this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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[–] JaddedFauceet@lemmy.world 27 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What is the use case or benefit for the server admin?

as a server admin I wouldn't want to keep renewing my cert.

can anyone help to explain?

[–] frezik@midwest.social 39 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Lets Encrypt certs tend to be renewed by a cronjob, anyway. The advantage is that if someone gets your cert without your knowledge, they have, at most, six days to make use of it.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 24 points 5 days ago (3 children)

If they get it without your knowledge, what are the odds they can get the new one too?

If they got it with your knowledge, can't you just revoke the old one?

[–] lud@lemm.ee 11 points 5 days ago

If they got it with your knowledge, can’t you just revoke the old one?

Yeah, but unfortunately cert revocation isn't that great in practice. Lots of devices and services don't even check the revocation lists on every connection.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I've been using the Swiss Cheese Model for my sandwiches and they've been a disaster.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 4 days ago

You have to scramble the slices, otherwise the holes all line up and your mayonnaise falls out.

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

6 days to do what you want to do to the page and its visitors. I guess that's good?

[–] ADTJ@feddit.uk 1 points 5 days ago

It would be six days at max, assuming they managed to steal the certificate immediately after it was issued, otherwise it's gonna be even less.

Having the certificate doesn't automatically mean you can change the site, if you have control of the site hosting you likely wouldn't need to steal the cert anyway.

Stealing the certificate would allow you to run a man in the middle type attack but that's inevitably going to be very limited in scope. The shorter time limit on the cert reduces that scope even further, which is great.

Since most Let's Encrypt certs will have an automated renewal process this doesn't even really change the overhead of setup so I think this move makes a lot of sense.

There are other things certificates can be used for as well of course but I'm just going off your example.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca -3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That makes little sense. If they can get my certificate then I have different problems that ,a 6 day turnaround isn't going to solve

[–] frezik@midwest.social 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Presumably, you've patched up whatever hole let them in.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago (3 children)

.... Seriously?

If someone got a hold of your certificate that is the security equivalent of the entire company being on fire. If they got my certs they likely will have my credit cards, my birth certificate, and my youngest daughter.

Thank God though that I can renew my certificates every 6 days, that will definitely help sole the problem.

[–] frazorth@feddit.uk 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Thats an interesting position.

I dont keep my credit card information on the load balancer that holds my certs.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Missing bthe point that of they got access to that, they likely have access to a lot more and that you likely have bigger problems than just your SSL certs

[–] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

OK. Whatever hypothetical we want to think about here, we still want our cert to be renewed.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah and that is something everyone already is doing anyway, I never said anything about not doing that.

I said that lowering the amount of days to 6 won't do anything to increase security. Then why not lowering it to 1 day? That ought to be super secure now! Why not 1 hour or 1 minute? Super duper secure?

What is the actual added security benefit here? Because so far all I've seen is security theatre, something unexpected from let'sencrypt

[–] fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

they likely will have my credit cards, my birth certificate, and my youngest daughter.

that's... not how SSL works.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Indeed not, it's how real life works, as there is more to lige than just SSL. If someone has access to your SSL certificates you have a ginormous set of issues, your easily replaceable SSL certificates being one of the lowest priority. I don't see how a 6 day limit on that is going to do anything at all to help you with safety