What is FREAK Attack?
FREAK is a new man-in-the-middle (MITM) vulnerability discovered by a group of cryptographers at INRIA, Microsoft Research and IMDEA .
FREAK stands for “Factoring RSA-EXPORT Keys".
An attack method known as Factoring RSA Export Keys (FREAK) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker the ability to perform a man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attack, to bypass security restrictions, and to gain access to sensitive information.
The attack leverages a vulnerability in OpenSSL in which RSA temporary keys could be downgraded due to weak export cipher suites. An unauthenticated, remote attacker with the ability to perform a MiTM attack between a vulnerable client and server could exploit this vulnerability to decrypt SSL/TLS communication and gain access to sensitive information, which could be leveraged to conduct further attacks.
How it works?
The scenario works like this:
How to check for SSL FREAK Vulnerability?
$ openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443 -cipher EXPORT
A handshake failure signifies that EXPORT cipher is not active on the server and it is safe.
(or)
http://www.freakattacktest.tk/index.html
https://tools.keycdn.com/freak
Proof-of-Concept:
fig (a) As you can see there is no Handshake error
How to fix?
Upgrade the OpenSSL version to at least 1.02
Reference:
https://freakattack.com
FREAK is a new man-in-the-middle (MITM) vulnerability discovered by a group of cryptographers at INRIA, Microsoft Research and IMDEA .
FREAK stands for “Factoring RSA-EXPORT Keys".
An attack method known as Factoring RSA Export Keys (FREAK) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker the ability to perform a man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attack, to bypass security restrictions, and to gain access to sensitive information.
The attack leverages a vulnerability in OpenSSL in which RSA temporary keys could be downgraded due to weak export cipher suites. An unauthenticated, remote attacker with the ability to perform a MiTM attack between a vulnerable client and server could exploit this vulnerability to decrypt SSL/TLS communication and gain access to sensitive information, which could be leveraged to conduct further attacks.
FREAK Attack VIDEO
How it works?
The scenario works like this:
- Vulnerable client sends plaintext ClientHello message containing supported ciphersuites, none of which is EXPORT.
- Attacker intercepts the ClientHello and replaces the ciphersuites with EXPORT ones.
- The server selects one of the EXPORT ciphersuites and responds with the reduced-length export key. If the server is not configured to use EXPORT ciphersuites, then it issues a fatal alert instead, and the connection stops.
- The attacker modifies the ServerHello response to replace the EXPORT ciphersuite with the non-export version, but leaves the weak key alone.
- Because of the bug, the client accepts the export key and negotiates a weakened TLS connection.
How to check for SSL FREAK Vulnerability?
$ openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443 -cipher EXPORT
A handshake failure signifies that EXPORT cipher is not active on the server and it is safe.
(or)
http://www.freakattacktest.tk/index.html
https://tools.keycdn.com/freak
Proof-of-Concept:
fig (b) Handshake failure indicates that Export cipher is disabled
How to fix?
Upgrade the OpenSSL version to at least 1.02
Reference:
https://freakattack.com
