Horton

Re: SCRAM with channel binding downgrade attack

Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>

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From: Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
To: Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net>
Cc: Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>
Date: 2018-05-23T08:56:19Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 08:59:43AM +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 8:46 AM, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi> wrote:
>> "tls-unique" and "tls-server-end-point" are overly technical to users.
>> They don't care which one is used, there's no difference in security.
>> Furthermore, if we add another channel binding type in the future, perhaps
>> because someone finds a vulnerability in those types and a new one is added
>> to address it, users would surely like to be automatically switched over to
>> the new binding type. If they have "tls-unique" hardcoded in connection
>> strings, that won't happen.
>>
>> So I think the options should be "prefer", "disable", and "require".
>> That's also symmetrical with sslmode, which is nice.

OK, being able to introduce a new default if necessary is a good point.
Let's introduce a "require" mode then, which uses tls-unique
underground, while "tls-unique" and "tls-server-end-point" are
documented as developer-oriented.

> As a general point, I still don't like being symmetrical with
> sslmode=prefer, because that's a silly setting for sslmode :) It basically
> says "I don't care about the security guarantees, I just want the overhead
> please". Now, granted, the over head for SCRAM channel-binding is certainly
> a lot less than it is for TLS. But if we just want to go with symmetry, it
> would perhaps make more sense to implement the "allow" mode which makes
> more sense on the TLS side as well.

Something that you may be forgetting here is that we still want to be
able to connect to a v10 backend with default options even with a
post-v11 libpq.  Or we will get complaints.

>> It would be nice to have a libpq setting like
>> "authenticate_server=require", which would mean "I want man-in-the-middle
>> protection".
> 
> That seems like a bad name for such a thing. Shouldn't it be
> "authenticate_server=no_man_in_the_middle" (not those words but you get the
> idea). Specifically, protecting against man in the middle attack does not
> equal authenticating server -- you can still be connected to the wrong
> server just with no second attacker between you and the first
> attacker.

Still that's not something we want for v11, right?

>> With that, a connection would be allowed, if either the server's SSL
>> certificate is verified as with "sslmode=verify-full", *or* SCRAM
>> authentication with channel binding was used. Or perhaps cram it into
>> sslmode, "sslmode=verify-full-or-scram-channel-binding", just with a
>> nicer name. (We can do that after v11 though, I think.)
> 
> sslmode=verify-full is very different from SCRAM with channel binding,
> isn't it? As in, SCRAM with channel binding at no point proves which server
> you're talking to -- only that you are talking to the SSL endpoint? It
> could be a rogue SSL endpoint unless you do certificate validation.

And the reverse is true as well, say the CA is compromised..
--
Michael

Commits

  1. doc: update PG 11 release notes

  2. Fix misspelled pg_trgm contrib name in PostgreSQL 11 release notes

  3. Doc: clarify release note text about v11's new window function features.

  4. Improve wording of release notes item

  5. Fix typos in release notes

  6. Doc: preliminary list of PG11 major features.

  7. Make numeric power() handle NaNs according to the modern POSIX spec.

  8. Various improvements of skipping index scan during vacuum technics

  9. Revert back-branch changes in power()'s behavior for NaN inputs.

  10. Avoid wrong results for power() with NaN input on more platforms.

  11. Avoid wrong results for power() with NaN input on some platforms.

  12. Skip full index scan during cleanup of B-tree indexes when possible

  13. Rewrite the code that applies scan/join targets to paths.

  14. Postpone generate_gather_paths for topmost scan/join rel.

  15. Add casts from jsonb

  16. Make plpgsql use its DTYPE_REC code paths for composite-type variables.

  17. Don't allow VACUUM VERBOSE ANALYZE VERBOSE.

  18. Pass InitPlan values to workers via Gather (Merge).

  19. Account for the effect of lossy pages when costing bitmap scans.

  20. Allow no-op GiST support functions to be omitted.

  21. Rearm statement_timeout after each executed query.

  22. Push limit through subqueries to underlying sort, where possible.