Google have made a final decision on the various dates they plan to
implement as part of the consensus plan in the Symantec matter. The
message from blink-dev is included below.

Most of the dates have consensus - the dates for Symantec to implement
the Managed CA infrastructure are agreed by all, and the date for final
distrust of the old Symantec PKI is agreed by Google and Mozilla (to
within a week, at any rate). I proposed November 1st 2018. Google has
gone for October 23rd 2018; in practical terms, we would implement that
using Firefox 63 (October 16th) or 64 (November 27th).

However, there is some difference in the proposals for the date on which
browsers should dis-trust Symantec certificates issued before June 1st,
2016. This date is significant because after that, Symantec have been
required to log all their certs to CT and so there is much better
transparency of issuance practice. I proposed December 1st 2017. Google
strongly considered late January, but have finally chosen April 17th 2018.

We now have two choices. We can accept the Google date for ourselves, or
we can decide to implement something earlier. Implementing something
earlier would involve us leading on compatibility risk, and so would
need to get wider sign-off from within Mozilla, but nevertheless I would
like to get the opinions of the m.d.s.p community.

I would like to make a decision on this matter on or before July 31st,
as Symantec have asked for dates to be nailed down by then in order for
them to be on track with their Managed CA implementation timetable. If
no alternative decision is taken and communicated here and to Symantec,
the default will be that we will accept Google's final proposal as a
consensus date.

Gerv

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:         Re: [blink-dev] Intent to Deprecate and Remove: Trust in
existing Symantec-issued Certificates
Date:         Thu, 27 Jul 2017 17:16:06 -0700
From:         Darin Fisher <da...@chromium.org>
To:         Darin Fisher <da...@chromium.org>
CC:         blink-dev <blin...@chromium.org>



Representing Google Chrome and the Chromium open source project, what
follows is our final proposal on this matter.


We’d like to first thank the blink-dev community for your input on this
discussion. After taking this input into consideration along with the
latest responses from Symantec and Mozilla, we have produced the
following proposal that is intended to be our final plan of action on
this matter.


Chrome 66 will distrust Symantec-issued TLS certificates issued before
June 1, 2016:

Chrome 66 will distrust Symantec-issued TLS certificates issued before
June 1, 2016, which is tentatively scheduled to hit Canary on January
19, 2018; Beta on March 15, 2018; and Stable (the vast majority of
Chrome users) on April 17, 2018. Affected site operators are strongly
encouraged to replace their TLS certificates before March 15, 2018 to
prevent breakage. Although this is significantly later than our initial
proposal of August 2017 and Mozilla’s proposal for late 2017
<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/gn1i2JNVCnc/y7IRQALJBgAJ>,
we think it hits an appropriate balance between the security risk to
Chrome users and minimizing disruption to the ecosystem. This time will
allow clear messaging and scheduling for site operators to update
certificates.


We considered a number of alternative dates for distrusting this subset
of existing certificates before landing on Chrome 66. Given the scale of
Symantec’s existing PKI and the impact to the ecosystem that these
mitigations pose, one of our goals was to consider dates that gave site
operators enough lead time, as well as to try to clear end-of-year time
periods where production freezes are typically in place. Chrome 62 which
comes out in October 2017 was seriously considered, but was rejected due
to concerns around not giving enough lead time for site operators.
Chrome 63 which comes out in December was rejected due to overlapping
with end-of-year freezes. Chrome 64 which comes out in late January 2018
was strongly considered, but its early release channels also overlap
with holiday and end of year freezes.  Chrome 65’s branch point is close
to the new year, and could present a challenge for some site operators.
Hence, Chrome 66 was chosen as the final approach.


