[Servercert-wg] Discussion Period Begins - Ballot SC-080 V2: "Sunset the use of WHOIS to identify Domain Contacts and relying DCV Methods”

Wed Oct 2 14:09:26 UTC 2024

Hi Ryan 

Thank you for your swift response. I missed that when (too) quickly took first glance on it. Yes this is just fine like you’ve drafted it, my bad. 

//Antti 

From: Ryan Dickson <ryandickson at google.com>
Date: Wednesday, 2. October 2024 at 16.06
To: Backman, Antti <antti.backman at teliacompany.com>
Cc: CA/B Forum Server Certificate WG Public Discussion List <servercert-wg at cabforum.org>
Subject: Re: [Servercert-wg] Discussion Period Begins - Ballot SC-080 V2: "Sunset the use of WHOIS to identify Domain Contacts and relying DCV Methods” 

Hi Antti,

Thanks for your comment.

The proposed update contains an entry in the “Relevant Dates" Table that presents the following information:

Compliance: 2025-01-15
Sections: 3.2.2.4
Summary Description (See Full Text for Details): CAs MUST NOT rely on HTTPS websites to identify Domain Contact information. RFC 3912 and RFC 7482 MUST NOT be used to validate Domain Contact information of FQDNs containing a ccTLD. CAs MUST rely on IANA resources for identifying gTLD Domain Contact information.

In my opinion, the above offers a summary-level description of the detailed changes offered in Sections 3.2.2.4.2, 3.2.2.4.12, and 3.2.2.4.15. 

If you have specific changes you’d like to suggest, please share them for the group’s consideration.

Thanks!

- Ryan 

On Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at 1:21 AM Backman, Antti <antti.backman at teliacompany.com <mailto:antti.backman at teliacompany.com>> wrote: 

Hi, 

As per my quick initial review of this ballot, one question / comment. 

Should the relevant dates list the changes made to 3.2.2.4.12 coming effective Jan 15th, 2025? I believe the changes in the section are very relevant to CAs? 

//Antti 

From: Servercert-wg <servercert-wg-bounces at cabforum.org <_blank>> on behalf of Ryan Dickson via Servercert-wg <servercert-wg at cabforum.org <_blank>>
Date: Tuesday, 1. October 2024 at 19.59
To: ServerCert CA/BF <servercert-wg at cabforum.org <_blank>>
Subject: [Servercert-wg] Discussion Period Begins - Ballot SC-080 V2: "Sunset the use of WHOIS to identify Domain Contacts and relying DCV Methods” 

Purpose of Ballot SC-080 V2:
This ballot proposes updates to the Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted TLS Server Certificates (TLS BRs) to address concerns regarding the use of WHOIS and HTTPS websites for identifying Domain Contacts.

Background:
This ballot intends to accomplish two objectives, originally described in [1].

Objective 1: Enhance WHOIS/RDAP validation of gTLDs with comparable security properties to DNS-based validation and sunset WHOIS/RDAP for ccTLDs.

Justification: 

* A recent disclosure [2] demonstrated how threat actors could exploit deficiencies in the WHOIS protocol and WHOIS tools served via HTTPS websites to obtain fraudulent TLS certificates. 
* Discussions within the Mozilla Dev Security Policy (MDSP) community [3] further expressed corresponding risks related to WHOIS, while also noting that ccTLDs may not maintain accurate or up-to-date WHOIS server records. Several examples of inoperative WHOIS servers for ccTLDs were identified. 
* Discussion in [4] further called into question the reliability of ccTLD WHOIS servers given, per IANA, there is no global policy requirement for ccTLD managers to operate a WHOIS server, and if they do, what kind of information is provided. 
* Solutions to strengthen existing WHOIS lookup methods were proposed in [5] and are considered in this ballot. 

Objective 2: Sunset Methods 3.2.2.4.2 (“Email, Fax, SMS, or Postal Mail to Domain Contact”) and 3.2.2.4.15 (“Phone Contact with Domain Contact”).

Justification: 

* While solutions to strengthen WHOIS-relying DCV methods are considered in this ballot (see above), there is limited public evidence of significant reliance on these methods, including in response to [3] and [6]. 
* Instead, discussion has identified at least one CA Owner has already sunset reliance on WHOIS [7], and another that has changed its approach [8] for relying on WHOIS since disclosure of [2]. 
* More modern and heavily relied-upon DCV methods offer advantages over the existing WHOIS-based methods, including greater opportunity for seamless certificate lifecycle management automation (e.g., [9] and [10]), while also benefiting from recently improved security practices [11]. These methods can also more effectively align subscriber capabilities with agility and resilience expectations necessary to respond to the revocation timelines described in the TLS BRs [12]. 
* Beyond the above, previous discussions within the CA/Browser Forum have raised concerns about the perceived value (e.g., [13]) and security (e.g., [14]) of the DCV methods relying on WHOIS, further supporting the rationale for their gradual sunset. 

