1page.title=Security with HTTPS and SSL 2page.tags=network,certificates 3 4page.article=true 5@jd:body 6 7<div id="tb-wrapper"> 8<div id="tb"> 9<h2>In this document</h2> 10<ol class="nolist"> 11 <li><a href="#Concepts">Concepts</a></li> 12 <li><a href="#HttpsExample">An HTTP Example</a></li> 13 <li><a href="#CommonProblems">Common Problems Verifying Server Certificates</a> 14 <ol class="nolist"> 15 <li><a href="#UnknownCa">Unknown certificate authority</a></li> 16 <li><a href="#SelfSigned">Self-signed server certificate</a></li> 17 <li><a href="#MissingCa">Missing intermediate certificate authority</a></li> 18 </ol> 19 </li> 20 <li><a href="#CommonHostnameProbs">Common Problems with Hostname Verification</a></li> 21 <li><a href="#WarningsSslSocket">Warnings About Using SSLSocket Directly</a></li> 22 <li><a href="#Blacklisting">Blacklisting</a></li> 23 <li><a href="#Pinning">Pinning</a></li> 24 <li><a href="#ClientCert">Client Certificates</a></li> 25 <li><a href="#nogotofail">Nogotofail: Network Security Testing</a></li> 26</ol> 27 28 29<h2>See also</h2> 30<ul> 31<li><a href="http://source.android.com/tech/security/index.html">Android 32Security Overview</a></li> 33<li><a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/security/permissions.html">Permissions</a></li> 34</ul> 35</div></div> 36 37 38 39<p>The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)—now technically known as <a 40href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security">Transport Layer Security 41(TLS)</a>—is a 42common building block for encrypted communications between clients and servers. It's possible that 43an application might use SSL incorrectly such that malicious entities may 44be able to intercept an app's data over the network. To help you ensure that this does not happen 45to your app, this article highlights the common pitfalls when using secure network protocols and addresses some larger concerns about using <a 46href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_infrastructure">Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI)</a>. 47 48 49<h2 id="Concepts">Concepts</h2> 50 51<p>In a typical SSL usage scenario, a server is configured with a certificate containing a 52public key as well as a matching private key. As part of the handshake between an SSL client 53and server, the server proves it has the private key by signing its certificate with <a 54href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography">public-key cryptography</a>.</p> 55 56<p>However, anyone can generate their own certificate and private key, so a simple handshake 57doesn't prove anything about the server other than that the server knows the private key that 58matches the public key of the certificate. One way to solve this problem is to have the client 59have a set of one or more certificates it trusts. If the certificate is not in the set, the 60server is not to be trusted.</p> 61 62<p>There are several downsides to this simple approach. Servers should be able to 63upgrade to stronger keys over time ("key rotation"), which replaces the public key in the 64certificate with a new one. Unfortunately, now the client app has to be updated due to what 65is essentially a server configuration change. This is especially problematic if the server 66is not under the app developer's control, for example if it is a third party web service. This 67approach also has issues if the app has to talk to arbitrary servers such as a web browser or 68email app.</p> 69 70<p>In order to address these downsides, servers are typically configured with certificates 71from well known issuers called <a 72href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_authority">Certificate Authorities (CAs)</a>. 73The host platform generally contains a list of well known CAs that it trusts. 74As of Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), Android currently contains over 100 CAs that are updated 75in each release. Similar to a server, a CA has a certificate and a private key. When issuing 76a certificate for a server, the CA <a 77href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature">signs</a> 78the server certificate using its private key. The 79client can then verify that the server has a certificate issued by a CA known to the platform.</p> 80 81<p>However, while solving some problems, using CAs introduces another. Because the CA issues 82certificates for many servers, you still need some way to make sure you are talking to the 83server you want. To address this, the certificate issued by the CA identifies the server 84either with a specific name such as <em>gmail.com</em> or a wildcarded set of 85hosts such as <em>*.google.com</em>. </p> 86 87<p>The following example will make these concepts a little more concrete. In the snippet below 88from a command line, the <a href="http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/openssl.html">{@code openssl}</a> 89tool's {@code s_client} command looks at Wikipedia's server certificate information. It 90specifies port 443 because that is the default for <acronym title="Hypertext Transfer 91Protocol Secure">HTTPS</acronym>. The command sends 92the output of {@code openssl s_client} to {@code openssl x509}, which formats information 93about certificates according to the <a 94href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.509">X.509 standard</a>. Specifically, 95the command asks for the subject, which contains the server name information, 96and the issuer, which identifies the CA.