SSL Evaluation for Oman Local Banks
We all know that any bank offering online banking services should prioritize their customers’ security concerns. It was disappointing to discover that most local banks in Oman are unaware of their SSL grades, which could pose a significant threat to both the banks and their clients. Below, I will list some of these banks along with recommendations on how to address these issues. If you are associated with any of these entities, please ensure that your security teams are informed and take action. If they encounter difficulties, do not hesitate to contact us. This may seem like a simple matter, but I am confident it could lead to security breaches in the near future. Enhancing security is our national duty.
Before we start please note that I have previously published a tutorial on how to solve SSL issues and obtain a grade A+ you can find it here banking security specialist feel free to make use of it.
Overall rating scheme: (Latest test on 5-11-2016):
- Overall rating scheme:
A+ (Excellent)- A (Very good)
A- (Good)- B (Acceptable)
C (Weak)- T (Very weak)
- F (Fail).
All the test results below were obtained publicly from SSLLabs. These results, published by the well-recognized security company Qualys, highlight issues in online banking security. My role was to explain the problems and provide solutions to ensure secure online banking. Additionally, I contacted all the mentioned banks via phone, Twitter, Facebook, and email to inform them of the issues that needed immediate resolution.
Some banks should consider using strong cyphers that support Forward Secrecy.
- All banks should generate a new certificate with RSA 4096 bits key.
- EV An Extended Validation Certificate (EV) is a certificate used for HTTPS websites and software that proves the legal entity controlling the website or software package. Obtaining an EV certificate requires verification of the requesting entity’s identity by a certificate authority (CA).
- Forward secrecy in cryptography, forward secrecy (FS; also known as perfect forward secrecy) is a property of secure communication protocols in which compromise of long-term keys does not compromise past session keys. Forward secrecy protects past sessions against future compromises of secret keys or passwords..
- Why is my certificate not trusted?There are many reasons why a certificate may not be trusted. The exact problem is indicated on the report card in bright red. The problems fall into three categories:
- Invalid certificate
A certificate is invalid if:
It is used before its activation date
It is used after its expiry date
Certificate hostnames don’t match the site hostname
It has been revoked
- Invalid configuration
In some cases, the certificate chain does not contain all the necessary certificates to connect the web server certificate to one of the root certificates in our trust store. Less commonly, one of the certificates in the chain (other than the web server certificate) will have expired, and that invalidates the entire chain.
- Unknown Certificate Authority
In order for trust to be established, we must have the root certificate of the signing Certificate Authority in our trust store. SSL Labs does not maintain its own trust store; instead, we use the store maintained by Mozilla.
If we mark a website as not trusted, that means that the average web user’s browser will not trust it either. For certain special groups of users, such websites can still be secure. For example, if you can securely verify that a self-signed website is operated by a person you trust, then you can trust that self-signed website too. Or, if you work for an organisation that manages its own trust, and you have its own root certificate already embedded in your browser. Such special cases do not work for the general public, however, and this is what we indicate on our report card.
- Interoperability issues
In some rare cases, trust cannot be established because of interoperability issues between our code and the code or configuration running on the server. We manually review such cases, but if you encounter such an issue please feel free to contact us. Such problems are very difficult to troubleshoot and you may be able to provide us with information that might help us determine the root cause.
Important Note and DISCLAIMER:
The contents of this blog do not relate in any way to a specific incident. This blog is especially not suggesting or even providing an argument that the recent card skimming going on in Oman is related to one of the aforementioned banks.
The specific tests that were run and discussed on this blog are for only one area of security, which emphasizes the strength of connection security between the end user and the bank via a web browser.
While some banks may not have ranked as strong as I had hoped on this test (a test that any person may perform themselves because it is publicly accessible), banks that rank lower on this test may rank higher on other tests. Banks can be very strong in other aspects of their security and their security as a whole cannot be determined based on a single test. Additionally, to test other aspects of security prior authorization by a specific bank is required, which this blog and the average person do not have.
Eagle Eye Digital Solutions – SSL Status:
As we have seen most of them fail to meet the security standards for SSL which drives online banking. I believe that banks should always make sure that they maintain a grade of A+ as explained here.
