Ralph Holz

Ralph Holz, Diego Perino, Matteo Varvello et al.

In late 2017, a sudden proliferation of malicious JavaScript was reported on the Web: browser-based mining exploited the CPU time of website visitors to mine the cryptocurrency Monero. Several studies measured the deployment of such code and developed defenses. However, previous work did not establish how many users were really exposed to the identified mining sites and whether there was a real risk given common user browsing behavior. In this paper, we present a retroactive analysis to close this research gap. We pool large-scale, longitudinal data from several vantage points, gathered during the prime time of illicit cryptomining, to measure the impact on web users. We leverage data from passive traffic monitoring of university networks and a large European ISP, with suspected mining sites identified in previous active scans. We corroborate our results with data from a browser extension with a large user base that tracks site visits. We also monitor open HTTP proxies and the Tor network for malicious injection of code. We find that the risk for most Web users was always very low, much lower than what deployment scans suggested. Any exposure period was also very brief. However, we also identify a previously unknown and exploited attack vector on mobile devices.

Ralph Holz, Johanna Amann, Abbas Razaghpanah et al.

TLS 1.3 marks a significant departure from previous versions of the Transport Layer Security protocol (TLS). The new version offers a simplified protocol flow, more secure cryptographic primitives, and new features to improve performance, among other things. In this paper, we conduct the first study of TLS 1.3 deployment and use since its standardization by the IETF. We use active scans to measure deployment across more than 275M domains, including nearly 90M country-code top-level domains. We establish and investigate the critical contribution that hosting services and CDNs make to the fast, initial uptake of the protocol. We use passive monitoring at two positions on the globe to determine the degree to which users profit from the new protocol and establish the usage of its new features. Finally, we exploit data from a widely deployed measurement app in the Android ecosystem to analyze the use of TLS 1.3 in mobile networks and in mobile browsers. Our study shows that TLS 1.3 enjoys enormous support even in its early days, unprecedented for any TLS version. However, this is strongly related to very few global players pushing it into the market and sustaining its growth.

Quirin Scheitle, Oliver Gasser, Theodor Nolte et al.

In this paper, we analyze the evolution of Certificate Transparency (CT) over time and explore the implications of exposing certificate DNS names from the perspective of security and privacy. We find that certificates in CT logs have seen exponential growth. Website support for CT has also constantly increased, with now 33% of established connections supporting CT. With the increasing deployment of CT, there are also concerns of information leakage due to all certificates being visible in CT logs. To understand this threat, we introduce a CT honeypot and show that data from CT logs is being used to identify targets for scanning campaigns only minutes after certificate issuance. We present and evaluate a methodology to learn and validate new subdomains from the vast number of domains extracted from CT logged certificates.

Johann Schlamp, Ralph Holz, Quentin Jacquemart et al.

The detection of BGP prefix hijacking attacks has been the focus of research for more than a decade. However, state-of-the-art techniques fall short of detecting more elaborate types of attack. To study such attacks, we devise a novel formalization of Internet routing, and apply this model to routing anomalies in order to establish a comprehensive attacker model. We use this model to precisely classify attacks and to evaluate their impact and detectability. We analyze the eligibility of attack tactics that suit an attacker's goals and demonstrate that related work mostly focuses on less impactful kinds of attacks. We further propose, implement and test the Hijacking Event Analysis Program (HEAP), a new approach to investigate hijacking alarms. Our approachis designed to seamlessly integrate with previous work in order to reduce the high rates of false alarms inherent to these techniques. We leverage several unique data sources that can reliably disprove malicious intent. First, we make use of an Internet Routing Registry to derive business or organisational relationships between the parties involved in an event. Second, we use a topology-based reasoning algorithm to rule out events caused by legitimate operational practice. Finally, we use Internet-wide network scans to identify SSL/TLS-enabled hosts, which helps to identify non-malicious events by comparing public keys prior to and during an event. In our evaluation, we prove the effectiveness of our approach, and show that day-to-day routing anomalies are harmless for the most part. More importantly, we use HEAP to assess the validity of publicly reported alarms. We invite researchers to interface with HEAP in order to cross-check and narrow down their hijacking alerts.

Luke Anderson, Ralph Holz, Alexander Ponomarev et al.

Half a decade after Bitcoin became the first widely used cryptocurrency, blockchains are receiving considerable interest from industry and the research community. Modern blockchains feature services such as name registration and smart contracts. Some employ new forms of consensus, such as proof-of-stake instead of proof-of-work. However, these blockchains are so far relatively poorly investigated, despite the fact that they move considerable assets. In this paper, we explore three representative, modern blockchains---Ethereum, Namecoin, and Peercoin. Our focus is on the features that set them apart from the pure currency use case of Bitcoin. We investigate the blockchains' activity in terms of transactions and usage patterns, identifying some curiosities in the process. For Ethereum, we are mostly interested in the smart contract functionality it offers. We also carry out a brief analysis of issues that are introduced by negligent design of smart contracts. In the case of Namecoin, our focus is how the name registration is used and has developed over time. For Peercoin, we are interested in the use of proof-of-stake, as this consensus algorithm is poorly understood yet used to move considerable value. Finally, we relate the above to the fundamental characteristics of the underlying peer-to-peer networks. We present a crawler for Ethereum and give statistics on the network size. For Peercoin and Namecoin, we identify the relatively small size of the networks and the weak bootstrapping process.

Ralph Holz, Johanna Amann, Olivier Mehani et al.

The majority of electronic communication today happens either via email or chat. Thanks to the use of standardised protocols electronic mail (SMTP, IMAP, POP3) and instant chat (XMPP, IRC) servers can be deployed in a decentralised but interoperable fashion. These protocols can be secured by providing encryption with the use of TLS---directly or via the STARTTLS extension---and leverage X.509 PKIs or ad hoc methods to authenticate communication peers. However, many combination of these mechanisms lead to insecure deployments. We present the largest study to date that investigates the security of the email and chat infrastructures. We used active Internet-wide scans to determine the amount of secure service deployments, and passive monitoring to investigate if user agents actually use this opportunity to secure their communications. We addressed both the client-to-server interactions as well as server-to-server forwarding mechanisms that these protocols offer, and the use of encryption and authentication methods in the process. Our findings shed light on an insofar unexplored area of the Internet. The truly frightening result is that most of our communication is poorly secured in transit.