</p> 97 98<pre class="no-pretty-print"> 99$ openssl s_client -connect wikipedia.org:443 | openssl x509 -noout -subject -issuer 100<b>subject=</b> /serialNumber=sOrr2rKpMVP70Z6E9BT5reY008SJEdYv/C=US/O=*.wikipedia.org/OU=GT03314600/OU=See www.rapidssl.com/resources/cps (c)11/OU=Domain Control Validated - RapidSSL(R)/<b>CN=*.wikipedia.org</b> 101<b>issuer=</b> /C=US/O=GeoTrust, Inc./CN=<b>RapidSSL CA</b> 102</pre> 103 104<p>You can see that the certificate was issued for servers matching <em>*.wikipedia.org</em> by 105the RapidSSL CA.</p> 106 107 108 109<h2 id="HttpsExample">An HTTPS Example</h2> 110 111<p>Assuming you have a web server with a 112certificate issued by a well known CA, you can make a secure request with code as 113simple this:</p> 114 115<pre> 116URL url = new URL("https://wikipedia.org"); 117URLConnection urlConnection = url.openConnection(); 118InputStream in = urlConnection.getInputStream(); 119copyInputStreamToOutputStream(in, System.out); 120</pre> 121 122<p>Yes, it really can be that simple. If you want to tailor the HTTP request, you can cast to 123an {@link java.net.HttpURLConnection}. The Android documentation for 124{@link java.net.HttpURLConnection} has further examples about how to deal with request 125and response headers, posting content, managing cookies, using proxies, caching responses, 126and so on. But in terms of the details for verifying certificates and hostnames, the Android 127framework takes care of it for you through these APIs. 128This is where you want to be if at all possible. That said, below are some other considerations.</p> 129 130 131 132<h2 id="CommonProblems">Common Problems Verifying Server Certificates</h2> 133 134<p>Suppose instead of receiving the content from {@link java.net.URLConnection#getInputStream 135getInputStream()}, it throws an exception:</p> 136 137<pre class="no-pretty-print"> 138javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Trust anchor for certification path not found. 139 at org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.OpenSSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(OpenSSLSocketImpl.java:374) 140 at libcore.net.http.HttpConnection.setupSecureSocket(HttpConnection.java:209) 141 at libcore.net.http.HttpsURLConnectionImpl$HttpsEngine.makeSslConnection(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:478) 142 at libcore.net.http.HttpsURLConnectionImpl$HttpsEngine.connect(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:433) 143 at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.sendSocketRequest(HttpEngine.java:290) 144 at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.sendRequest(HttpEngine.java:240) 145 at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getResponse(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:282) 146 at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:177) 147 at libcore.net.http.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:271) 148</pre> 149 150<p>This can happen for several reasons, including: 151<ol> 152 <li><a href="#UnknownCa">The CA that issued the server certificate was unknown</a></li> 153 <li><a href="#SelfSigned">The server certificate wasn't signed by a CA, but was self signed</a></li> 154 <li><a href="#MissingCa">The server configuration is missing an intermediate CA</a></li> 155</ol> 156 157<p>The following sections discuss how to address these problems while keeping your 158connection to the server secure. 159 160 161 162<h3 id="UnknownCa">Unknown certificate authority</h3> 163 164<p>In this case, the {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException} occurs 165because you have a CA that isn't trusted by the system. It could be because 166you have a certificate from a new CA that isn't yet trusted by Android or your app is 167running on an older version without the CA. More often a CA is unknown because it isn't a 168public CA, but a private one issued by an organization such as a government, corporation, 169or education institution for their own use.</p> 170 171<p>Fortunately, you can teach {@link javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection} 172to trust a specific set of CAs. The procedure 173can be a little convoluted, so below is an example that takes a specific CA from 174an {@link java.io.InputStream}, uses it to create a {@link java.security.KeyStore}, 175which is then used to create and initialize a 176{@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager}. A {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager} is what the system 177uses to validate certificates from the server 178and—by creating one from a {@link java.security.KeyStore} with one or more CAs—those 179will be the only CAs trusted by that {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager}.