Mobile client workarounds for ISRG issue

Yeah, https://valid-isrgrootx1.letsencrypt.org serves a chain that should fail on Android <7.1.1's trust store. You could use it as a test case on a sufficiently old version of Android.

There's no test site yet for the upcoming ECDSA root "ISRG Root X2".

Certainly, I meant to suggest that app developers could choose to consult an external trust store in their individual apps. As e.g. Firefox Android already does.

If it were me, I would just use the Mozilla root list verbatim, rather than splicing certificates from two programs together. YMMV.

I have an understanding that the Sectigo and Let's Encrypt situations are completely different.

In the case of the Sectigo incident, certain TLS implementations (OpenSSL 1.0.x, GnuTLS) had validation routines which immediately errored upon seeing an expired root in one possible path, even though they could have successfully built a path to a valid root a different way.

I think that is why using the Conscrypt security provider fixed things for you. It didn't change anything about the device's trust store, it just changed an undesirable behavior in the validation routine.

On the other hand, these Android devices straight up do not have the ISRG root in their trust stores. The problem is much simpler and can only be fixed by replacing or supplementing the trust store.

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Thanks

➜  certifikit-cli git:(master) ✗ ./cft --host valid-isrgrootx1.letsencrypt.org
CN: 	valid-isrgrootx1.letsencrypt.org
Pin:	sha256/489aa1610850a89c720217b9d9dbdc7f80918119f32b88c2dd3bcfaf1de29079
SAN: 	valid-isrgrootx1.letsencrypt.org
Key Usage: DigitalSignature, KeyEncipherment
Ext Key Usage: serverAuth, clientAuth
Authority Info Access:
	ocsp: http://ocsp.int-x3.letsencrypt.org
	caIssuers: http://cert.int-x3.letsencrypt.org/
Valid: 	2020-10-14T15:00:50Z..2021-01-12T15:00:50Z (2 months)
CA: false

CN: 	Let's Encrypt Authority X3
Pin:	sha256/60b87575447dcba2a36b7d11ac09fb24a9db406fee12d2cc90180517616e8a18
SAN: 	<N/A>
Key Usage: DigitalSignature, KeyCertSign, CRLSign
Authority Info Access:
	ocsp: http://ocsp.root-x1.letsencrypt.org/
	caIssuers: http://cert.root-x1.letsencrypt.org/
Valid: 	2016-10-06T15:43:55Z..2021-10-06T15:43:55Z (10 months)
CA: true Max Intermediate: 0

CN: 	ISRG Root X1 (signed by locally-trusted root)
Pin:	sha256/0b9fa5a59eed715c26c1020c711b4f6ec42d58b0015e14337a39dad301c5afc3
SAN: 	<N/A>
Key Usage: KeyCertSign, CRLSign
Valid: 	2015-06-04T11:04:38Z..2035-06-04T11:04:38Z (14 years)
CA: true

➜  certifikit-cli git:(master) ✗ ./cft --host www.letsencrypt.org
CN: 	lencr.org
Pin:	sha256/b93116ebda5e22efe089e7710b221557eb80a2e13c60a58687c0ce0369afd68a
SAN: 	lencr.org, letsencrypt.org, www.lencr.org, www.letsencrypt.org
Key Usage: DigitalSignature, KeyEncipherment
Ext Key Usage: serverAuth, clientAuth
Authority Info Access:
	ocsp: http://ocsp.int-x3.letsencrypt.org
	caIssuers: http://cert.int-x3.letsencrypt.org/
Valid: 	2020-11-03T21:00:55Z..2021-02-01T21:00:55Z (2 months)
CA: false

CN: 	Let's Encrypt Authority X3
Pin:	sha256/60b87575447dcba2a36b7d11ac09fb24a9db406fee12d2cc90180517616e8a18
SAN: 	<N/A>
Key Usage: DigitalSignature, KeyCertSign, CRLSign
Authority Info Access:
	ocsp: http://isrg.trustid.ocsp.identrust.com
	caIssuers: http://apps.identrust.com/roots/dstrootcax3.p7c
Valid: 	2016-03-17T16:40:46Z..2021-03-17T16:40:46Z (4 months)
CA: true Max Intermediate: 0

