__________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN Revocation of Sun Microsystems Browser Certificates October 26, 2000 19:00 GMT Number L-013 ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: There has been a compromise of two SUN security certificates. PLATFORM: Any system whose web browser has accepted SUN certificates with the following numbers: 3181 B12D C422 5DAC A340 CF86 2710 ABE6 (Internet Explorer) 17:05:FB:13:A2:2F:9A:F3:C1:30:F5:62:6E:12:50:4C (Netscape) DAMAGE: Any system that has accepted the compromised certificates could be subject to an attack from malicious applets, applications or components. The potential of root compromise exists through the running of malicious code. SOLUTION: Follow the procedure listed in the 'Corrective Action' of the CERT advisory. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY The Risk is MEDIUM. The vulnerability affects system security ASSESSMENT: and is publicly known. ______________________________________________________________________________ [****** Start CERT Advisory ******] CERT Advisory CA-2000-19 Revocation of Sun Microsystems Browser Certificates Original release date: October 25, 2000 13:39:00 EDT Last revised: October 25, 2000 14:12:23 EDT Source: Sun Microsystems; CERT/CC A complete revision history is at the end of this file. Systems Affected * Systems relying on the validity of the Sun Microsystems certificates mentioned below Overview To aid in the wide distribution of essential security information, the CERT Coordination Center is forwarding the following information from Sun Microsystems. Sun urges you to act on this information as soon as possible. Contact information for the Sun security team can be found in their bulletin, which is referenced in the vendor appendix to this document. I. Description The description below is an excerpt from Sun Security Bulletin 198. The original text can be found here. ___________________________________________________________________ Sun Microsystems, Inc. Security Bulletin Bulletin Number: #00198 Date: October 24, 2000 Cross-Ref: Title: Browser Certificates ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Bulletin Topics Sun advises of a potential compromise of 2 specific security certificates which had limited distribution. Sun recommends that you follow the directions found at http://sunsolve5.sun.com/secbull/certificate_howto.html to determine if your web browser has accepted any of the potentially compromised certificates. 2. Who is Affected A web browser that has accepted a Sun certificate with one the following serial numbers: 3181 B12D C422 5DAC A340 CF86 2710 ABE6 (Internet Explorer) 17:05:FB:13:A2:2F:9A:F3:C1:30:F5:62:6E:12:50:4C (Netscape) 3. Understanding the Vulnerability Web browsers accept security certificates from trusted sources. A specific certificate from Sun may have received outside exposure. Systems that encounter this certificate are potentially vulnerable to attack from malicious applets, applications or components. 4. Corrective Action Follow the instructions at http://sunsolve5.sun.com/secbull/certificate_howto.html to determine if your browser has accepted one of the potentially compromised certificates. If your browser contains this particular certificate, follow the instructions to remove it. _________________________________________________________________ Additional information from the CERT/CC Sun Microsystems has revoked the certificates with the following serial numbers: 3181 B12D C422 5DAC A340 CF86 2710 ABE6 1705 FB13 A22F 9AF3 C130 F562 6E12 504C You can confirm the revocation of these certificates at https://digitalid.verisign.com/services/server/search.htm. II. Impact Users who accept these certificates into their browser may inadvertently run malicious code signed by the compromised certificates. Any such code would appear to be from Sun Microsystems, thus creating a misleading sense of trust. III. Solution Remove the Compromised Certificates Sun Microsystems has provided identification information for the compromised certificates as well as instructions on how to remove them from common browsers. Users should follow Sun's instructions to remove these certificates from their browser and to prevent possible future addition. Appendix A. Vendor Information Sun Microsystems Sun's official copy of their bulletin can be found at: http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/pub-cgi/retrieve.pl?doctype=coll&doc=secbull/ http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/pub- cgi/retrieve.pl?doctype=coll&doc=secbull/198&typ e=0&nav=sec.sba ______________________________________________________________________ The CERT Coordination Center thanks Sun Microsystems for bringing this issue to our attention. ______________________________________________________________________ Author: The CERT/CC portions of this document were written by Jeffrey P. Lanza. Feedback on this advisory is appreciated. ______________________________________________________________________ This document is available from: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2000-19.html ______________________________________________________________________ CERT/CC Contact Information Email: cert@cert.org Phone: +1 412-268-7090 (24-hour hotline) Fax: +1 412-268-6989 Postal address: CERT Coordination Center Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890 U.S.A. CERT personnel answer the hotline 08:00-20:00 EST(GMT-5) / EDT(GMT-4) Monday through Friday; they are on call for emergencies during other hours, on U.S. holidays, and on weekends. Using encryption We strongly urge you to encrypt sensitive information sent by email. Our public PGP key is available from http://www.cert.org/CERT_PGP.key If you prefer to use DES, please call the CERT hotline for more information. Getting security information CERT publications and other security information are available from our web site http://www.cert.org/ To be added to our mailing list for advisories and bulletins, send email to cert-advisory-request@cert.org and include SUBSCRIBE your-email-address in the subject of your message. * "CERT" and "CERT Coordination Center" are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ______________________________________________________________________ NO WARRANTY Any material furnished by Carnegie Mellon University and the Software Engineering Institute is furnished on an "as is" basis. Carnegie Mellon University makes no warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied as to any matter including, but not limited to, warranty of fitness for a particular purpose or merchantability, exclusivity or results obtained from use of the material. Carnegie Mellon University does not make any warranty of any kind with respect to freedom from patent, trademark, or copyright infringement. _________________________________________________________________ Conditions for use, disclaimers, and sponsorship information Copyright 2000 Carnegie Mellon University. Revision History October 25, 2000: Initial release October 25, 2000: Updated author section and references to Sun Security Bulletin 198. [****** End CERT Advisory ******] _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of CERT & Sun Microsystems for the information contained in this bulletin. _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among computer security teams worldwide. CIAC services are available to DOE, DOE contractors, and the NIH. CIAC can be contacted at: Voice: +1 925-422-8193 FAX: +1 925-423-8002 STU-III: +1 925-423-2604 E-mail: ciac@llnl.gov For emergencies and off-hour assistance, DOE, DOE contractor sites, and the NIH may contact CIAC 24-hours a day. During off hours (5PM - 8AM PST), use one of the following methods to contact CIAC: 1. Call the CIAC voice number 925-422-8193 and leave a message, or 2. Call 888-449-8369 to send a Sky Page to the CIAC duty person or 3. Send e-mail to 4498369@skytel.com, or 4. Call 800-201-9288 for the CIAC Project Leader. Previous CIAC notices, anti-virus software, and other information are available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive. World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/ (or http://ciac.llnl.gov -- they're the same machine) Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org (or ciac.llnl.gov -- they're the same machine) Modem access: +1 (925) 423-4753 (28.8K baud) +1 (925) 423-3331 (28.8K baud) PLEASE NOTE: Many users outside of the DOE, ESnet, and NIH computing communities receive CIAC bulletins. If you are not part of these communities, please contact your agency's response team to report incidents. Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. 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