Potential Security Issue

I had the exact same thing happen as this user within a second or so of starting my services. I'm using nginx-letsencrypt-companion docker setup. @zeroware, have you gotten this since? I noticed the thread is closed, but I think if we'd allow a thread to stay open we can gain clues and examine a potential attack happening against us.

Some of our logs:

staging1.our.tld 104.244.72.115 - - [04/Sep/2019:21:11:06 +0000] "GET /.git/config HTTP/1.1" 404 150 "-" "Go-http-client/1.1"

2019/09/04 21:11:09 [warn] 18#18: no resolver defined to resolve ocsp.int-x3.letsencrypt.org while requesting certificate status, responder: ocsp.int-x3.letsencrypt.org, certificate: "/etc/nginx/certs/staging1.our.tld.crt"

staging2.our.tld 185.220.101.25 - - [04/Sep/2019:21:11:12 +0000] "GET /.git/config HTTP/1.1" 301 169 "-" "Go-http-client/1.1"

staging3.our.tld 185.220.101.25 - - [04/Sep/2019:21:11:12 +0000] "GET /.git/config HTTP/1.1" 301 169 "-" "Go-http-client/1.1"

staging4.our.tld 46.165.245.154 - - [04/Sep/2019:21:11:17 +0000] "GET /.git/config HTTP/1.1" 404 150 "http://staging4.our.tld/.git/config" "Go-http-client/1.1"

staging5.our.tld 46.165.245.154 - - [04/Sep/2019:21:11:17 +0000] "GET /.git/config HTTP/1.1" 404 150 "http://staging5.our.tld/.git/config" "Go-http-client/1.1"

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The answer is there:

When you request a certificate, it will be public, so anybody could decide to check if your website has flaws. Be sure to have a secure website before allowing outside access.

It's not related to let's encrypt: all certificate authorities must publicly log certificates. What you can do to reduce the risk is use a wildcard certificate: "*.example.com" so without more information, the subdomain can't be easily known.

4 Likes

Well that’s concerning… Is there a testing mode where we don’t publish our URLs?
Why must LetsEncrypt publish the URLs to a central repo of “hey everyone these are freshly (and I mean freshly) launched sites!”

You can learn more about it there: http://www.certificate-transparency.org/

The idea is, if a rogue (valid) certificate is create, how to detect it? The solution adopted is, the certificate must contains at least 2 proof of publication to be valid. So as a website owner, you can know the list of certificates created for your website.

No, even the let's encrypt staging (which allow to create test certificates), will publish them (in a test transparency list).

7 Likes

Only if you believe in security through obscurity--which you shouldn't.

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