CN: 	DST Root CA X3 (signed by locally-trusted root)
Pin:	sha256/563b3caf8cfef34c2335caf560a7a95906e8488462eb75ac59784830df9e5b2b
SAN: 	<N/A>
Key Usage: KeyCertSign, CRLSign
Valid: 	2000-09-30T21:12:19Z..2021-09-30T14:01:15Z (10 months)
CA: true
2 Likes

I'm aware that the issue is different, but hoping to find a similar complexity answer to give app developers an option to deal with this. A way forward.

App developers can't easily encourage tens of thousands of users to install new certificates, but they could proactively include a new certificate if they know it's likely to happen. Or when it hits for a re-issued server, then search stackoverflow, find a relevant answer and make the fix.

That's what I will probably suggest, write the stackoverflow answer ahead of time.

Thanks for your help.

2 Likes

Mozilla warns that just using their root store verbatim is not exactly trivial:

The decisions Mozilla makes with regards to the inclusion or exclusion of CA certificates in its root store are directly tied to the capabilities and behaviours of the software Mozilla distributes. Sometimes, a security change is made wholly or partly in the software instead of the root store. Further, Mozilla does not promise to take into account the needs of other users of its root store when making such decisions.

Therefore, anyone considering bundling Mozilla's root store with other software needs to be aware of the issues surrounding providing a root store, and committed to making sure that they maintain security for their users by carefully observing Mozilla's actions and taking appropriate steps of their own. On a best-efforts basis, Mozilla maintains a list of the additional things users of our store might need to consider.

So, if I were developing a mobile app that needed to connect to my back-end API, and I secured that back-end API using Let's Encrypt, adding the ISRG roots to the trust store for my connections makes sense. If one needs to connect to arbitrary servers without knowing which CA they're using, then there's really no good solution if your platform's trust store isn't updated regularly. Needing Let's Encrypt's root is just one issue here; in general if your trust store isn't being updated then what will you do if some CA gets its root compromised or is otherwise distrusted by the community (or just the next "good" CA after Let's Encrypt needs to rotate a root certificate for whatever reason)?

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I think both@_az's and @petercooperjr's suggestions are good. On balance, I think the best approach is to have apps add just the ISRG Root X1 on top of the OS root store. Managing a root store is tough, and even though the root store on older Android devices is not generally getting updated, this approach will be better when the app ships on up-to-date devices, since it will honor distrust by the OS (for roots other than ISRG Root X1). If you wanted to be robust to the possible distrust of ISRG Root X1 (unlikely, I hope :blush:), you could add the root only when the OS is known to be pre-7.1.

It looks like that's also the approach you've taken on the okhttp issue, so great!

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That's a good point.

Maybe not. I'm not convinced that these distrusts were ever implemented in Android's security provider. (Outside of the stock AOSP browser and Chrome, that is).

For example, this site has an unexpired Symantec certificate which is supposed to be distrusted.

Firefox and Chrome both complain about it.

On the other hand, I can quite happily connect to that site using a simple HttpsURLConnection in a demo app on Android 9 :man_shrugging:.

Sorry, I get that this is moot by now and devolves into a philosophical discussion about how to securely cope with running an app on an old OS. I thought it'd be worthwhile to check and share what Android/AOSP actually does, especially since there appears to be no public authoritative information on the topic.

curl (built with either nss or openssl) doesn't seem to care either, if we want to draw comparisons to how popular tooling in the ecosystem operates.

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I think what's happening here is that the relevant Symantec root has been distrusted by special logic in FF / Chrome that is implemented in code rather than by removing a root outright. This has been a moderately common tactic in recent distrusts, which are complicated multi-stage processes to minimize breakage. Which is what @petercooperjr is talking about and linking to - I think we're all on the same page here.

