The text:

Looks like I don't have to stay quiet about this one anymore...

I found out about this problem... and others related to it... back in early 2015. I warned Symantec about it, and worked through some of the issues with them.

At the end of it, they asked for a chance to fix it... and we both agreed it would take up to two years to fix, without creating more chaos and causing more damage... and I said yes.

I agreed to limited non-disclosure of the issue, unless I felt it was critically necessary, or it would be unethical or irresponsible for me not to disclose (for example, if there were a threat to national security, or I discovered a compromise of a client, or any actual criminal compromise arising from it, etc... etc...).

That said, I informed Krebs and a few others about what I had found... and also that I agreed to let them fix it, because it would be less damaging to the world, than exposure would be.

It was one of those issues where there's no GOOD choice... but I looked at the damage immediate exposure would cause, vs. a slowly rolling fix over two years...

I talked to some of my friends on the grey and black sides of things, and did my own checking, to see if there was any chatter about this anywhere, and I couldn't find any... and I concluded that more harm would be done if I disclosed.

Fellow security professional Bobby Kuzma helped me investigate and validate these issues, and he can verify what I state here.

I checked a few months later, and they HAD fixed several of the core problems... though not all of them... So I waited, and so did those who I had informed about the problem, and had verified it for themselves...

Unfortunately, late in 2015, my cancer recurred, and spread to my lymph nodes... and I've been fighting it ever since, so I haven't kept up with the issue.

So... Here's what the post doesn't mention...

If you purchased a Symantec certificate (or a cert from any of their associated subsidiaries and partners) through a third party, from at least as far back as early 2013 until recently; their third party delivery API allowed those certificates... including private keys... to be retrieved without proper authentication, or in some cases any authentication at all. Unless the third party added proper security around it, all you had to do was click a link sent in email, and you could retrieve a cert, revoke a cert, and re-issue a cert.

Further, even with first party purchase, for some time in some web interfaces, it was possible for properly authenticated users to edit a URL, and retrieve the certs (including private keys) of other authenticated users.

When I agreed not to disclose the problem until it was fixed or otherwise publicly disclosed, Symantec commited to finding and replacing all of the certificates which MAY have been impacted, and then replace them... that they would do so within six months for every cert they could identify, and within two years for every cert period.

Given Googles experience and actions here, it appears that Symantec did not fix these issues as they committed to. They revoked and reissued many thousands of certs, but nowhere near all of them. Further, though the interfaces I knew about were fixed, they apparently did not fix their core API issues, and thus this critical issue remained... and may still remain... I haven't attempted to verify again recently... and third party purchased symantec certs may still be subject to compromise in this manner.

So, at this point, I will publicly disclose what I know about the issue, and release anyone I shared the details of the issue with to do so as well.

My STRONG recommendation, is that anyone who purchased a Symantec certificate from a third party, revoke that cert and have it re-issued... either directly by Symantec, or simply revoking and having another trusted CA issue a different cert... as soon as they are able to do so.

As to first party certificates... I don't know and have not been able to validate how extensive the exposure was, through which interfaces, etc... I do know that they fixed the specific issues that I found in the specific interfacecs I was able to validate, within six months as they agreed to. That said... It would be safer to revoke and re-issue, given the problems that Google themselves identified.

As to end users... I would be extremely wary of any site with a symantec cert issued before late 2016, and take some extra caution regarding any symantec cert period.