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Re: [ietf-dkim] SSP Responsibility Delegation - Security Concerns

2006-08-17 08:39:17
Scott Kitterman wrote:

It seems to me that bringing a mailing list into the scenario changes the scenario slightly, but not in a significant way. I would envision two basic modes of operation for a signer:
[]

I think people are missing the subtlties of the attack; the basic problem is that there's
nothing that the signer can do to stop its subscribers from being gamed:

Suppose there is an ISP who signs for two customers: company.com and mailinglist.com using this third party delegation mechanism that it being touted. company.com and mailinglist.com make a SSP records that says that ISP.com is their signer. Now lets
construct some messages:

// normal from company.com

From: foo(_at_)company(_dot_)com
Dkim-Signature: d=isp.com;

// what is the dkim-signature asserting here:

From: foo(_at_)company(_dot_)com
Sender: mailinglist.com
Dkim-Signature: d=isp.com

How does the recevier know who isp.com is signing on behalf of? The answer
is that it doesn't.

So let's send this from mailinglist.com through their authorized submission server:

From: president(_at_)company(_dot_)com
Sender: mailinglist.com
DKIM-signature: d=isp.com;

Is mailinglist.com allowed to assert president(_at_)company(_dot_)com? No. Does 
the
signer have any way to allow the receiver to tell which address it's signing
on behalf of? No. Is this a threat to company.com? Yes. Does ISP.com have
any way to police this? No: it doesn't know whether 
president(_at_)company(_dot_)com
is subscribed to a mailing list at mailinglist.com or not.

This is a *much* bigger security hole than just a submission authentication problem. It's allowing companies whose only common business link is their provider to freely
spoof each other in a way that the ISP can't control. That's a problem.

      Mike

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