Assurance

["Capehart,Jeffrey D" <>]

"SSL 3.0 is the most secure" is how it is stated in the NIST document.  I 
have to assume they meant "of all the protocols called SSL, version 3.0 is 
the most secure, but TLS is still better".  Perhaps they forgot that SSL 3.1 
and TLS 1.0 are the same thing?  Who knows.

Anyway, there is also a new update to the QUALYS SSL Labs document on SSL/TLS 
deployment best practices.
https://www.ssllabs.com/downloads/SSL_TLS_Deployment_Best_Practices_1.3.pdf

This above document is dated September 17,2013 and states:
SSL v3 is very old and obsolete. Because it lacks some key features and 
because virtually all clients
support TLS 1.0 and better, you should not support SSL v3 unless you have a 
very good reason.

The previous version (Feb 2012) of their document stated:
SSL v3 and TLS v1.0 largely still hold up; we do not know of major security 
flaws when they are
used for protocols other than HTTP. When used with HTTP, they can be made 
secure with careful
configuration.


Additional information on TLS:
* TLS v1.0 is largely still secure; we do not know of major security flaws 
when they are used for
protocols other than HTTP. When used with HTTP, it can almost be made secure 
with careful
configuration.
* TLS v1.1 and v1.2 are without known security issues.

The following changes were made in Version 1.3 (17 September 2013):
* Recommend replacing 1024-bit certificates straight away.
* Recommend against supporting SSL v3.
* Remove the recommendation to use RC4 to mitigate the BEAST attack 
server-side.
* Recommend that RC4 is disabled.
* Recommend that 3DES is disabled in the near future.

See the document for recommended cipher suites.

-Jeff C.

-----Original Message-----
From: 

 
[mailto:]
 On Behalf Of Joe St Sauver
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 9:01 PM
To: 

Subject: Re: [Assurance] Draft NIST TLS document SP800-52 Revision 1 is out 
for review/comment

<>
 commented:

#***While SSL 3.0 is the most secure of the SSL protocol versions, #it is not 
approved for use in the protection of Federal information #because it relies 
in part on the use of cryptographic algorithms #that are not Approved. 

I must be mis-parsing that assertion somehow. SSL 3.0 dates from 1996.

If I may be allowed to steal a line from Ralph Nader, it should be considered 
"unsafe at any speed."

Folks really want to get to TLS 1.2 at this point, both on the server side 
and the browser side.

Regards,

Joe