Site operators currently using Symantec-issued TLS server certificates
that were issued before June 1, 2016 need to replace these certificates
as soon as possible to avoid disruption to their users. The distrust of
these certificates is necessary and is specifically targeted at removing
the risk of trusting old certificates that were issued under an
inadequately controlled infrastructure. Site operators can choose to
obtain their certificates from any trusted Certificate Authority.
Although the old infrastructure will be distrusted in the future (see
below), site operators with critical dependencies on Symantec’s current
infrastructure may also obtain replacement certificates from Symantec,
provided these certificates comply with the existing Chrome requirements
<https://security.googleblog.com/2015/10/sustaining-digital-certificate-security.html>for
new certificates issued from Symantec.


While we intend to stick with this schedule, if there is new information
highlighting additional security risks with this set of certificates,
the dates could change to more rapidly distrust the existing certificates.


Chrome 70 will distrust TLS certificates issued from Symantec’s old
infrastructure:

In order to complete this migration, we will be removing trust in all
certificates issued by Symantec’s old infrastructure in Chrome 70. This
includes any replacement certificates issued by Symantec prior to the
transition to the non-Symantec-operated “Managed Partner Infrastructure
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yd079EsKQ-QawTvWgjIfrCV6d0NNlwoS1ftB0MaJkBc/>”.
Chrome 70 is tentatively scheduled to first reach Beta on September 13,
2018 and Stable on October 23, 2018, which is approximately 5 months
after Chrome 66’s corresponding dates.


By these dates, affected site operators will need to have fully replaced
any TLS server certificates issued from Symantec’s old infrastructure,
using any trusted CA including the new Managed Partner Infrastructure.
Failure to migrate a site to one of these two options will result in
breakage when Chrome 70 is released.


Reference Timeline:

In order to distill Chrome’s final plan into an actionable set of
information for site operators, we’ve drawn up a timeline of relevant
dates associated with this plan. As always, Chrome release dates can
vary by a number of days, but upcoming release dates can be tracked here
<https://www.chromium.org/developers/calendar>.


Date

        

Event

July 27, 2017

through

~March 15, 2018

        

Site Operators using Symantec-issued TLS server certificates issued
before June 1, 2016 should replace these certificates. These
certificates can be replaced by any currently trusted CA, including
Symantec.

~October 24, 2017

        

Chrome 62 released to Stable, which will add alerting in DevTools when
evaluating certificates that will be affected by the Chrome 66 distrust.

December 1, 2017

        

According to Symantec, the new Managed Partner Infrastructure will at
this point be capable of full issuance. Any certificates issued by
Symantec’s old infrastructure after this point will cease working in a
future Chrome update.


>From this date forward, Site Operators can obtain TLS server
certificates from the new Managed Partner Infrastructure that will
continue to be trusted after Chrome 70 (~October 23, 2018).


December 1, 2017 does not mandate any certificate changes, but
represents an opportunity for site operators to obtain TLS server
certificates that will not be affected by Chrome 70’s distrust of the
old infrastructure.

~March 15, 2018

        

Chrome 66 released to beta, which will remove trust in Symantec-issued
certificates with a not-before date before June 1, 2016. As of this
date, in order to ensure continuity of operations, Site Operators must
be using either a Symantec-issued TLS server certificate issued on or
after June 1, 2016 or a currently valid certificate issued from any
other trusted CA as of Chrome 66.


Site Operators that obtained a certificate from Symantec’s old
infrastructure after June 1, 2016 are unaffected by Chrome 66 but will
need to obtain a new certificate by the Chrome 70 dates described below.

~April 17, 2018

        

Chrome 66 released to Stable.

~September 13, 2018

        

Chrome 70 released to Beta, which will remove trust in the old
Symantec-rooted Infrastructure. This will not affect any certificate
chaining to the new Managed Partner Infrastructure, which Symantec has
said will be operational by December 1, 2017.


Only TLS server certificates issued by Symantec’s old infrastructure
will be affected by this distrust regardless of issuance date.

~October 23, 2018

        

Chrome 70 released to Stable.