</p> 180 181<p>Given the new {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager}, 182the example initializes a new {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLContext} which provides 183an {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory} you can use to override the default 184{@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory} from 185{@link javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection}. This way the 186connection will use your CAs for certificate validation.</p> 187 188<p>Here is the example in 189full using an organizational CA from the University of Washington:</p> 190 191<pre> 192// Load CAs from an InputStream 193// (could be from a resource or ByteArrayInputStream or ...) 194CertificateFactory cf = CertificateFactory.getInstance("X.509"); 195// From https://www.washington.edu/itconnect/security/ca/load-der.crt 196InputStream caInput = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream("load-der.crt")); 197Certificate ca; 198try { 199 ca = cf.generateCertificate(caInput); 200 System.out.println("ca=" + ((X509Certificate) ca).getSubjectDN()); 201} finally { 202 caInput.close(); 203} 204 205// Create a KeyStore containing our trusted CAs 206String keyStoreType = KeyStore.getDefaultType(); 207KeyStore keyStore = KeyStore.getInstance(keyStoreType); 208keyStore.load(null, null); 209keyStore.setCertificateEntry("ca", ca); 210 211// Create a TrustManager that trusts the CAs in our KeyStore 212String tmfAlgorithm = TrustManagerFactory.getDefaultAlgorithm(); 213TrustManagerFactory tmf = TrustManagerFactory.getInstance(tmfAlgorithm); 214tmf.init(keyStore); 215 216// Create an SSLContext that uses our TrustManager 217SSLContext context = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS"); 218context.init(null, tmf.getTrustManagers(), null); 219 220// Tell the URLConnection to use a SocketFactory from our SSLContext 221URL url = new URL("https://certs.cac.washington.edu/CAtest/"); 222HttpsURLConnection urlConnection = 223 (HttpsURLConnection)url.openConnection(); 224urlConnection.setSSLSocketFactory(context.getSocketFactory()); 225InputStream in = urlConnection.getInputStream(); 226copyInputStreamToOutputStream(in, System.out); 227</pre> 228 229<p>With a custom {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager} that knows about your CAs, 230the system is able to validate 231that your server certificate come from a trusted issuer.</p> 232 233<p class="caution"><strong>Caution:</strong> 234Many web sites describe a poor alternative solution which is to install a 235{@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager} that does nothing. If you do this you might as well not 236be encrypting your communication, because anyone can attack your users at a public Wi-Fi hotspot 237by using <acronym title="Domain Name System">DNS</acronym> tricks to send your users' 238traffic through a proxy of their own that pretends to be your server. The attacker can then 239record passwords and other personal data. This works because the attacker can generate a 240certificate and—without a {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager} that actually 241validates that the certificate comes from a trusted 242source—your app could be talking to anyone. So don't do this, not even temporarily. You can 243always make your app trust the issuer of the server's certificate, so just do it.</p> 244 245 246 247<h3 id="SelfSigned">Self-signed server certificate</h3> 248 249<p>The second case of {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException} is 250due to a self-signed certificate, which means the server is behaving as its own CA. 251This is similar to an unknown certificate authority, so you can use the 252same approach from the previous section.</p> 253 254<p>You can create your own {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager}, 255this time trusting the server certificate directly. This has all of the 256downsides discussed earlier of tying your app directly to a certificate, but can be done 257securely. However, you should be careful to make sure your self-signed certificate has a 258reasonably strong key. As of 2012, a 2048-bit RSA signature with an exponent of 65537 expiring 259yearly is acceptable. When rotating keys, you should check for <a 260href="http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/key_mgmt/index.html">recommendations</a> from an 261authority (such as <a href="http://www.nist.gov/">NIST</a>) about what is acceptable.