates. The threat scenario I
>>> have in mind is this:
>>> 
>>> Alice is connected to the internet through a connection on which Mallory
>>> performs a MITM attack. Alice has a TLS client certificate that grants her
>>> access to sensitive information at https://bank.com/. There are no HSTS rules
>>> for bank.com.
>>> 
>>> Alice browses to http://news.com, a website to which she does not need a TLS
>>> connection. Mallory injects the following HTML snippet into the response:
>>> 
>>>   <iframe src="http://bank.com"></iframe>
>>> 
>>> Alice's browser now requests http://bank.com. Mallory intercepts the request
>>> and replies with a page containing malicious JavaScript code and the HTTP
>>> header 'Alt-Svc: h2=":443"'.
>>> The malicious JavaScript code now triggers further requests that the browser
>>> performs to bank.com via TLS, authenticating Alice using the
>>> non-origin-specific TLS client certificate. The server at https://bank.com
>>> grants access to the client based on the TLS Client Certificate and
>>> returns sensitive data, but the origin on the client is still http://bank.com,
>>> effectively allowing the attacker to bypass the protocol part of SOP
>>> restrictions on XHR.
>> 
>> Why is the origin on the client still http://bank.com/ when it is
>> deliberately making requests to https://bank.com:443/ ?
> 
> Because ALT-SVC does not change origin, only transport.

Then it is broken.

> The requests are marked: The requests have :scheme=http, instead of
> normal :scheme=https. And this is the reason for HTTP/2 requirement for
> OE: One can't reliably mark such requests for HTTP/1.X.

The requests go to a different TCP port.  It is therefore a different
authority and a different origin.

....Roy

Received on Monday, 30 March 2015 17:55:38 UTC