A note on the Blink process and this Intent:

As mentioned at the start of this discussion, the Google Chrome team
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/blink-dev/eUAKwjihhBs/rpxMXjZHCQAJ>decided
to use the Blink Process <http://www.chromium.org/blink#new-features>in
discussing this change, as a way to gather feedback from site operators,
the Chromium community, other browsers, and the broader ecosystem about
how to balance the interoperability risk and compatibility risk. A goal
of this process is to balance risk by aligning on interoperable
solutions, minimize ambiguity, and provide transparency into the
decision making process. This process was designed around balancing
changes to the Web Platform APIs, and we recognize there are further
opportunities to improve this for Certificate Authority decisions. As
those improvements are not yet in place, we will be forgoing the Blink
API owner LGTM process for approval, and treating this more as a
product-level decision instead.


Thanks to everyone who put in so much time and energy to arrive at this
point.




On Sun, May 7, 2017 at 4:57 PM, Darin Fisher <da...@chromium.org
<mailto:da...@chromium.org>> wrote:

    I wanted to give folks an update about the current state of this
    Intent. Given all of the feedback we've received from the community,
    right now we are continuing to evaluate different options and are
    improving our understanding of the impact these proposals would have
    on the ecosystem. We understand the desire to reach closure here,
    but also want to make sure that we take the appropriate amount of
    time to ensure that we come up with the best possible proposal. If
    you have additional feedback that could help inform our decision, we
    welcome hearing it.

    Thanks,
    -Darin



    On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:02 AM, Ryan Sleevi <rsl...@chromium.org
    <mailto:rsl...@chromium.org>> wrote:

        Note: Historically, the Google Chrome team has not used the
        Blink Process <http://www.chromium.org/blink#new-features>for
        Certificate Authority-related security issues, of which there
        have been a number over the years. However, we are interested in
        exploring using this process for such changes, as it provides a
        greater degree of transparency and public participation. Based
        on the level of participation and feedback we receive, we may
        consider using this for the future. However, as CA-related
        security incidents may require immediate response to protect
        users, this should not be seen as a guarantee that this process
        can be used in future incident responses.


        Primary eng (and PM) emails:

        rsl...@chromium.org
        <mailto:rsl...@chromium.org>awhalley@chromium.org
        <mailto:awha...@chromium.org>


        Summary

        Since January 19, the Google Chrome team has been investigating
        a series of failures by Symantec Corporation to properly
        validate certificates. Over the course of this investigation,
        the explanations provided by Symantec have revealed a
        continually increasing scope of misissuance with each set of
        questions from members of the Google Chrome team; an initial set
        of reportedly 127 certificates has expanded to include at least
        30,000 certificates, issued over a period spanning several
        years. This is also coupled with a series of failures following
        the previous set of misissued certificates from Symantec

<https://security.googleblog.com/2015/10/sustaining-digital-certificate-security.html>,
        causing us to no longer have confidence in the certificate
        issuance policies and practices of Symantec over the past
        several years. To restore confidence and security of our users,
        we propose the following steps:

          *

            A reduction in the accepted validity period of newly issued
            Symantec-issued certificates to nine months or less, in
            order to minimize any impact to Google Chrome users from any
            further misissuances that may arise.

          *

            An incremental distrust, spanning a series of Google Chrome
            releases, of all currently-trusted Symantec-issued
            certificates, requiring they be revalidated and replaced.

          *

            Removal of recognition of the Extended Validation status of
            Symantec issued certificates, until such a time as the
            community can be assured in the policies and practices of
            Symantec, but no sooner than one year.


        Motivation

        As captured in Chrome’s Root Certificate Policy
        <https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/root-ca-policy>,
        root certificate authorities are expected to perform a number of
        critical functions commensurate with the trust granted to them.
        This includes properly ensuring that domain control validation
        is performed for server certificates, to audit logs frequently
        for evidence of unauthorized issuance, and to protect their
        infrastructure in order to minimize the ability for the issuance
        of fraudulent certs.


