After what is being called “a serious breach” of security involving digital certificates, Google Inc GOOG 0.34% GOOGL 0.55% announced that it is blacklisting China’s main Internet agency until further notice. Mozilla is joining Google in discontinuing Chrome’s acceptance of certificates from China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
What Happened?
About two weeks ago, Google discovered that unauthorized certificates for several Google domains, including Gmail, had been issued through Egyptian IT company MCS Holdings. According to Google, MCS obtained its intermediate certificates from CNNIC and used the certificates for a man-in-middle proxy. According to Google, this was a major breach because all major browsers and operating systems recognized CNNIC certificates.
Google Acts
Google responded to the breach by issuing a statement explaining that they will no longer be accepting certificates issued by many .cn domains. “As a result of a joint investigation of the events surrounding this incident by Google and CNNIC, we have decided that the CNNIC Root and EV CAs will no longer be recognized in Google products,” the statement read. As a result of the decision, Google users will see warning pages pop up when they attempt to access affected domains in the future notifying them of a security risk. Users can then continue on to the site if they choose.
CNNIC Responds
CNNIC issued its own harsh statement in response to the ban. “The decision that Google has made is unacceptable and unintelligible to CNNIC, and meanwhile CNNIC sincerely urge that Google would take users’ rights and interests into full consideration,” the CNNIC wrote in the statement.
Google has said that it will allow a “grace period” during which it will continue to recognize existing CNNIC certificates. It will also allow certain exceptions to the ban for websites that are on its “whitelist.”
Google further indicated its willingness to reinstate acceptance of CNNIC certificates at some point in the future.
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