How Edge Follows In IE’s Security Failings

I’ve generally been pretty defensive of Microsoft Edge, the default web browser in Windows 10. Unlike its much-mocked predecessor Internet Explorer, Edge is fast, clean, modern, and boasts good standards-compliance: all of the things that Internet Explorer infamously failed at! I was genuinely surprised to see Edge fail to gain a significant market share in its first few years: it seemed to me that everyday Windows users installed other browsers (mostly Chrome, which is causing its own problems) specifically because Internet Explorer was so terrible, and that once their default browser was replaced with something moderately-good this would no longer be the case. But that’s not what’s happened. Maybe it’s because Edge’s branding is too-remiscient of its terrible predecessor or maybe just because Windows users have grown culturally-used to the idea that the first thing they should do on a new PC is download a different browser, but whatever the reason, Edge is neglected. And for the most part, I’ve argued, that’s a shame.

Edge's minimalistic Certificate View.
I ranted at an Edge developer I met at a conference, once, about Edge’s weak TLS debugging tools that couldn’t identify an OCSP stapling issue that only affected Edge, but I thought that was the worse of its bugs… until now…

But I’ve changed my tune this week after doing some research that demonstrates that a long-standing security issue of Internet Explorer is alive and well in Edge. This particular issue, billed as a “feature” by Microsoft, is deliberately absent from virtually every other web browser.

About 5 years ago, Steve Gibson observed a special feature of EV (Extended Validation) SSL certificates used on HTTPS websites: that their extra-special “green bar”/company name feature only appears if the root CA (certificate authority) is among the browser’s default trust store for EV certificate signing. That’s a pretty-cool feature! It means that if you’re on a website where you’d expect to see a “green bar”, like Three Rings, PayPal, or HSBC, then if you don’t see the green bar one day it most-likely means that your connection is being intercepted in the kind of way I described earlier this year, and everything you see or send including passwords and credit card numbers could be at risk. This could be malicious software (or nonmalicious software: some antivirus software breaks EV certificates!) or it could be your friendly local network admin’s middlebox (you trust your IT team, right?), but either way: at least you have a chance of noticing, right?

Firefox address bars showing EV certificates of Three Rings CIC (GB), PayPal, Inc. (US), and HSBC Holdings plc (GB)
Firefox, like most browsers, shows the company name in the address bar when valid EV certificates are presented, and hides it when the validity of that certificate is put into question by e.g. network sniffing tools set up by your IT department.

Browsers requiring that the EV certificate be signed by a one of a trusted list of CAs and not allowing that list to be manipulated (short of recompiling the browser from scratch) is a great feature that – were it properly publicised and supported by good user interface design, which it isn’t – would go a long way to protecting web users from unwanted surveillance by network administrators working for their employers, Internet service providers, and governments. Great! Except Internet Explorer went and fucked it up. As Gibson reported, not only does Internet Explorer ignore the rule of not allowing administrators to override the contents of the trusted list but Microsoft even provides a tool to help them do it!

Address bars from major browsers connecting to a spoofed site, with EV certificate "green bars" showing only in Internet Explorer and Edge.
From top to bottom: Internet Explorer 11, Edge 17, Firefox 61, Chrome 68. Only Internet Explorer and Edge show the (illegitimate) certificate for “Barclays PLC”. Sorry, Barclays; I had to spoof somebody.

I decided to replicate Gibson’s experiment to confirm his results with today’s browsers: I was also interested to see whether Edge had resolved this problem in Internet Explorer. My full code and configuration can be found here. As is doubtless clear from the title of this post and the screenshot above, Edge failed the test: it exhibits exactly the same troubling behaviour as Internet Explorer.

Thanks, Microsoft.

Safari doesn't fall for it, either.
I also tried Safari (both on MacOS, above, and iOS, below) and it behaved as the other non-Microsoft browsers do (i.e. arguably more-correctly than IE or Edge).

I shan’t for a moment pretend that our current certification model isn’t without it’s problems – it’s deeply flawed; more on that in a future post – but that doesn’t give anybody an excuse to get away with making it worse. When it became apparent that Internet Explorer was affected by the “feature” described above, we all collectively rolled our eyes because we didn’t expect better of everybody’s least-favourite web browser. But for Edge to inherit this deliberate-fault, despite every other browser (even those that share its certificate store) going in the opposite direction, is just insulting.

