No domain left behind:

Transcription

1 No domain left behind: is Let s Encrypt democratizing encryption? Maarten Aertsen 1, Maciej Korczyński 2, Giovane C. M. Moura 3, Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob 2, Jan van den Berg 2 1 National Cyber Security Centre The Netherlands 2 Delft University of Technology The Netherlands 3 SIDN Labs The Netherlands IETF98 - IRTF - MAPRG Chicago, IL, April 28th, 217 1/18

2 Disclaimer None of the authors is in any way affiliated with Let s Encrypt In other words: we do not speak for them But if you like their work, you may consider supporting them 2/18

3 The Encryption Rush Ed Snowden NSA s revelations Massive, widespread surveillance Worst nightmares came true 3/18

4 The Encryption Rush Ed Snowden NSA s revelations Consequences: For many, it was a wake-up call (and panic) Market distrust in vendors Provided a great momentum for better security Massive, widespread surveillance Worst nightmares came true Reactions: IETF: RFC 7258, RFC 7624 ios/android: mobile phone encryption by default Cloud providers enabling encryption everywhere... 3/18

5 More than half of web traffic is encrypted nowadays Yet that leaves out a lot of people without HTTPS Firefox telemetry 1 Chrome telemetry based on Let s Encrypt stats page 2 4/18

6 Certificates are required for encryption on the web Barriers to ubiquitous web encryption (X.59 cert): Cost: purchase, deployment and renewal Complexity: request, deployment (at scale) Let s Encrypt 3 aims to make encrypted traffic ubiquitous Issue and re-issue costs: $. Complexity mitigated by automation 1. ACME protocol 4 2. and clients, e.g. Certbot draft-ietf-acme-acme-latest /18

7 No domain left behind Is Let s Encrypt democratizing encryption? Research question In its first year of certificate issuance, has Let s Encrypt been successful in democratizing encryption? Approach: measurements Analyze issuance in the first year of Let s Encrypt Show adoption trend from various perspectives Analyze coverage for the lower-cost end of the market 6/18

8 Methodology Period covered: Sept (1st year) Results based on FQDNs reduced to 2LD/3LD form Datasets a.b.c.d.com d.com Certificates Certificate transparency 6 Domain to IP mapping Farsight DNSDB 7 Organization mapping Registration info Methodology from previous work 8, using whois data & Maxmind GEOIP2.nl registry (SIDN) S. Tajalizadehkhoob et al., Apples, oranges and hosting providers: heterogeneity and security in the hosting market, IEEE NOMS 216 7/18

9 Let s Encrypt Adoption Rate Steady growth unique certified domains 14M 12M 1M 8M 6M 4M 2M FQDNs (absolute) domains (absolute) domains (relative) 1%.1%.1% Sep '15 Nov '15 Jan '16 Mar '16 May '16 Jul '16 Sep '16 1% % of DNSDB 8/18

10 Who s using Let s Encrypt? 98% of certificates are issued outside Alexa 1M... % of total usage of Let's Encrypt 1% 1% 1%.1%.1%.1% Alexa 1M Alexa 1k Alexa 1k Alexa 1k Sep '15 Nov '15 Jan '16 Mar '16 May '16 Jul '16 Sep '16 9/18

11 Who s using Let s Encrypt?... yet issuance is not restricted to lower end of the market meaning: big players also use in their subdomains % of domains using Let's Encrypt 2% 15% 1% 5% % Alexa 1M Alexa 1k Alexa 1k Alexa 1k DNSDB Sep '15 Nov '15 Jan '16 Mar '16 May '16 Jul '16 Sep '16 1/18

12 Growth is attributed to adoption by major players 3 hosting providers are responsible for 47% of the Let s Encrypt certified domains November K known domains 127M Let's Encrypt domains organisations 6K 11/18

13 Growth is attributed to adoption by major players 3 hosting providers are responsible for 47% of the Let s Encrypt certified domains November 215 September K known domains 127M 4.4M known domains 25M Let's Encrypt domains Let's Encrypt domains organisations 6K organisations 66K 11/18

14 Growth is attributed to adoption by major players 3 hosting providers are responsible for 47% of the Let s Encrypt certified domains November 215 September K known domains 127M Let's Encrypt domains organisations 6K Automation works!! 11/18

15 Issuance is dominantly for web hosting So far, no surprises % of Let's Encrypt domains 1% 8% 6% 4% 2% % Sep '16 Aug '16 Jul '16 Jun '16 May '16 Apr '16 Mar '16 Feb '16 Jan '16 Dec '15 Nov '15 Oct '15 Sep '15 unknown cdn isp hosting other parking edu ddos-protection gov 12/18

16 Over 9% of domains in hosting are on shared hosting Issuance is dominantly for the lower-cost end of the market Shared hosting = 1 domains/ip 9 Let s Encrypt reaches those with less incentive to encrypt % of LE domains in hosting 1% 8% 6% 4% 2% % Sep '16 Aug '16 Jul '16 Jun '16 May '16 Apr '16 Mar '16 Feb '16 Jan '16 Dec '15 Nov '15 Oct '15 Sep '15 shared hosting non-shared hosting 9 S. Tajalizadehkhoob et al., Apples, oranges and hosting providers: heterogeneity and security in the hosting market, IEEE NOMS /18

17 Let s Encrypt certificates are valid for 9 days The majority of certificates are correctly renewed after their first expiration Fraction of FQDN coverage days since initial issuance of certificate continuous gap 1 week 14/18

18 Let s Encrypt : domain age use Case study:.nl Determine the age of the domain when the cert was issued Domain Age (Years) domain age certificate # Sep '15 Nov '15 Jan '16 Mar '16 May '16 Jul '16 Sep '16 Median, Q25, Q75 and number of monthly new certificates for.nl domains Monthly New Certs (K) 15/18

19 Let s Encrypt : deployment https scans + cert processing (lower bound) 25K randomly chosen Let s Encrypt FQDN 2k 15k 1583 FQDN 1k 5k nodns http46error notls snierror tlsok-notle tlsok-le-expired tlsok-le-ok 16/18

20 Conclusions We show that Let s Encrypt has been a success Reduces costs & complexity Democratize encryption by covering low cost end of the market (shared hosting) but big players also use it Automation works: Let s Encrypt s allows for bulk issuing 3 hosting providers are responsible for 47% of the Let s Encrypt certified domains The majority of certificates are correctly renewed after their first expiration (9 days) And find that Let s Encrypt has indeed started to democratize encryption. 17/18

21 Future work Future work extend measurement period issued versus deployed active scans on shared hosting require prior knowledge of domains served (SNI) use by malicious actors Contact details Giovane C. M. Moura Download our paper at: 18/18