-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- 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/198&type=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. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBOfcscQYcfu8gsZJZAQGkkgQAlYyM/FTH3Z/Q+0tkSZIDLWJYXMAuX7KH 2Q+VmHI2/jDINnRQCf9PLIsr1tGA8WZbwaNu7hm655M6oq7nen4N7NDzYRSKI1v2 qDkWyLw+UJANUiKNkD5uCZYj8hJmcuwvW0yJ6EfxNEB7ZjKJnOpLefwIG9BuV4EE J2Is5vRIN/o= =krHz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----