Root Causes: A PKI and Security Podcast

A newly revealed OpenSSH vulnerability can open enterprises to remote code execution. We explain what is happening, why you should care, and what to do about it.

To combat piracy of sporting event transmissions, a French court has ordered major tech companies including Google and Cloudflare to poison DNS settings. In this episode we provide some detail and generally marvel at this strange decision.

On June 27, 2024 Google Chrome announced it was distrusting Entrust as a public CA starting November 1, 2024. We explain what to expect, go over Google's stated reasons, and share some of what lead up to this.

In this episode we are joined by Dr. Dustin Moody, leader of the NIST post-quantum cryptography contest. Dustin gives us an inside view of the background behind NIST's decision to run the contest and how we got to where we are today.

In this new conversation with Bas Westerbaan of Cloudflare, we reveal that all existing PQC systems present significant problems for incorporation into our existing ecosystems. We explain the problems with existing systems and some options for what to do about it.

Microsoft has proposed a feature called Recall that uses screen images to fuel AI-assisted capabilities. This has raised fears about the security decisions around this capability. We talk about why and how the proposed technology has resultingly changed.

In this episode we compare the advent of cryptography relevancy of quantum computers (somestimes called Y2Q) to Y2K. We uncover similarities and differences and discuss how they govern decision making between now and Y2Q.

In this episode we drill down on one aspect of the loss of more than 500 million Ticketmaster users' data, which is the use of MFA for access to the Snowflake platform.

Chrome's recent 124 release supports PQC algorithms from NIST. This has led to the discovery of software and systems that break under these circumstances. We explain what happened, why, and what to do about it.

In the most recent CA/Browser Forum face-to-face meeting, the Google Chrome root program gave a presentation clearly defining its expectations for quality of incident reporting from CAs with an eye to where many CAs have been failing. We relate Chromium's statements and their significance.

Cloudflare research engineer Bas Westerbaan joins us to share his observations about post-quantum cryptography and what it does in the real world. We talk about the pragmatic needs of moving the internet for PQC and speculate about timelines for availability of PQC certificates.

A root trust deprecation highlights new Chrome functionality that enables more agile and less disruptive distrust events. We explain the significant of this event.

Jason and I do our annual RSA wrap-up. Trending segments include AI, Trust Centers, MFA, PQC, and more.

These days we frequently discuss "the WebPKI." But what does that really mean? In this episode we define the term and explain how this definition evolved over time. We give an inventory of a main components of the WebPKI and discuss what's required to become a CA.

We take a deep dive with return guest Bruno Coulliard on HSMs and the role they play in post-quantum cryptography (PQC).

Recent court documents reveal that in 2016 Meta (then Facebook) set up a system to get around encryption and spy on traffic between its users and competing social media platforms. We explain what happened.

We discuss misuse of wildcard certificates, failure to revoke on time, and how these two failures magnify each other.

Jason has a new title, Senior Fellow. In this episode Jason explains what his new focus will be and how this will be good for Root Causes.

An epidemic of delayed revocations has infected the public CA community. We track delayed revocations since the beginning of 2021, examine the trend line, and discuss root causes.

New malware photographs users' faces to defeat authentication mechanisms. We explain the that biometrics are not "secrets" and discuss the continuing progression of attacks to steal biometrics.

A newly revealed side channel attack enables theft of private keys from M-series Apple chips. We explain.

Repeat guest Bruno Coulliard gives us an update on the US government's migration to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). We talk about the challenges to migration, the possibility of a black swan event in achieving quantum supremacy, and what happens if we all respond by pressing the "panic button" at the same time.

Inexpensive and easily obtained deepfake photographs of IDs, generated by AI, are available online. These pose a problem for KYC initiatives.

In the latest in our ongoing series of discussions of the Bugzilla Bloodbath, we delve deep into the problem of failure to revoke on time and the multiple causes that lead to this ongoing failure. And what to do about them.

If you issue public certificates that are fully compliant except that they do not reflect what your CPS says, are they misissued? Do they require revocation? This is a question with real stakes as we see multiple current instances of a CA denying revocation for that reason. In this episode we explore this issue.