        On the basis of the details publicly provided by Symantec, we do
        not believe that they have properly upheld these principles, and
        as such, have created significant risk for Google Chrome users.
        Symantec allowed at least four parties access to their
        infrastructure in a way to cause certificate issuance, did not
        sufficiently oversee these capabilities as required and
        expected, and when presented with evidence of these
        organizations’ failure to abide to the appropriate standard of
        care, failed to disclose such information in a timely manner or
        to identify the significance of the issues reported to them.


        These issues, and the corresponding failure of appropriate
        oversight, spanned a period of several years, and were trivially
        identifiable from the information publicly available or that
        Symantec shared.


        The full disclosure of these issues has taken more than a month.
        Symantec has failed to provide timely updates to the community
        regarding these issues. Despite having knowledge of these
        issues, Symantec has repeatedly failed to proactively disclose
        them.  Further, even after issues have become public, Symantec
        failed to provide the information that the community required to
         assess the significance of these issues until they had been
        specifically questioned. The proposed remediation steps offered
        by Symantec have involved relying on known-problematic
        information or using practices insufficient to provide the level
        of assurance required under the Baseline Requirements and
        expected by the Chrome Root CA Policy.


        In January 2015, Symantec-issued certificates represented more
        than 30% of the valid certificates by volume. While changes in
        the CA ecosystem have seen that share decrease over the past two
        years, there is still a significant compatibility risk for an
        immediate and complete distrust. Further, due to overall TLS
        ecosystem concerns, we understand that it may take non-trivial
        effort for some site operators to find suitable solutions, as
        the need to support older devices may necessitate the use of
        particular CAs, meaning that distrust of new certificates also
        has significant compatibility risk.


        To balance the compatibility risks versus the security risks, we
        propose a gradual distrust of all existing Symantec-issued
        certificates, requiring that they be replaced over time with
        new, fully revalidated certificates, compliant with the current
        Baseline Requirements. This will be accomplished by gradually
        decreasing the ‘maximum age’ of Symantec-issued certificates
        over a series of releases, distrusting certificates whose
        validity period (the difference of notBefore to notAfter)
        exceeds the specified maximum.


        The proposed schedule is as follows:

        Chrome 59 (Dev, Beta, Stable): 33 months validity (1023 days)

        Chrome 60 (Dev, Beta, Stable): 27 months validity (837 days)

        Chrome 61 (Dev, Beta, Stable): 21 months validity (651 days)

        Chrome 62 (Dev, Beta, Stable): 15 months validity (465 days)

        Chrome 63 (Dev, Beta): 9 months validity (279 days)

        Chrome 63 (Stable): 15 months validity (465 days)

        Chrome 64 (Dev, Beta, Stable): 9 months validity (279 days)


        The proposed schedule attempts to avoid making changes in Chrome
        63 Stable, as that would be released during the winter holiday
        production freeze many organizations undergo. This is solely to
        reduce disruption for site operators and users, and attempts to
        resume with Chrome 64 following the holiday season. Further, the
        practical impact of the changes in Chrome 59 and 60 are
        relatively minimal, due to many of the certificates issued
        during that period of time being issued using SHA-1, which is no
        longer supported for certificates in Chrome.


        In addition, we propose to require that all newly-issued
        certificates must have validity periods of no greater than 9
        months (279 days) in order to be trusted in Google Chrome,
        effective Chrome 61. This ensures that the risk of any further
        misissuance is, at most, limited to nine months, and more
        importantly, that if any further action is warranted or
        necessary, that the entire ecosystem can migrate within that
        time period, thus minimizing the risk of further compatibility
        issues.


        By combining these two steps, we can ensure that the level of
        assurance in Symantec-issued certificates is able to match what
        is expected by Google Chrome and the ecosystem, and that the
        risks posed both from past and possible future misissuance is
        minimized as much as possible.