</p> 262 263 264 265<h3 id="MissingCa">Missing intermediate certificate authority</h3> 266 267<p>The third case of {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException} 268occurs due to a missing intermediate CA. Most public 269CAs don't sign server certificates directly. Instead, they use their main CA certificate, 270referred to as the root CA, to sign intermediate CAs. They do this so the root CA can be stored 271offline to reduce risk of compromise. However, operating systems like Android typically 272trust only root CAs directly, which leaves a short gap of trust between the server 273certificate—signed by the intermediate CA—and the certificate verifier, 274which knows the root CA. To solve 275this, the server doesn't send the client only it's certificate during the SSL handshake, but 276a chain of certificates from the server CA through any intermediates necessary to reach a 277trusted root CA.</p> 278 279<p>To see what this looks like in practice, here's the <em>mail.google.com</em> certificate 280chain as viewed by the <a href="http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/openssl.html">{@code openssl}</a> 281{@code s_client} command:</p> 282 283<pre class="no-pretty-print"> 284$ openssl s_client -connect mail.google.com:443 285--- 286Certificate chain 287 0 s:/C=US/ST=California/L=Mountain View/O=Google Inc/CN=mail.google.com 288 i:/C=ZA/O=Thawte Consulting (Pty) Ltd./CN=Thawte SGC CA 289 1 s:/C=ZA/O=Thawte Consulting (Pty) Ltd./CN=Thawte SGC CA 290 i:/C=US/O=VeriSign, Inc./OU=Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority 291--- 292</pre> 293 294 295<p>This shows that the server sends a certificate for <em>mail.google.com</em> 296issued by the <em>Thawte SGC</em> CA, which is an intermediate CA, and a second certificate 297for the <em>Thawte SGC</em> CA issued by a <em>Verisign</em> CA, which is the primary CA that's 298trusted by Android.</p> 299 300<p>However, it is not uncommon to configure a server to not include the necessary 301intermediate CA. For example, here is a server that can cause an error in Android browsers and 302exceptions in Android apps:</p> 303 304<pre class="no-pretty-print"> 305$ openssl s_client -connect egov.uscis.gov:443 306--- 307Certificate chain 308 0 s:/C=US/ST=District Of Columbia/L=Washington/O=U.S. Department of Homeland Security/OU=United States Citizenship and Immigration Services/OU=Terms of use at www.verisign.com/rpa (c)05/CN=egov.uscis.gov 309 i:/C=US/O=VeriSign, Inc./OU=VeriSign Trust Network/OU=Terms of use at https://www.verisign.com/rpa (c)10/CN=VeriSign Class 3 International Server CA - G3 310--- 311</pre> 312 313<p>What is interesting to note here is that visiting this server in most desktop browsers 314does not cause an error like a completely unknown CA or self-signed server certificate would 315cause. This is because most desktop browsers cache trusted intermediate CAs over time. Once 316a browser has visited and learned about an intermediate CA from one site, it won't 317need to have the intermediate CA included in the certificate chain the next time.</p> 318 319<p>Some sites do this intentionally for secondary web servers used to serve resources. For 320example, they might have their main HTML page served by a server with a full certificate 321chain, but have servers for resources such as images, CSS, or JavaScript not include the 322CA, presumably to save bandwidth. Unfortunately, sometimes these servers might be providing 323a web service you are trying to call from your Android app, which is not as forgiving.</p> 324 325<p>There are two approaches to solve this issue:</p> 326<ul> 327 <li>Configure the server to 328 include the intermediate CA in the server chain. Most CAs provide documentation on how to do 329 this for all common web servers. This is the only approach if you need the site to work with 330 default Android browsers at least through Android 4.2.</li> 331 <li>Or, treat the 332 intermediate CA like any other unknown CA, and create a {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager} 333 to trust it directly, as done in the previous two sections.</li> 334</ul> 335 336 337<h2 id="CommonHostnameProbs">Common Problems with Hostname Verification</h2> 338 339<p>As mentioned at the beginning of this article, 340there are two key parts to verifying an SSL connection. The first 341is to verify the certificate is from a trusted source, which was the focus of the previous 342section. The focus of this section is the second part: making sure the server you are 343talking to presents the right certificate. When it doesn't, you'll typically see an error 344like this:</p> 345 346<pre class="no-pretty-print"> 347java.io.IOException: Hostname 'example.com' was not verified 348 at libcore.net.http.HttpConnection.verifySecureSocketHostname(HttpConnection.java:223) 349 at libcore.net.http.HttpsURLConnectionImpl$HttpsEngine.connect(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:446) 350 at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.sendSocketRequest(HttpEngine.java:290) 351 at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.sendRequest(HttpEngine.java:240) 352 at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getResponse(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:282) 353 at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:177) 354 at libcore.net.http.