Subject: [websec] #5: Clarify need for IncludeSubDomains

From: "websec issue tracker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:15:12 -0000

#5: Clarify need for IncludeSubDomains

 Yes, this is an unfortunate consequence of the way cookies work.
 Suppose you wanted to protect the confidentiality of a Secure cookie
 (i.e., a cookie with the Secure flag set), which, actually, is the
 primary use case for the header.  Further suppose that this cookie is
 a domain cookie (e.g., set for the entire example.com domain).  Now,
 if the attacker causes the browser to request
 https://aiodsfnuiasnis.example.com/, then:

 1) We're unlikely to have the HSTS policy bit for
 aiodsfnuiasnis.example.com.
 2) The request for https://aiodsfnuiasnis.example.com will include the
 Secure cookie.

 If the attacker then substitutes his certificate, the user will be
 able to click through the certificate error, which lets the attacker
 obtain the cookie we're trying to protect.

 If we remove the "includeSubDomains" directive, that means sites can't
 use HSTS to protect domain cookies.

-- 
-------------------------------------------+--------------------------------
 Reporter:  jeff.hodges@…                  |       Owner:  =JeffH
     Type:  defect                         |      Status:  new   
 Priority:  major                          |   Milestone:        
Component:  strict-transport-sec           |     Version:        
 Severity:  -                              |    Keywords:        
-------------------------------------------+--------------------------------

Ticket URL: <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/websec/trac/ticket/5>
websec <http://tools.ietf.org/websec/>