research-article

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Where the Wild Warnings Are: Root Causes of Chrome HTTPS Certificate Errors

Authors:

Mustafa Emre Acer,

Adrienne Porter Felt,

Radhika Bhargava,

Matt Braithwaite,

Parisa TabrizAuthors Info & Claims

CCS '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security

Pages 1407 - 1420

https://doi.org/10.1145/3133956.3134007

Published: 30 October 2017 Publication History

Abstract

HTTPS error warnings are supposed to alert browser users to network attacks. Unfortunately, a wide range of non-attack circumstances trigger hundreds of millions of spurious browser warnings per month. Spurious warnings frustrate users, hinder the widespread adoption of HTTPS, and undermine trust in browser warnings. We investigate the root causes of HTTPS error warnings in the field, with the goal of resolving benign errors.

We study a sample of over 300 million errors that Google Chrome users encountered in the course of normal browsing. After manually reviewing more than 2,000 error reports, we developed automated rules to classify the top causes of HTTPS error warnings. We are able to automatically diagnose the root causes of two-thirds of error reports. To our surprise, we find that more than half of errors are caused by client-side or network issues instead of server misconfigurations. Based on these findings, we implemented more actionable warnings and other browser changes to address client-side error causes. We further propose solutions for other classes of root causes.

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Cited By

Luo MFeng BLu LKirda ERen K(2023)On the Complexity of the Web’s PKI: Evaluating Certificate Validation of Mobile BrowsersIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2023.325586921:1(419-433)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TDSC.2023.3255869
Li RZhang ZShao JLu RJia XWei G(2023)The Potential Harm of Email Delivery: Investigating the HTTPS Configurations of Webmail ServicesIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2023.324660021:1(125-138)Online publication date: 20-Feb-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TDSC.2023.3246600
Huang YObada-Obieh BBeznosov KChiasson SKapadia A(2022)Users' perceptions of chrome's compromised credential notificationProceedings of the Eighteenth USENIX Conference on Usable Privacy and Security10.5555/3563609.3563618(155-174)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3563609.3563618
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Index Terms

Where the Wild Warnings Are: Root Causes of Chrome HTTPS Certificate Errors
1. Networks
  1. Network protocols
    1. Transport protocols
2. Security and privacy
  1. Network security
    1. Web protocol security
  2. Systems security
    1. Browser security

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CCS '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security

October 2017

2682 pages

ISBN:9781450349468

DOI:10.1145/3133956

General Chair:
Bhavani Thuraisingham
The University of Texas at Dallas, USA
,
Program Chairs:
David Evans
University of Virginia
,
Tal Malkin
Columbia University
,
Dongyan Xu
Purdue University

Copyright © 2017 Owner/Author.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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SIGSAC: ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit, and Control

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 October 2017

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CCS '17

Sponsor:

SIGSAC

CCS '17: 2017 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security

October 30 - November 3, 2017

Texas, Dallas, USA

Acceptance Rates

CCS '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 151 of 836 submissions, 18%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,261 of 6,999 submissions, 18%

Upcoming Conference

CCS '25

Sponsor:
sigsac

ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security

October 13 - 17, 2025

Taipei , Taiwan

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Cited By

Luo MFeng BLu LKirda ERen K(2023)On the Complexity of the Web’s PKI: Evaluating Certificate Validation of Mobile BrowsersIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2023.325586921:1(419-433)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TDSC.2023.3255869
Li RZhang ZShao JLu RJia XWei G(2023)The Potential Harm of Email Delivery: Investigating the HTTPS Configurations of Webmail ServicesIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2023.324660021:1(125-138)Online publication date: 20-Feb-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TDSC.2023.3246600
Huang YObada-Obieh BBeznosov KChiasson SKapadia A(2022)Users' perceptions of chrome's compromised credential notificationProceedings of the Eighteenth USENIX Conference on Usable Privacy and Security10.5555/3563609.3563618(155-174)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3563609.3563618
Ukrop MBalážová MŽáčik PValčík EMatyas V(2022)Assessing Real-World Applicability of Redesigned Developer Documentation for Certificate Validation ErrorsProceedings of the 2022 European Symposium on Usable Security10.1145/3549015.3554296(131-144)Online publication date: 29-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3549015.3554296
Bruhner CLinnarsson ONemec MArlitt MCarlsson N(2022)Changing of the Guards: Certificate and Public Key Management on the InternetPassive and Active Measurement10.1007/978-3-030-98785-5_3(50-80)Online publication date: 28-Mar-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-98785-5_3
Zhang YLiu BLu CLi ZDuan HLi JZhang ZKim YKim JVigna GShi E(2021)Rusted Anchors: A National Client-Side View of Hidden Root CAs in the Web PKI EcosystemProceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3460120.3484768(1373-1387)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3460120.3484768
Li BLin JLi FWang QWang WLi QCheng GJing JWang C(2021)The Invisible Side of Certificate Transparency: Exploring the Reliability of Monitors in the WildIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2021.312350730:2(749-765)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNET.2021.3123507
Datta PNamin AJones KHewett R(2021)Warning users about cyber threats through soundsSN Applied Sciences10.1007/s42452-021-04703-43:7Online publication date: 29-Jun-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-021-04703-4
Harish Rkumar AKumar VAmritha P(2021)Facilitating Cryptojacking Through Internet Middle BoxesAdvances in Electrical and Computer Technologies10.1007/978-981-15-9019-1_4(41-52)Online publication date: 27-Feb-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9019-1_4
Gallersdörfer UEbel JMatthes F(2021)Augmenting MetaMask to Support TLS-endorsed Smart ContractsData Privacy Management, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology10.1007/978-3-030-93944-1_15(227-244)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2021
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