So a refinement of my point above would be: If the OS actually removes a root (as opposed to a browser applying harsh restrictions on that root), it's useful for the app to honor that rather than have an embedded and possibly out-of-date copy of the whole Mozilla store. Adding just one root rather than replacing the store outright achieves that goal.

I do agree that this is all pretty much on the margins, and for devices that aren't getting updates it doesn't make much difference one way or the other. However, there's definitely benefit in not encouraging more app makers to start distributing their own root store without realizing what they're getting into.

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Another option that is available for devices running Android 6+ is to add the Let's Encrypt CA as custom CA inside the app. This can be done via Android Network Security configuration file as described here https://developer.android.com/training/articles/security-config#TrustingAdditionalCas

If an app is only targeting Android 6+ there are several advantages:

  1. It just requires adding two files (CA file, android_network_security.xml) and a modification of the AndroidManifest.xml. Therefore this would be even possible on apps if someone has lost the app source code.
  2. It affects not only one HTTP client library but every HTTP client in the app and it should also affect (Chrome based) WebViews used by the app (not tested).
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This last option looks like the one that should be used, does support for this mechanism go back to Android 5.0 (edit: missed this when I posted initially)? That's what modern OkHttp targets, so as long as that is true, then I'm happy to suggest this as the optimal fix?

If we advertise including a stackoverflow question and self answer, then I would also include my previous suggestion to add a single additional CA via code. This is still in play because libraries using let's encrypt can't easily make the manifest change, but they can embed additional certificates in their library.

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Unfortunately the Android Network Security configuration was added with Android 6, therefore it has no effect on versions prior to Android 6.
Considering Android 6+ devices this would raise the supported devices to 85% according to the September Android version graph.

However on Android 4 and 5 you could simply install the Let's Encrypt Root CA certificate as user certificate which will add it as trusted CA certificate, something that does not work on Android 6 devices and newer because of the existing app-specific Network Security Configuration.

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I don't think any solutions requiring user installation steps are viable for app developers. We could present that as a third solution for intranet apps etc. But for something shipped via the play store, it is not even worth mentioning.

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I agree, that having the user to install something on the device is not a desirable solution, it is more a last resort and still better than being not able to use the device anymore.

Whith some small programming effort it would be even possible to provide this solution via play store: It would be possible to provide an "Let's Encrypt CA installer app" via play store that contains the root CA certificate and once started allows the user to click a button, that extracts the CA certificate to /sdcard and the starts the certificate installation process for the extracted file. Then the certificate import dialog opens and the user has to click OK to continue.
The process was originally designed to import .p12 file, but it should also work for Root CA certificates (not sure if it has to be wrapped in a PKCS#12 file or can directly be imported as PEM or DER encoded certificate.

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From OkHttp side I'm not going anywhere near that. Something for your team to consider. It would be a great solution, but still low effectiveness for public apps. It's high touch solution, and some number of users will have problems with your fix app and want support.

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The manifest config we need is apparently Android 7+, if we confirm that then it actually causes an additional 10% drop here.

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We tested yesterday and found that the Android Network Security configuration didn't work on Android 6 but did on 7 (including WebViews created by the app).

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I'm putting some tests of client workarounds on this PR https://github.com/square/okhttp/pull/6412/files if anyone wants something to test out of Android Studio or the command line with a few clicks.

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I've added the fix to that test above (which previously just confirmed the problem) https://github.com/square/okhttp/pull/6423/files

I'm going to post the observable exception and an answer to stackoverflow with this PR as the solution.

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Stackoverflow Question and self-answer - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64844311/certpathvalidatorexception-connecting-to-a-lets-encrypt-host-on-android-n-or-ea

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I've documented a brief summary of adding ISRG roots using Network Security Configuration: https://www.danieldent.com/blog/android-apps-lets-encrypt-dst-root-expiry/

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@DanielDent Nice! might be worth moving the "may only fully work with Android 7.0+" out of the footnotes since it gives a sizeable 7-12% of users, but doesn't solve for a lot of other app developers.

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