ParsEval: Evaluation of Parsing Behavior using Real-world Out-in-the-wild X.509 Certificates

Stefan Tatschner, Sebastian N. Peters, Michael P. Heinl, Tobias Specht, Thomas Newe

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

X.509 certificates play a crucial role in establishing secure communication over the internet by enabling authentication and data integrity. Equipped with a rich feature set, the X.509 standard is defined by multiple, comprehensive ISO/IEC documents. Due to its internet-wide usage, there are different implementations in multiple programming languages leading to a large and fragmented ecosystem. This work addresses the research question "Are there user-visible and security-related differences between X.509 certificate parsers?". Relevant libraries offering APIs for parsing X.509 certificates were investigated and an appropriate test suite was developed. From 34 libraries 6 were chosen for further analysis. The X.509 parsing modules of the chosen libraries were called with 186,576,846 different certificates from a real-world dataset and the observed error codes were investigated. This study reveals an anomaly in wolfSSL's X.509 parsing module and that there are fundamental differences in the ecosystem. While related studies nowadays mostly focus on fuzzing techniques resulting in artificial certificates, this study confirms that available X.509 parsing modules differ largely and yield different results, even for real-world out-in-the-wild certificates.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationARES 2024 - 19th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, Proceedings
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Electronic)9798400717185
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Jul 2024
Event19th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, ARES 2024 - Vienna, Austria
Duration: 30 Jul 20242 Aug 2024

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Conference

Conference19th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, ARES 2024
Country/TerritoryAustria
CityVienna
Period30/07/242/08/24

Keywords

  • ASN.1
  • TLS libraries
  • X.509
  • conformity testing
  • digital certificates
  • parsing

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