[CentOS] https everywhere.

Sat May 16 23:18:28 UTC 2015
Peter Lawler <centos at bleeter.id.au>

On 16/05/15 08:36, Jim Perrin wrote:
> 
> 
> On 05/15/2015 02:49 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
>> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 03:44:39PM -0400, James B. Byrne wrote:
>>> What are the plans for the CentOS repos with respect to authentication
>>> and https everywhere?  At the moment it is a trivial exercise to
>>> perform a MTM attack during a yum update over http.
>>
>> Since the packages themselves are signed, what risk are you concerned
>> about?
>>
> 
> Not only are the packages signed, but we're now offering signed
> repository metadata as well.
> 
> HTTPS is an incremental improvement, but is by no means a silver bullet.
> Look at the superfish fiasco if anyone thinks otherwise.
> 
> The other side to this is many people update from outside .centos.org.
> Who's cert would you use for mirrors.kernel.org/centos/7/os/x86_64/ for
> example?


Agreed, MITM isn't a great problem as the packages are signed.

People monitoring your connection know what you've updated, and what you
haven't, thus knowing what you may be vulnerable to, is a problem. But
quite arguably not a great as problem as a MITM attack.

Pete.