Hackers stole Google SSL certificate, Dutch firm admits

Chrome and Firefox face updates, Microsoft blacklists firm’s certs in Windows 7 and Vista, but not XP

Computerworld – The Dutch company that issued a rogue digital certificate for all Google Internet domains said today that its network had been hacked last month Microsoft 70-640 Training .”

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DigiNotar, a Dutch certificate authority (CA) that was acquired earlier this year by Chicago-based Vasco, said it was unaware of the breach for more than a week and had overlooked the in-the-wild Google certificate for over a month.

Multiple SSL (secure socket layer) certificates were stolen in the July hack, said DigiNotar.

“On July 19, 2011, DigiNotar detected an intrusion into its Certificate Authority (CA) infrastructure, which resulted in the fraudulent issuance of public key certificate requests for a number of domains, including Google.com,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

“At that time, an external security audit concluded that all fraudulently issued certificates were revoked. Recently, it was discovered that at least one fraudulent certificate had not been revoked at the time,” said DigiNotar, referring to the certificate valid for all Google properties.

The company did not provide any additional information about the intrusion, such as the origin of the attack or the number of certificates that had been issued to the intruders. DigiNotar has not replied to Computerworld’s questions.

Today, however, a DigiNotar spokesman told Jeremy Kirk of the IDG News Service — like Computerworld, part of IDG — that “several dozen” certificates had been generated by the hackers.

DigiNotar’s timeline shows that the company was unaware of the hack for over a week: The Google certificate was issued July 10, according to information posted to Pastebin.com last Saturday. DigiNotar did not revoke the Google certificate until Monday, Aug. 29.

Fraudulently-acquired certificates are dangerous because they can be used by criminals to conduct “man-in-the-middle” attacks targeting users of legitimate online services and websites. The fake Google certificate, for example, was used by attackers to target Iranian users of the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant’s services, Google said late Monday.

The DigiNotar hack was the second breach of a certificate-issuing firm since March, when Comodo admitted that hackers had used an account assigned to a company partner in southern Europe.to acquire nine certificates for some of the Web’s biggest sites, including Google and Gmail, Microsoft, Skype and Yahoo Microsoft Free MCTS Training and MCTS Online Training.

Initially, Comodo argued that Iran’s government may have been involved in the theft. Days later, however, a solo Iranian hacker claimed responsibility for stealing the SSL certificates.

On Monday, Google pointed a finger at Iran in the DigiNotar hack, saying that attacks using the ill-gotten certificate had targeted Iranian users.

Over the past 24 hours, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla have taken steps to block the rogue certificate.

Google will update Chrome “very soon,” said a company spokesman today, to block all DigiNotar-issued certificates “while investigations continue.”

Microsoft's 5 biggest weaknesses

Search, mobile devices, the Web and even the desktop represent challenges for Redmond

For all its success as the world's biggest maker of PC operating systems and office programs, Microsoft's position as the dominant provider of software to consumers is at risk.

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While Windows still powers the vast majority of desktops and laptops, the emergence of mobile devices and increasing reliance on the Internet have shown consumers and businesses alike that much of what we call personal computing can be done without touching a single Microsoft product.

COMPETITION: Microsoft's top 12 rivals

Microsoft is still a giant, with $70 billion in annual revenue and an amazing 11 products that earn at least $1 billion a year. But it faces challenges in search, Web browsing, mobile devices, Web server software, and even the desktop operating system market.

In this article, we will examine what we think are Microsoft's five biggest weaknesses, a list we came up with in conjunction with the analyst firm Directions on Microsoft. We provided the list and supporting facts to Microsoft's public relations firm on Aug. 15. Microsoft declined to make executives available for interviews, but provided responses to some of our questions via email. We'll include Microsoft responses at the end of each section.
1. Search

Let's start with the easy one. If you use the word "Google" as a verb, you know how far Microsoft's own Bing search engine has to travel before it can be called a success. Microsoft's earnings reports break the business down into five product divisions, and the Online Services Division powered by Bing and MSN is the only one that consistently loses money, including $2.6 billion lost over the past 12 months.

Bing, which also powers Yahoo and offers a fancy iPad app, often gets high marks in studies that rate the effectiveness of search engines, yet Google captures about two-thirds of U.S. market share and more than 80% of the global market.

Microsoft rarely masks its hatred of all things Google, which makes most of its money on search advertising while investing in other products that eat into Microsoft market share, like Chrome and Android.

But with Bing, "They're so far behind, it's a long slog," says Wes Miller, a former Microsoft Windows program manager who is now research vice president at Directions on Microsoft. "People innately think of Google for search. How do you replace Kleenex? They're going to have to keep burning money for the foreseeable future until they can come up with something that out-Googles Google."

Microsoft cares about search because of advertising revenue, and also because Google has become synonymous with the Internet in almost the same way Microsoft became synonymous with personal computers.

Microsoft's response: "This is a long-term game for Bing," Microsoft said via email. "Bing continues to be focused on creating a great consumer experience, solid execution and steady market share growth. The most recent comScore market share report shows that Bing is continuing to make gains in the U.S., reaching 14.4 percent explicit core search share in June. Overall, Bing increased market share by more than 50 percent since launch."

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