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Intercepting HTTPS Traffic from Android Emulator

Mostly for my own benefit, as most other guides online are outdated, here’s my set-up for intercepting TLS-encrypted communications from an emulated Android device (in Android Emulator) using Fiddler. This is useful if you want to debug, audit, reverse-engineer, or evaluate the security of an Android app. I’m using Fiddler 5.0 and Android Studio 2.3.3 (but it should work with newer versions too) to intercept connections from an Android 8 (Oreo) device using Windows. You can easily adapt this set-up to work with physical devices too, and it’s not hard to adapt these instructions for other configurations too.

Intercepting a HTTPS connection to DanQ.me on a virtual Android device.

1. Configure Fiddler

Install Fiddler and run it.

Configuring Fiddler

Under Tools > Options > HTTPS, enable “Decrypt HTTPS traffic” and allow a root CA certificate to be created.

Click Actions > Export Root Certificate to Desktop to get a copy of the root CA public key.

Fiddler's Connections settings

On the Connections tab, ensure that “Allow remote computers to connect” is ticked. You’ll need to restart Fiddler after changing this and may be prompted to grant it additional permissions.

If Fiddler changed your system proxy, you can safely change this back (and it’ll simplify your output if you do because you won’t be logging your system’s connections, just the Android device’s ones). Fiddler will complain with a banner that reads “The system proxy was changed. Click to reenable capturing.” but you can ignore it.

2. Configure your Android device

Android Device Manager - New Device

Install Android Studio. Click Tools > Android > AVD Manager to get a list of virtual devices. If you haven’t created one already, create one: it’s now possible to create Android devices with Play Store support (look for the icon, as shown above), which means you can easily intercept traffic from third-party applications without doing APK-downloading hacks: this is great if you plan on working out how a closed-source application works (or what it sends when it “phones home”).

Android emulator showing network settingsIn Android’s Settings > Network & Internet, disable WiFi. Then, under Mobile Network > Access Point Names > {Default access point, probably T-Mobile} set Proxy to the local IP address of your computer and Port to 8888. Now all traffic will go over the virtual cellular data connection which uses the proxy server you’ve configured in Fiddler.

Android network proxy settings

Drag the root CA file you exported to your desktop to your virtual Android device. This will automatically copy the file into the virtual device’s “Downloads” folder (if you’re using a physical device, copy via cable or network). In Settings > Security & Location > Encryption & Credentials > Install from SD Card, use the hamburger menu to get to the Downloads folder and select the file: you may need to set up a PIN lock on the device to do this. Check under Trusted credentials > User to check that it’s there, if you like.

Installing a Root CA in Android.

Test your configuration by visiting a HTTPS website: as you browse on the Android device, you’ll see the (decrypted) traffic appear in Fiddler. This also works with apps other than the web browser, of course, so if you’re reverse-engineering a API-backed application encryption then encryption doesn’t have to impede you.

3. Not working? (certificate pinning)

A small but increasing number of Android apps implement some variation of built-in key pinning, like HPKP but usually implemented in the application’s code (which is fine, because most people auto-update their apps). What this does is ensures that the certificate presented by the server is signed by a certification authority from a trusted list (a trusted list that doesn’t include Fiddler’s CA!). But remember: the app is running on your device, so you’re ultimately in control – FRIDA’s bypass script “fixed” all of the apps I tried, but if it doesn’t then I’ve heard good things about Inspeckage‘s “SSL uncheck” action.

Summary of steps

If you’re using a distinctly different configuration (different OS, physical device, etc.) or this guide has become dated, here’s the fundamentals of what you’re aiming to achieve:

  1. Set up a decrypting proxy server (e.g. Fiddler, Charles, Burp, SSLSplit – note that Wireshark isn’t suitable) and export its root certificate.
  2. Import the root certificate into the certificate store of the device to intercept.
  3. Configure the device to connect via the proxy server.
  4. If using an app that implements certificate pinning, “fix” the app with FRIDA or another tool.
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SSL Client Certificate Authentication In Ruby On Rails

I’ve been playing with using client-side SSL certificates (installed into your web browser) as a means to authenticate against a Ruby on Rails-powered application. This subject is geeky and of limited interest even to the people who read this blog (with the possible exception of Ruth, who may find herself doing exactly this as part of her Masters dissertation), so rather than write about it all here, I’ve written a howto/article: SSL Client Certificate Authentication In Ruby On Rails. If you’re at all interested in the topic, you’re welcome to have a read and give me any feedback.