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Website Security Solutions

Showing posts tagged with VeriSign
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Norton Secured Seal is #1
Brad | 07 Feb 2013 | 0 comments

Sometimes, serendipity happens.

Here at Website Security Solutions, we're constantly striving to educate people on how important SSL Certificates are to the Internet. The Norton Secured Seal represents trust on the internet; a sure mark that the website where it is displayed represents a site that can be trusted to conduct business transactions.  We try to educate consumers about how to shop safely, and conduct their business online with a minimum of risk; because it's a world full of internet predators out there trying to steal people's money, their data, and their very identity.

Consumer education is one of the most important things we can do in the Security industry. We have to teach people what to look for, how to surf safely, and how to protect themselves. And all...

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2013 Predictions for SSL
Rick Andrews | 18 Dec 2012 | 1 comment

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that 2013 will press the limits of the mobile infrastructure.  The sales of smart phones and tablets are through the roof, and apps are being written at a fast pace. This is a boon for many, bringing the internet and cloud applications to the hands of users all over the world, who may not own a computer or have ISP service, but do own a phone.

In the race to be part of the mobile rush however, fast app development is often more valued than a well thought out and secure application.  As a result, SSL/TLS app failures can result in broken, disabled or nonexistent validation behind the scenes of mobile applications.  SSL is the backbone technology for secure connections between the app and the cloud, but without proper certificate handling by the developers it’s still vulnerable to attacks by outsiders. This core vulnerability presents a real danger, and it’s imperative that the app developer learn how...

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How Websites Deal with Rejection
Jeannie Warner | 18 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

An SSL/TLS Certificate, which website visitors see by the HTTPS:// prefix in the address bar of your browser lets you know that the site you are visiting has been authenticated, and any information you share with that site is encrypted. Knowing that a site is legitimate and secure is especially important with holiday shopping season upon us, where scam sites spring up like snowmen only to melt away with your money.

Symantec takes its responsibility as a certificate authority seriously. It is very important that we do not issue SSL certificates to questionable organizations. Any website with a Symantec SSL certificate has gone through strict authentication practices and procedures. There are also some very firm processes for revoking certificates, or not renewing certificates if there is an issue with an organization. In fact, on average 6-8% of requests for new certificates and renewals are declined. That means Symantec denies tens of thousands of requests every year, as...

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VeriSign Japan joins the Symantec Authentication Services team!
FranRosch | 18 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

I’m very pleased to announce that as of today Symantec has wholly acquired VeriSign Japan, a long time business partner, solidifying our investment and commitment to growing our business in Japan. This acquisition achieves three key goals that help benefit customers in the local Japanese market:

  • We will expand VeriSign Japan’s current SSL offerings by providing full website security solutions, including Website Malware Scan, Vulnerability Assessment and Seal-in-Search functionality.
  • VeriSign Japan customers now benefit from the combined resources of the existing local team and Symantec’s global expertise.
  •  Organizations in Japan are now able to acquire identity and authentication security and website security solutions through a single vendor.

By bringing our two teams together, Symantec will help enable IT to confidently and securely adopt new computing models – from cloud computing to social networking to...

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SSL for Apps
Rick Andrews | 18 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

SSL/TLS is technology that is critical for securing communications. The challenge facing the SSL ecosystem today is how it is being implemented and used. Several University researchers have recently published reports indicating errors and shortcomings in non-browser applications that act as the client of an SSL/TLS connection. These issues result from flawed implementations of SSL in the applications or in SDKs or APIs used by them. SSL Client non-browser applications should follow these best practices to ensure the high level of authentication, confidentiality and integrity promised by SSL remain intact.

A Developer must perform a number of checks, and the most important is to cryptographically validate that the end-entity certificate presented by the server is the expected certificate, or was signed by an expected certificate. In other words, the Developer must create a trusted and validated chain of certificates starting with the end-entity certificate and linking up to...

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Safe Surfing with the Green Bar
Jeannie Warner | 18 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

When your mobile or web browser address bar turns green it’s a clear sign that you can complete a transaction, or fill out an online form with confidence. The green address bar indicate that you’re on a site that has an Extended Validation (EV) certificate, a measure increasingly used by organizations to provide reassurance to customers who are wary of sharing personal information online. Sites protected by an EV certificate must pass the industry’s most stringent standards for identity validation and if the certificate is from Symantec it also protects you from malware, as these sites are scanned daily for infection.

To receive  an EV certificate, an organization  not only has to demonstrate secure encryption methods but also pass rigorous checks based on the highest industry standards to prove that it...

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Protecting digital certificates is everyone’s responsibility
FranRosch | 18 Dec 2012 | 2 comments

Yesterday Kaspersky Lab posted on their research blog that they had discovered a Trojan dropper file in the wild. The malicious code, designed to commit click fraud, was signed by a legitimately issued VeriSign code signing certificate. This was a result of private keys being compromised at one of our customers. The code signing certificate used to sign the malicious code was authenticated and issued by VeriSign to a legitimate organization. The certificate has since been revoked, as it appears that the private keys, which were controlled by the customer, have been compromised.

Allow me to emphasize that Symantec takes these situations very seriously. We’re working closely with the customer to resolve their security issue and to ensure that they are taking precautions and applying best practices for private key before we re-issue another code signing certificate to them. Symantec employs the highest levels of stringent authentication for every certificate we issue....

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Keeping Your Feet against Staggering Threats to Online Data
Michael Lin | 18 Dec 2012 | 1 comment

While presenting at the HostingCon earlier this year, some particular figures in my slide deck jumped out at me: 1) Corporations are seeing their information double every two years; and 2) Each day, 600 million emails are sent containing unencrypted confidential data. Those are staggering figures on their own. Put them together, and the need to protect sensitive data online becomes glaringly obvious.

The booming popularity of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates and Extended Validation SSL (EV SSL) Certificates reflects the recognition that people and organizations must protect themselves from worsening malware, data breaches and other IT security threats. By validating user and device identity, SSL and EV SSL...

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SSL Renegotiation Is Good. DDOS Attacks Are Bad
FranRosch | 18 Dec 2012 | 1 comment

There is a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack making news this week called THC-SSL-DOS, and it’s stirring up some discussion about the renegotiation feature of SSL. Some are saying this is a flaw in SSL. It is not. SSL renegotiation is a feature; not a flaw to be fixed. The attack is primarily another DDOS attack.

A better user experience

Renegotiation is a feature that makes it possible to adjust the parameters of an SSL handshake without requiring an entirely new SSL session. This allows for an improved user experience, a must have for most Ecommerce, media, cloud providers, and SaaS sites.

Here is just one example: a web user visits a web site that is SSL encrypted. After spending some time shopping on that site anonymously the user decides to purchase or log in. Renegotiation will allow the SSL connection with that site to adjust to authenticate the user without requiring a break in the user experience. This way, all the...

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Duqu: Protect Your Private Keys
FranRosch | 18 Dec 2012 | 0 comments

Some of the files associated with the new W32.Duqu threat were signed with a private key. After intense investigation we concluded that the private key used for signing these Duqu files was stolen from a Symantec customer whose systems appear to have been compromised. The private key was associated with a code signing certificate issued to that customer.

A Stolen Key

We take this very seriously and quickly revoked the customer code signing certificate in question. We have found no evidence of any breach to our systems and our records show that the code signing certificate was issued only after completing our rigorous customer authentication process. Our systems, roots and intermediate CAs were never at risk.

Running the world’s largest commercial cyber-intelligence network, Symantec is constantly monitoring the internet and customer environments in search of...

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