Benefits of adoption: 

* Enhanced Security: Eliminates reliance on outdated and vulnerable DCV methods that cannot consistently provide the security required by the TLS BRs, or benefit from recent DCV security enhancements (i.e., Multi-Perspective Issuance Corroboration [11]). 
* Increased Agility: Encourages site owners to transition to modern DCV methods, creating opportunities for faster, more efficient, and less error-prone certificate lifecycle management. 
* Opportunity for Innovation: Promotes the development of new and/or improved DCV methods, fostering innovation that may enhance the overall security and agility of the ecosystem. 

Proposed Key Dates: 

The effective dates considered in this update are intended to 1) address the immediate concerns identified by [2], and 2) offer near-term and longer-term transition periods for subscribers and CA Owners relying on existing implementations of these methods. 

* January 15, 2025: (1) Prohibit the use of RFC 3912 (WHOIS) and HTTPS websites to identify Domain Contact information. (2) Prohibit the reuse of DCV relying on information obtained using these technologies. (3) Prohibit WHOIS-based DCV methods for Subscriber Certificates containing ccTLDs. (4) CAs MUST NOT rely on cached WHOIS/RDAP data more than 48 hours old. 
* July 15, 2025: (1) Sunset DCV Methods 3.2.2.4.2 ("Email, Fax, SMS, or Postal Mail to Domain Contact") and 3.2.2.4.15 ("Phone Contact with Domain Contact"). (2) Prior validations using these methods and validation data gathered therein MUST NOT be used to issue new Subscriber Certificates. 

Proposal Revision History: 

* Pre-Ballot Version #1 [4] 
* Ballot Version #1 [7] 
* Version #2 Pre-Release [17] and discussion [18] 
* Version #2 (this version) [19] 

The following motion has been proposed by Ryan Dickson and Chris Clements of Google (Chrome Root Program) and endorsed by Arvid Vermote (GlobalSign) and Pedro Fuentes (OISTE). 

— Motion Begins —

This ballot modifies the “Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted TLS Server Certificates” (“Baseline Requirements”), based on Version 2.0.7.

MODIFY the Baseline Requirements as specified in the following Redline:

https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/compare/ba28d04894d69c8fac62850b9d0de5061658c7c5..7f2b54cfa5b89f41458a88211566ce508c464804 <_blank> 

— Motion Ends —

This ballot proposes a Final Maintenance Guideline. The procedure for approval of this ballot is as follows:

Discussion (no less than 7 days) 

* Start: 2024-10-01 17:00:00 UTC 
* End no earlier than: 2024-10-08 17:00:00 UTC 

Vote for approval (7 days) 

* Start: TBD 
* End: TBD 

Comments are welcome either on-list or with suggested edits via GitHub (preferred) at [19]. 

Thanks, 

Ryan 

References: 
[1] https://archive.cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2024-September/004900.html <_blank>
[2] https://labs.watchtowr.com/we-spent-20-to-achieve-rce-and-accidentally-became-the-admins-of-mobi/ <_blank>
[3] https://groups.google.com/a/mozilla.org/g/dev-security-policy/c/FuOi_uhQB6U/m/hKJOz3XzAAAJ <_blank>
[4] https://groups.google.com/a/mozilla.org/g/dev-security-policy/c/mAl9XjieSkA/m/oDNWxtPwAQAJ <_blank>
[5] https://archive.cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2024-September/004839.html <_blank>
[6] https://archive.cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2024-September/004844.html <_blank>
[7] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-certificate-manager-will-discontinue-whois-lookup-for-email-validated-certificates/ <_blank>
[8] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1917896 <_blank>
[9] https://cabforum.org/working-groups/server/baseline-requirements/requirements/#32247-dns-change <_blank>
[10] https://cabforum.org/working-groups/server/baseline-requirements/requirements/#322419-agreed-upon-change-to-website---acme <_blank>
[11] https://cabforum.org/working-groups/server/baseline-requirements/requirements/#3229-multi-perspective-issuance-corroboration <_blank>
[12] https://cabforum.org/working-groups/server/baseline-requirements/requirements/#491-circumstances-for-revocation <_blank>
[13] https://archive.cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2018-August/000113.html <_blank>
[14] https://lists.cabforum.org/pipermail/validation/2024-July/001995.html <_blank>
[15] https://archive.cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/2024-September/004825.html <_blank>
[16] https://github.com/ryancdickson/staging/compare/356799f0dcfe11deb0a375a11233403236ab72c9..7a2ea7b33611bebf006a99a9a82729f183143eac <_blank>
[17] https://github.com/ryancdickson/staging/compare/ba28d04894d69c8fac62850b9d0de5061658c7c5..7a2ea7b33611bebf006a99a9a82729f183143eac <_blank>
[18] https://github.com/ryancdickson/staging/pull/9 <_blank>
[19] https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/pull/551 <_blank> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/attachments/20241002/b889ce48/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 8358 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.cabforum.org/pipermail/servercert-wg/attachments/20241002/b889ce48/attachment-0001.bin>