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:271) 355</pre> 356 357 358<p>One reason this can happen is due to a server configuration error. The server is 359configured with a certificate that does not have a subject or subject alternative name fields 360that match the server you are trying to reach. It is possible to have one certificate be used 361with many different servers. For example, looking at the <em>google.com</em> certificate with 362<a href="http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/openssl.html">{@code openssl}</a> {@code 363s_client -connect google.com:443 | openssl x509 -text} you can see that a subject 364that supports <em>*.google.com</em> but also subject alternative names for <em>*.youtube.com</em>, 365<em>*.android.com</em>, and others. The error occurs only when the server name you 366are connecting to isn't listed by the certificate as acceptable.</p> 367 368<p>Unfortunately this can happen for another reason as well: <a 369href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_hosting">virtual hosting</a>. When sharing a 370server for more than one hostname with HTTP, the web server can tell from the HTTP/1.1 request 371which target hostname the client is looking for. Unfortunately this is complicated with 372HTTPS, because the server has to know which certificate to return before it sees the HTTP 373request. To address this problem, newer versions of SSL, specifically TLSv.1.0 and later, 374support <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication">Server Name Indication 375(SNI)</a>, which allows the SSL client to specify the intended 376hostname to the server so the proper certificate can be returned.</p> 377 378<p>Fortunately, {@link javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection} supports 379SNI since Android 2.3. Unfortunately, Apache 380HTTP Client does not, which is one of the many reasons we discourage its use. One workaround 381if you need to support Android 2.2 (and older) or Apache HTTP Client is to set up an alternative 382virtual host on a unique port so that it's unambiguous which server certificate to return.</p> 383 384<p>The more drastic alternative is to replace {@link javax.net.ssl.HostnameVerifier} 385with one that uses not the 386hostname of your virtual host, but the one returned by the server by default.</p> 387 388<p class="caution"><strong>Caution:</strong> Replacing {@link javax.net.ssl.HostnameVerifier} 389can be <strong>very dangerous</strong> if the other virtual host is 390not under your control, because a man-in-the-middle attack could direct traffic to another 391server without your knowledge.</p> 392 393<p>If you are still sure you want to override hostname verification, here is an example 394that replaces the verifier for a single {@link java.net.URLConnection} 395with one that still verifies that the hostname is at least on expected by the app:</p> 396 397<pre> 398// Create an HostnameVerifier that hardwires the expected hostname. 399// Note that is different than the URL's hostname: 400// example.com versus example.org 401HostnameVerifier hostnameVerifier = new HostnameVerifier() { 402 @Override 403 public boolean verify(String hostname, SSLSession session) { 404 HostnameVerifier hv = 405 HttpsURLConnection.getDefaultHostnameVerifier(); 406 return hv.verify("example.com", session); 407 } 408}; 409 410// Tell the URLConnection to use our HostnameVerifier 411URL url = new URL("https://example.org/"); 412HttpsURLConnection urlConnection = 413 (HttpsURLConnection)url.openConnection(); 414urlConnection.setHostnameVerifier(hostnameVerifier); 415InputStream in = urlConnection.getInputStream(); 416copyInputStreamToOutputStream(in, System.out); 417</pre> 418 419<p>But remember, if you find yourself replacing hostname verification, especially 420due to virtual hosting, it's still <strong>very dangerous</strong> if the other virtual host is 421not under your control and you should find an alternative hosting arrangement 422that avoids this issue.</p> 423 424 425 426 427<h2 id="WarningsSslSocket">Warnings About Using SSLSocket Directly</h2> 428 429<p>So far, the examples have focused on HTTPS using {@link javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection}. 430Sometimes apps need to use SSL separate from HTTP. For example, an email app might use SSL variants 431of SMTP, POP3, or IMAP. In those cases, the app would want to use {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocket} 432directly, much the same way that {@link javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection} does internally.</p> 433 434<p>The techniques described so 435far to deal with certificate verification issues also apply to {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocket}. 436In fact, when using a custom {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager}, what is passed to 437{@link javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection} is an {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory}. 