Security Advisory 20120227

[Chad La Joie]

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Shibboleth Security Advisory [ 27 February 2012 ]

Identity Provider LDAPS Connections Do Not Perform Hostname Verification
=================
The LDAP support shipped with the Sun/Oracle and OpenJDK JVMs does not
perform hostname verification when using LDAPS (see [1] for why).  The
lack of hostname verification means that while the connection between
the IdP and LDAP server is encrypted, the IdP has no way to verify
it's actually communicating with the appropriate LDAP server.

Also, note all other LDAP libraries that we looked at (Apache Directory,
JLDAP, UnboundID, and Netscape LDAP) also exhibit the same behavior so
you may want to check any other applications you have that use LDAPS.

Affected Versions
=================
All 1.x and 2.x versions of the Identity Provider

Recommendations
=================
Use startTLS, if your directory supports it, or upgrade to IdP v 2.3.6.

Credits
=================
Scott Cantor, The Ohio State University

URL for this Security Advisory
http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/secadv/secadv_20120227.txt

[1] The stated reason for this is that since LDAPS is not officially
defined (it was just made up by the OpenLDAP team) there is no
specification that says this check is required.  The use of the
startTLS operation, which is formally defined, does properly perform
hostname verification.

- -- 
Chad La Joie
www.itumi.biz
trusted identities, delivered
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