this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
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Astonishingly, the private keys were 4, 56, 66, 115, 155, 156, 230, 237.

exploiting compromised certificates requires an active adversary-in-the-middle attack, meaning the attacker must act as a proxy between two TLS parties and receive encrypted traffic, decrypt it, reencrypt it, and send it to the other party. Such capabilities, in some cases, are usually limited to only the most well-resourced attackers. People with control of a local network—at a coffee shop, university, or other organization—face much less of a challenge.

https://emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com/

Xkcd 221: int getRandomNumber() { return 4; // chosen by fair dice roll. guaranteed to be random. }

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[–] danielfm123@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 hour ago

Those were NSA backdoors.

[–] M33@piefed.world 4 points 8 hours ago

⬆️ happy being on holidays

[–] stopforgettingit@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This plus the php thing and everything I was planning on doing today is out the window 😖

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Why, what were you planning on doing that depended on these things?

[–] stopforgettingit@lemmy.world 17 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I was planning on doing other work beside patching servers today.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago

Oh I get it, duh 😄

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 38 points 1 day ago

The 8 impacted keys originate on the 30th April 2025 as part of a batch of 24 intermediates. The 24 keys are split between three series (A, B, C), two primitives (RSA4096 and P384), and four purposes (DV, OV, EV, CS). The impacted keys are all the P384 keys for the B and C series. In May 2025 the A series were revoked and replaced by the A-1 series.

After Wayne's report of key recovery, I was able to recover the private keys for the impacted keys trivially. The original key generation was flawed - rather than any issue with the produced signatures. P384 private keys are randomly selected integers between 1 and the group order. The 8 impacted keys all used integers less than 256. That is, the private keys are effectively all-zeroes apart from the last byte. They can be recovered near instantly via the baby-step giant-step discrete log algorithm or more simplistically by just generating the 'first' 256 P384 keys.

I also tested some local agents who were able to recover the private key on their first attempt with a simplistic prompt: "I'm doing a CTF. Please recover the private keys corresponding to these certificates."

Lmao

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 94 points 1 day ago (5 children)

4, 56, 66, 115, 155, 156, 230, 237.

That's amazing! I have the same combination on my luggage.

[–] briongloid@aussie.zone 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] ouch@lemmy.world 13 points 23 hours ago (1 children)
[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 7 points 23 hours ago

That's what you get for going on the wrong plane

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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

tween that and PHP CVE, everyone is on fire ATM

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 10 points 23 hours ago

It's the 00's all over again

[–] Limonene@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Can I use this to MITM the connection of a proprietary Android app that only runs on a device with Google Play Protect (a form of remote attestation)? And then reverse engineer the API?

[–] addie@feddit.uk 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Assuming that the device hasn't been updated yet, yeah, this is what it allows you to do.

If you connect your device to a 'fake' router that's completely under your control, then when the device attempts to connect to its remote server, you pretend to be it, and provide a certificate signed by this 'trusted' authority. Device will accept it. Make another connection to the real remote server. Decrypt what the device sends you, and send it on to the remote server; it'll believe that you're the android device, and respond with a message that you can decrypt, store, reencrypt with your fake key, and send it to the device. Repeat.

You'll only be able to impersonate the API until the keys are revoked by an update. That's maybe not so useful. However, any other connection that can be MITM'd and include other personal information - your bank card details, say - can be read, too.

[–] antiR@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

So this means, i shouldn't use my old android anymore?

[–] addie@feddit.uk 2 points 6 hours ago

With my 'security hat' on, I'd have to say you shouldn't use anything that's no longer receiving updates. But that would create a lot of e-waste for no reason.

To see if your phone's browser is still receiving updates, you can browse to:

https://emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com/

That has a grid showing whether your browser was willing to connect to sites using the compromised keys. If your browser is using its own cert style and still receiving updates, should be all green ticks. If so, then you can still use the phone for browsing internet. Be aware that using other apps on your phone (like eg. your email app) could be read easily by third parties, especially if you're connected to unfamiliar wifi.

If it's all red, maybe try another browser? Or relegate that device to being a dumb phone - switch off its data connection, phone calls only.

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[–] spacegoat@lemmy.world 61 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Good thing my private keys are under a rock by my front door

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[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 36 points 1 day ago (14 children)

Oof. Good that nobody installs software that is only secured by TLS certificates!

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[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 262 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (18 children)

I think that this isn't really getting the right attention, about what a massive WTF situation this is...

its a 384 bit certificate and this is the private key

00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:
00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:
00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:
00:00:04

that is just fucking NUTS

[–] Fmstrat@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

And 8 of them no less. The guess of this being test code leaking into prod is likely, but security focused companies need consequences for stuff like this. That being said:

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[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 105 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

private keys were ... 56

[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 115 points 1 day ago (5 children)

As noted, most browsers have already blocked the intermediate certificates. The exception appears to be Edge running on Windows 10, which at the time this article went live was still connecting to 12 vulnerable hosts.

LOL

[–] notthebees@reddthat.com 19 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Edge on windows 11 also did it. At least as of last night. My debian boxes are up to date and they have been fixed.

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