438So if you need to use a custom {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager} with an 439{@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocket}, follow 440the same steps and use that {@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory} to create your 441{@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocket}.</p> 442 443<p class="caution"><strong>Caution:</strong> 444{@link javax.net.ssl.SSLSocket} <strong>does not</strong> perform hostname verification. It is 445up the your app to do its own hostname verification, preferably by calling {@link 446javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection#getDefaultHostnameVerifier()} with the expected hostname. Further 447beware that {@link javax.net.ssl.HostnameVerifier#verify HostnameVerifier.verify()} 448doesn't throw an exception on error but instead returns a boolean result that you must 449explicitly check.</p> 450 451<p>Here is an example showing how you can do this. It shows that when connecting to 452<em>gmail.com</em> port 443 without SNI support, you'll receive a certificate for 453<em>mail.google.com</em>. This is expected in this case, so check to make sure that 454the certificate is indeed for <em>mail.google.com</em>:</p> 455 456<pre> 457// Open SSLSocket directly to gmail.com 458SocketFactory sf = SSLSocketFactory.getDefault(); 459SSLSocket socket = (SSLSocket) sf.createSocket("gmail.com", 443); 460HostnameVerifier hv = HttpsURLConnection.getDefaultHostnameVerifier(); 461SSLSession s = socket.getSession(); 462 463// Verify that the certicate hostname is for mail.google.com 464// This is due to lack of SNI support in the current SSLSocket. 465if (!hv.verify("mail.google.com", s)) { 466 throw new SSLHandshakeException("Expected mail.google.com, " 467 "found " + s.getPeerPrincipal()); 468} 469 470// At this point SSLSocket performed certificate verificaiton and 471// we have performed hostname verification, so it is safe to proceed. 472 473// ... use socket ... 474socket.close(); 475</pre> 476 477 478 479<h2 id="Blacklisting">Blacklisting</h2> 480 481<p>SSL relies heavily on CAs to issue certificates to only the properly verified owners 482of servers and domains. In rare cases, CAs are either tricked or, in the case of <a 483href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comodo_Group#Breach_of_security">Comodo</a> or <a 484href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiNotar">DigiNotar</a>, breached, 485resulting in the certificates for a hostname to be issued to 486someone other than the owner of the server or domain.</p> 487 488<p>In order to mitigate this risk, Android has the ability to blacklist certain certificates or even 489whole CAs. While this list was historically built into the operating system, starting in 490Android 4.2 this list can be remotely updated to deal with future compromises.</p> 491 492 493 494<h2 id="Pinning">Pinning</h2> 495 496<p>An app can further protect itself from fraudulently issued certificates by a 497technique known as pinning. This is basically using the example provided in the unknown CA case 498above to restrict an app's trusted CAs to a small set known to be used by the app's servers. This 499prevents the compromise of one of the other 100+ CAs in the system from resulting in a breach of 500the apps secure channel.</p> 501 502 503 504<h2 id="ClientCert">Client Certificates</h2> 505 506<p>This article has focused on the user of SSL to secure communications with servers. SSL also 507supports the notion of client certificates that allow the server to validate the identity of a 508client. While beyond the scope of this article, the techniques involved are similar to specifying 509a custom {@link javax.net.ssl.TrustManager}. 510See the discussion about creating a custom {@link javax.net.ssl.KeyManager} in the documentation for 511{@link javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection}.</p> 512 513 514 515<h2 id="nogotofail"> 516 Nogotofail: A Network Traffic Security Testing Tool 517</h2> 518 519<p> 520 Nogotofail is a tool gives you an easy way to confirm that your apps are safe 521 against known TLS/SSL vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. It's an 522 automated, powerful, and scalable tool for testing network security issues on 523 any device whose network traffic could be made to go through it. </p> 524 525 <p>Nogotofail is useful for three main use cases: 526</p> 527 528<ul> 529 <li>Finding bugs and vulnerabilities. 530 </li> 531 532 <li>Verifying fixes and watching for regressions. 533 </li> 534 535 <li>Understanding what applications and devices are generating what traffic. 536 </li> 537</ul> 538 539<p> 540 Nogotofail works for Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, Chrome OS, OSX, in fact 541 any device you use to connect to the Internet. There’s an easy-to-use client 542 to configure the settings and get notifications on Android and Linux, as well 543 as the attack engine itself which can be deployed as a router, VPN server, or 544 proxy. 545</p> 546 547<p> 548 You can access the tool at the <a href= 549 "https://github.com/google/nogotofail">Nogotofail open source project</a>. 550</p> 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577