Saturday, December 19, 2009

SSL Socked.

Secure websites may not be as secure as one would hope. In fact, they could be at great risk. A security hole was discovered somewhat recently in SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, which is used to protect Web traffic for online banking, shopping, and any other https connection. The hole allows hackers the opportunity to introduce malicious commands into the aforementioned sites. Though these hackers cannot directly get at the encrypted data of these sites through this hole, they can surely cause a great deal of damage with malicious scripts and commands.

Specifically, a gap in the authentication process of "secure" sites provides a window for hackers to introduce malicious commands, in what is called a "man-in-the-middle" attack.

SSL users are pretty limited in what can be done in response to this discovery. Basically, a patch must be implemented to address the hole. Software vendors of secure sites will need to update their software to support revisions involved in the patch, and users must be sure to update their personal systems as patches become available. As these patches are still being developed, this problem is on-going.

Source:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/181514/ssl_hole_cracks_open_secured_web_traffic.html
http://www.phonefactor.com/sslgap/

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