Qualys SSL Test keeps rating Google App Engine sites with B

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PK

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Sep 18, 2015, 11:49:33 PM9/18/15
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This has been reported in this public tracker about a year and a half ago (see issue 10783). Google has acknowledged the issue there but has never offered an official response. It makes conversations with customers about security difficult. Can somebody respond here and/or the bug tracker what the plans are to make us look good in this test and hopefully more secure?

(Before somebody jumps to offer Cloudflare, I know that Cloudflare or some other front end might be an option but I do not want to have traffic in the clear between that front end and Google, so I want a fix from Google.)

Thanks




Kyle Finley

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Sep 20, 2015, 12:27:51 AM9/20/15
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PK,

It looks like this issue will be resolved soon.

Disabling SSLv3 and RC4  http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2015/09/disabling-sslv3-and-rc4.html

> [..] Because of these issues we expect to disable both SSLv3 and RC4 support at Google’s frontend servers and, over time, across our products in general, including Chrome, Android, our webcrawlers and our SMTP servers.

Kyle

PK

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Sep 20, 2015, 1:50:49 AM9/20/15
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Thanks Kyle, I run into this in my news feed after I sent this. I just tested www.google.com and also scores a B.

There is probably some connection between Google’s own front end and GAE but I would like to hear from the GAE team what the plan is. I still think GAE should give more flexibility to the developer on how to configure SSL.

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Nick (Cloud Platform Support)

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Sep 21, 2015, 1:47:49 PM9/21/15
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Hey folks,

The link posted by Kyle seems to be adequate discussion from an official Google source as to the status of SSL on the platform. There are also docs which discuss the App Engine SSL options. 

Best wishes,

Nick


On Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 1:50:49 AM UTC-4, PK wrote:
Thanks Kyle, I run into this in my news feed after I sent this. I just tested www.google.com and also scores a B.

There is probably some connection between Google’s own front end and GAE but I would like to hear from the GAE team what the plan is. I still think GAE should give more flexibility to the developer on how to configure SSL.
On Sep 19, 2015, at 9:27 PM, Kyle Finley <kylef...@gmail.com> wrote:

PK,

It looks like this issue will be resolved soon.

Disabling SSLv3 and RC4  http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2015/09/disabling-sslv3-and-rc4.html

> [..] Because of these issues we expect to disable both SSLv3 and RC4 support at Google’s frontend servers and, over time, across our products in general, including Chrome, Android, our webcrawlers and our SMTP servers.

Kyle

On Friday, September 18, 2015 at 10:49:33 PM UTC-5, PK wrote:
This has been reported in this public tracker about a year and a half ago (see issue 10783). Google has acknowledged the issue there but has never offered an official response. It makes conversations with customers about security difficult. Can somebody respond here and/or the bug tracker what the plans are to make us look good in this test and hopefully more secure?

(Before somebody jumps to offer Cloudflare, I know that Cloudflare or some other front end might be an option but I do not want to have traffic in the clear between that front end and Google, so I want a fix from Google.)

Thanks





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Nick (Cloud Platform Support)

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Sep 23, 2015, 1:53:36 PM9/23/15
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...and as a follow-up to this thread, I'll say that unfortunately I can't comment on the roadmap for SSL, and probing for more information than is present in the blog post is probably not a useful path to follow. Since the post was not 100% determinate about certain time-frames, it's best to take that into account when planning your business or anticipating answers from customers. Some key things to know about RC4:
  1. We support RC4 as some older clients (e.g. IE6) do not support more modern ciphers.
  2. GAE via custom domains is getting the same treatment as www.google.com (as noted above in this thread)
  3. Our servers prefer AES over RC4 so modern clients will use strong ciphers.
  4. Modern clients use TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV to prevent downgrade attacks.
Best wishes,

Nick
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