        Given the nature of these issues, and the multiple failures of
        Symantec to ensure that the level of assurance provided by their
        certificates meets the requirements of the Baseline Requirements
        or Extended Validation Guidelines, we no longer have the
        confidence necessary in order to grant Symantec-issued
        certificates the “Extended Validation” status. As documented
        with both the current and past misissuance, Symantec failed to
        ensure that the organizational attributes, displayed within the
        address bar for such certificates, meet the level of quality and
        validation required for such display. Therefore, we propose to
        remove such indicators, effective immediately, until Symantec is
        able to demonstrate the level of sustained compliance necessary
        to grant such trust, which will be a period no less than a year.
        After such time has passed, we will consider requests from
        Symantec to re-evaluate this position, in collaboration with the
        broader Chromium community.


        Compatibility and Interoperability Risk

        As with any reduction in trust in a Certificate Authority, this
        poses a non-trivial degree of compatibility risk. This is
        because site operators desire to have their certificates
        recognized in all client browsers, and if one or more browsers
        fail to trust a given CA, this is prevented from happening.


        On the other hand, all site operators expect that certificates
        will only be issued for their domains upon their request, and
        the failure to have that assurance significantly undermines the
        security of HTTPS for both site operators and users.


        This compatibility risk is especially high for Symantec-issued
        certificates, due to their acquisition of some of the first CAs,
        such as Thawte, Verisign, and Equifax, which are some of the
        most widely supported CAs. Distrusting such CAs creates further
        difficulty for providing secure connections to both old and new
        devices alike, due to the need to ensure the CA a site operator
        uses is recognized across these devices.


        Further, the immediate distrust of a CA, as has been necessary
        in the past, can significantly impact both site operators and
        users. Site operators are forced to acquire certificates from
        other CAs, without having the opportunity and time to research
        which CAs best meet their needs, and users encounter a
        substantial number of errors until those site operators act,
        conditioning them to ignore security warnings. In the event that
        only a single browser distrusts such a CA, the error is often
        seen as the browser’s fault, despite it being a failure of the
        CA to provide the necessary level of assurance, and the site
        operator to respond in a timely fashion.


        Assessing the compatibility risk with both Edge and Safari is
        difficult, because neither Microsoft nor Apple communicate
        publicly about their changes in trust prior to enacting them.


        While Mozilla conducts their discussions regarding Certificate
        Authorities in public, and were the first to be alerted of these
        latest issues, they have not yet begun discussion of the next
        steps to how best to protect their users. Our hope is that this
        proposal may be seen as one that appropriately balances the
        security and compatibility risks with the needs of site
        operators, browsers, and users, and we welcome all feedback.


        Alternative implementation suggestion for web developers

        This proposal allows for web developers to continue to use
        Symantec issued certificates, but will see their validity period
        reduced. This ensure that web developers are aware of the risk
        and potential of future distrust of Symantec-issued
        certificates, should additional misissuance events occur, while
        also allowing them the flexibility to continue using such
        certificates should it be necessary.


        Usage information from UseCounter

<https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/third_party/WebKit/Source/core/page/UseCounter.h&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&q=file:UseCounter.h%20Feature&l=39>:

        For a variety of non-technical reasons, we do not currently
        instrument the usage of CAs. Further, few public metrics exist
        for intersecting usage information with the validity period,
        since only certificates valid greater than nine months will be
        affected outside of their normal replacement cycle. From Mozilla
        Firefox’s Telemetry, we know that Symantec issued certificates
        are responsible for 42% of certificate validations. However,
        this number is not strictly an indicator for impact, as this
        number is biased towards counting certificates for
        heavily-trafficked sites, and whose issuance is fully automated
        and/or whose validity periods will be unaffected, thus
        significantly overstating impact. By phasing such changes in
        over a series of releases, we aim to minimize the impact any
        given release poses, while still continually making progress
        towards restoring the necessary level of security to ensure
        Symantec issued certificates are as trustworthy as certificates
        from other CAs.



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