Certificate echoing for session security

• US 10,298,404 B1
• Filed: 12/12/2014
• Issued: 05/21/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Behm, Bradley Jeffery, Roth, Gregory Branchek, Rubin, Gregory Alan
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Ashokkumar B
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jones, William B
• Application Number:
  US14/569,608
• Time in Patent Office: 1,621 Days
• Field of Search: 713176
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823

Abstract

A client establishes a cryptographically protected communications session with a server. To detect a man-in-the-middle, the client echoes information about a certificate purportedly received from the server. The information echoed by the client is digitally signed so as to be verifiable by the server without any cryptographic key used in the cryptographically protected communications session or its establishment, thereby rendering the echoed information unmodifiable by a man-in-the-middle without invalidating the signature. The server can therefore verify both the echoed information and the digital signature to determine whether it has established a cryptographically protected communications session with the client or with a man-in-the-middle purporting to be the client.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

under the control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

providing a first digital certificate as part of performing, in accordance with a handshake protocol, a handshake process to establish a cryptographically protected communications session of an encrypted communications protocol that includes the handshake protocol and a record protocol;

receiving, over the established cryptographically protected communications session, a set of encrypted records;

decrypting the set of records to obtain information indicating a second digital certificate and a digital signature;

determining, based at least in part on the information indicating the second digital certificate, that the first digital certificate is the same as the second digital certificate;

determining, based at least in part on the information indicating the second digital certificate and a cryptographic key associated with a client computer system, that the digital signature is valid; and

as a result of both the first digital certificate being the same as the second digital certificate and the digital signature being valid, providing data over the cryptographically protected communications session that would have been excluded from transmission over the cryptographically protected communications session as a result of either the first digital certificate being different from the second digital certificate or the digital signature being invalid.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing the first digital certificate as part of performing, in accordance with the handshake protocol, the handshake process to establish a second cryptographically protected communications session of the encrypted communications protocol that includes the handshake protocol and the record protocol;

receiving, over the established cryptographically protected communications session, a second set of encrypted records;

decrypting the second set of records to obtain information indicating a third digital certificate and a second digital signature;

determining, based at least in part on the information indicating the third digital certificate and a cryptographic key associated with a second client computer system, that the second digital signature is invalid; and

performing one or more mitigating actions as a result of the second digital signature being invalid.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the second digital certificate is a cryptographic hash of at least a subset of data contained in the second digital certificate.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing the first digital certificate as part of performing, in accordance with the handshake protocol, the handshake process to establish a second cryptographically protected communications session of the encrypted communications protocol that includes the handshake protocol and the record protocol;

receiving, over the established cryptographically protected communications session, a second set of encrypted records;

decrypting the second set of records to obtain information indicating a third digital certificate and a second digital signature;

determining, based at least in part on the information indicating the third digital certificate, that the third digital certificate is different from the first digital certificate; and

performing one or more mitigating actions as a result of the third digital certificate being different from the first digital certificate.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

the information indicating the second digital certificate is a parameter of a request whose fulfillment includes providing the data; and

determining whether the digital signature is valid is further based at least in part on the request.

6. A system, comprising at least one computing device configured to implement one or more services, the one or more services configured to:

receive, outside of a handshake used to establish a cryptographically protected communications session, a digital signature and information indicating the cryptographically protected communications session and information indicating a digital certificate;

determine, based at least in part on the information indicating the digital certificate, whether the indicated digital certificate matches a digital certificate provided to establish the cryptographically protected communications session;

determine, based at least in part on the information indicating the digital certificate and a cryptographic key associated with a client before the cryptographically protected communications session was established, whether the digital signature is valid; and

perform one or more mitigating actions if either the indicated digital signature fails to match the provided digital certificate or the digital signature is invalid.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein:

the information indicating the digital certificate is a parameter of a request;

the one or more services are configured to determine whether the digital signature is valid further based at least in part on the request; and

the one or more services are further configured such that the indicated digital certificate matching the provided digital certificate and the digital signature being valid are prerequisites for fulfillment of the request.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein:

the information indicating the digital certificate is a parameter of a request; and

the one or more services are configured to;

generate a response to the request based at least in part on whether the indicated digital certificate matches the provided digital certificate and whether the digital signature is valid; and

digitally sign the generated response using a cryptographic key different from any cryptographic key used for the cryptographically protected communications session.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein:

the request is a request whose fulfillment involves providing data identified in the request; and

the one or more services are configured to include the data in the response.

10. The system of claim 6, wherein the one or more services are further configured to, as a result of both the indicated digital certificate matching the provided digital certificate and the digital signature being valid, providing access to data.

11. The system of claim 6, wherein the one or more mitigating actions include at least one of terminating the cryptographically protected communications session, logging information about an entity with which the cryptographically protected communications session was established, transmitting one or more notifications, adding information about the entity with which the cryptographically protected communications session was established to a blacklist, or updating a routing advertisement.

12. The system of claim 6, wherein the cryptographically protected communications session is a transport layer security session.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computer system, cause the computer system to at least:

receive a digital certificate as part of a process for establishing a cryptographically protected communications session;

determine information that is specific to the digital certificate;

generate a digital signature based at least in part on the determined information specific to the digital certificate and a cryptographic key registered with another computer system outside of establishment of the cryptographically protected communications session; and

provide the digital signature and the information that is specific to the digital certificate over the cryptographically protected communications session after the cryptographically protected communication session is established.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein:

the instructions further comprise instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to generate a request that includes the determined information;

the digital signature is generated based at least in part on the request; and

the instructions that cause the computer system to provide the information specific to the digital certificate, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to submit the request.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to:

receive a response to the request with a digital signature of the response;

verify whether the digital signature of the response is valid based at least in part on the response, the digital signature of the response, and a cryptographic key obtained outside of establishment of the cryptographically protected communications session; and

operate in accordance with whether the digital signature of the response is verified as valid.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the cryptographic key registered with the other computer system and the cryptographic key obtained outside of establishment of the cryptographically protected communications session are the same.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to:

store, in a cache, information corresponding to whether the digital signature is verified as valid; and

use the stored information to validate a future cryptographically protected communications session.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the cache is shared among multiple computer systems that include the computer system.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein:

the instructions further include instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to check a cache for the determined information specific to the digital certificate; and

the instructions that cause the computer system to generate the digital signature and the instructions to provide the information specific to the digital certificate are configured to be executed if execution of the instructions that cause the computer system to check the cache results in a cache miss.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the information specific to the digital certificate comprises the digital certificate.