Subject: Security Scenario (understanding problem)

From: [email-masked] (Stefan Hans)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 17:01:50 +0100

Hi *,

imagine the following scenario:

Server: has its own private/public-key pair
Client: has the public-key of the server
Man-in-the-middle: has the public-key of the server

If the client asks the server for a secure connection, the server starts its
handshake by sending a suggestion of a private-private-key encryption
(encrypted with its private-key).

Right so far?

Is it possible for the man-in-the-middle to eavesdrop the handshake sequence
of server and client, to decrypt it with the servers public-key and to get
the private-key of the server-client SSL session for a man-in-the-middle
attack?

In other words, is it possible to etablish a secure connection in this
scenario at all events or do one need necessarily a private/public-key pair
on the client-side?

Thx in advance

Stefan Hans

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From: Rich Salz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 18:14:47 -0500

> (encrypted with its private-key).

No.  Totally wrong.

Suggest you read more about the protocol details.  A key (sic) point is
that the client helps generate the session key, encrypted in the
server's public key.
	/r$
-- 
Zolera Systems, Securing web services (XML, SOAP, Signatures,
Encryption)
http://www.zolera.com
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