The certificates were issued by certificate authority eMudhra. According to Mozilla's investigation, their private keys were all numbers below 256, making them almost instantly recoverable. Attackers could use the affected website certificate keys to create fraudulent certificates that vulnerable software would trust.
Apple introduced the blocks on October 19, according to an advisory from Mozilla cryptography engineer Dennis Jackson. These protections stop software using Apple's system checks from trusting the compromised certificates.
Jackson says Safari and other major browsers had additional certificate checks that would have prevented attacks through this route. Whether attackers exploited other software remains unknown.
Apple has already distributed blocks for the compromised certificates. Mac users who use the affected command-line tools can find tests and mitigation instructions on Jackson's website.
Tag: Cybersecurity
This article, "Apple Blocks Certificates That Could Help Attackers Fake Websites" first appeared on MacRumors.com
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