CERT^® Advisory CA-2000-19 Revocation of Sun Microsystems Browser Certificates

A complete revision history is at the end of this file.

Systems Affected

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.

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Sun Microsystems, Inc. Security Bulletin Bulletin Number: #00198 Date: October 24, 2000 Cross-Ref: Title: Browser Certificates 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. 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) 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. 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

3181 B12D C422 5DAC A340 CF86 2710 ABE6

1705 FB13 A22F 9AF3 C130 F562 6E12 504C

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

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

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.

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/CC personnel answer the hotline 08:00-17:00 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/

* "CERT" and "CERT Coordination Center" are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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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.

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.