research-article

A First Look at Certification Authority Authorization (CAA)

Authors:

Quirin Scheitle,

Taejoong Chung,

Roland van Rijswijk-Deij,

Oliver Hohlfeld,

Georg CarleAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume 48, Issue 2

Pages 10 - 23

https://doi.org/10.1145/3213232.3213235

Published: 01 May 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Shaken by severe compromises, the Web’s Public Key Infrastructure has seen the addition of several security mechanisms over recent years. One such mechanism is the Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) DNS record, that gives domain name holders control over which Certification Authorities (CAs) may issue certificates for their domain. First defined in RFC 6844, adoption by the CA/B forum mandates that CAs validate CAA records as of September 8, 2017. The success of CAA hinges on the behavior of three actors: CAs, domain name holders, and DNS operators. We empirically study their behavior, and observe that CAs exhibit patchy adherence in issuance experiments, domain name holders configure CAA records in encouraging but error-prone ways, and only six of the 31 largest DNS operators enable customers to add CAA records. Furthermore, using historic CAA data, we uncover anomalies for already-issued certificates. We disseminated our results in the community. This has already led to specific improvements at several CAs and revocation of mis-issued certificates. Furthermore, in this work, we suggest ways to improve the security impact of CAA. To foster further improvements and to practice reproducible research, we share raw data and analysis tools.

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Cited By

Tehrani PHiesgen RLübeck TSchmidt TWählisch M(2024)Do CAA, CT, and DANE Interlink in Certificate Deployments? A Web PKI Measurement Study2024 8th Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis Conference (TMA)10.23919/TMA62044.2024.10559089(1-11)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
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Wazan ALaborde RBenzekri ATaj I(2024)Article 45 of the eIDAS Directive Unveils the need to implement the X.509 4-cornered trust model for the WebPKIProceedings of the 19th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security10.1145/3664476.3670900(1-11)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2024
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Index Terms

A First Look at Certification Authority Authorization (CAA)
1. Security and privacy
  1. Network security

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review Volume 48, Issue 2

April 2018

51 pages

ISSN:0146-4833

DOI:10.1145/3213232

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Copyright © 2018 Authors.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 May 2018

Published in SIGCOMM-CCR Volume 48, Issue 2

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Cited By

Tehrani PHiesgen RLübeck TSchmidt TWählisch M(2024)Do CAA, CT, and DANE Interlink in Certificate Deployments? A Web PKI Measurement Study2024 8th Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis Conference (TMA)10.23919/TMA62044.2024.10559089(1-11)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.23919/TMA62044.2024.10559089
Wazan ALaborde RBenzekri ATaj I(2024)Article 45 of the eIDAS Directive Unveils the need to implement the X.509 4-cornered trust model for the WebPKIProceedings of the 19th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security10.1145/3664476.3670900(1-11)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3664476.3670900
Sarabi AYin TLiu MMontpetit MLeivadeas AUhlig SJaved M(2023)An LLM-based Framework for Fingerprinting Internet-connected DevicesProceedings of the 2023 ACM on Internet Measurement Conference10.1145/3618257.3624845(478-484)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3618257.3624845
Xu RLi CJoshi J(2023)Blockchain-Based Transparency Framework for Privacy Preserving Third-Party ServicesIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2022.317969820:3(2302-2313)Online publication date: 1-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TDSC.2022.3179698
Streibelt FSattler PLichtblau FGañán CFeldmann AGasser OFiebig T(2023)How Ready is DNS for an IPv6-Only World?Passive and Active Measurement10.1007/978-3-031-28486-1_22(525-549)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2023
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Yajima MChiba DYoneya YMori T(2023)A First Look at Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI)Passive and Active Measurement10.1007/978-3-031-28486-1_20(479-495)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2023
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Larisch JAqeel WLum MGoldschlag YKannan LTorshizi KWang YChung TLevin DMaggs BMislove AParno BWilson CYin HStavrou ACremers CShi E(2022)HammurabiProceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3548606.3560594(1857-1870)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2022
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Izhikevich LAkiwate GBerger BDrakontaidis SAscheman APearce PAdrian DDurumeric ZBarakat CPelsser CBenson TChoffnes D(2022)ZDNSProceedings of the 22nd ACM Internet Measurement Conference10.1145/3517745.3561434(33-43)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2022
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Song GYang JWang ZHe LLin JPan LDuan CQuan X(2022)DET: Enabling Efficient Probing of IPv6 Active AddressesIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2022.314504030:4(1629-1643)Online publication date: Aug-2022
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van der Toorn OMüller MDickinson SHesselman CSperotto Avan Rijswijk-Deij R(2022)Addressing the challenges of modern DNS a comprehensive tutorialComputer Science Review10.1016/j.cosrev.2022.10046945(100469)Online publication date: Aug-2022
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