eMudhra will leave the global SSL/TLS certificate market after eight intermediate CA private keys were found easily guessable, prompting browser distrust actions.
eMudhra, the certificate authority that issued eight intermediate TLS credentials so weak that anyone could mint certificates for any website or mail serverβone had a private encryption key of just 4βsaid itβs getting out of the business.
V. Srinivasan, chairman of India-based eMudhra Limited, cited increasing costs and complexities of compliance requirementsβpaired with the business generating just 1 percent of its revenue. He also said that the emergence of organizations providing TLS certificates free of charge further reduced returns on investment when compared to other products and services the company offers.
Don't let the door hit you on the butt
βHowever, the level of social media amplification around this incident has brought scrutiny that is out of proportion to SSL/TLSβs place in our business,β the company continued in a Thursday post. βIn view of this, after detailed deliberations our board has concluded that withdrawing from global SSL/TLS is the right decision for eMudhra and its shareholders.β
Security personnel around the world are on high alert Tuesday following the discovery of eight TLS certificates with private keys so weak they could allow anyone to mint trusted browser and app credentials for any site on the Internet.
As of late morning Tuesday, browser makers and some major apps and programming languages had blocked all eight of the intermediate certificates. There are no reports of certificate transparency logs, which track the issuance of all browser-trusted certificates, showing the compromised keys being used maliciously. The threat remains far from over, however, because it will be hard and time-consuming to update other key parts of the Internet, such as Linux distributions and embedded and Internet of Things devices.
One word: bonkers
The eight intermediate certificates belong to India-based certificate authority eMudhra Limited. An informal advisory published to emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com over on Tuesday posted the message βWe have a problem here - Wayne.β The words were digitally signed using the private key of one of the eMudhra certificates. With proof that the reporting party had control of the key, defenders scrambled because the same key could be used to sign unauthorized certificates that would be trusted by millions of servers worldwide.