Venafi 2017 Predictions: Free Certificates, Code Signing and IoT Ransomware

Back

Venafi 2017 Predictions: Free Certificates, Code Signing and IoT Ransomware

December 13, 2016 | Kevin Bocek

As 2016 comes to a close, it’s a great time to reflect on the events of the past year. From the Apple vs. FBI debate, to the Yahoo! Breach and distrust of WoSign, the past twelve months brought an unprecedented number of new vulnerabilities and damaging cyber attacks connected with the misuse of encryption. Before we look ahead to 2017, let’s look back at our predictions from 2015.

A year ago, Venafi made the following forecast for 2016:

With more use of encryption in 2016, we'll see more misuse of the trust provided by keys and certificates.
IoT ransomware will become one of cyber criminals’ attack vectors.
Code-signing services for malicious code will become the norm.
The Certificate Authority (CA) model will be broken and the value of certificates will diminish.
CAs will be ranked across the user community, adding to the lack of trust.
Large security vendors will lose customers, revenue, and credibility because they cannot see attackers lurking in encrypted traffic.

Did any these predictions come true? In 2016, we saw code-signing services for malicious code become common—Intel is currently tracking 22 million pieces of malware that use code signing certificates. The traditional CA model was disintermediated with the introduction of free certificate offerings and scandals like the GlobalSign glitch and Google’s decision to distrust WoSign/StartCom. IoT DDoS attacks and ransomware were common.

Overall, not a bad scorecard!

Looking ahead to 2017, we see a number of new threats and emerging trends. Here are the first five:

As Certificate Authorities are pushed to do more and go faster, they will make more mistakes.
GlobalSign, the Belgium-based security certificate provider botched a clean-up of some of their root certificates in 2016, causing secure websites to appear insecure and freezing hundreds of thousands of websites. Business process errors like this can be managed but they will never be completely avoidable. And as CAs try to keep up with the agility and speed demands of DevOps and Fast IT projects, this type of business process error will occur more often.

The reality is that failures like GlobalSign are already becoming more frequent. The impact of these errors is completely unacceptable—you can’t have your website appear to be untrusted or taken offline until your CA is able to remediate a problem. The potential revenue loss and reputation damage for impacted businesses could run into the millions of dollars. Because these kinds of scenarios are already happening, businesses need a backup plan. They can’t afford to be at the mercy of any specific CA. So when CA errors occur, firms need to be able to automatically change out affected certificates.
IoT ransomware will become one of the cyber criminals' attack vectors of choice.
In 2016 hospital operations were held ransom by cyber criminals. Ransomware was used to force many organizations to pay extortionate fees or suffer crippling data loss. The Tesla hack demonstrated the power and danger of poorly secured IoT devices. IoT ransomware hasn’t become mainstream yet, but the Dyn DDoS attack came close, and it was just a step away from ransomware. As the frequency and sophistication of ransomware and IoT attacks increase, we should expect to see the two threats merge, making IoT ransomware a devastating threat in 2017.
IoT manufacturers will take code signing more seriously.
We saw malicious code signing services become the norm in 2016, and we’re now seeing a plethora of devices that either don’t use or fail to enforce code signing. As attacks like the Dyn DDoS use Internet-connected devices such as printers, IP cameras, and residential gateways to perpetrate attacks, device manufacturers will take concrete steps to better enforce code signing in order to more effectively secure their devices.
The number of publicly trusted free certificates issued will outnumber those that are paid for.
As the value of certificates continues to drop, we’ll see the business models of Certificate Authorities in free fall. We expect to see widespread use of free certificates, even in businesses. Broader use of encryption is a positive step that improves data privacy. However, making certificates widely available allows anyone in the enterprise to request them. This rapid increase in free, unmonitored certificates presents a huge target for cyber criminals.

Cyber criminals with easy access to keys and certificates can use them to hide inside of encrypted traffic and can’t be detected by most security controls. This attack vector is fast becoming the default for cyber attackers—which almost counteracts the whole purpose of adding more encryption. In fact, we’ve already seen free certificates misused by cyber criminals, including a malvertising campaign that used certificates issued from Let’s Encrypt.
2017 will see the first approved use of Let’s Encrypt or other free services within the Fortune 500.
As free certificate offerings become more widely accepted, we’ll see a surge in organizations taking advantage of free services like that of Let’s Encrypt. The value of a certificate will not be in its issuance cost, instead it will be based on the value and reputation of the issuing CA and the purpose of the certificate. This shift from paid for to free certificates will bring about a rise in certificate management solutions as organizations look for ways to maintain the integrity and security of their certificates. Organizations must also remain agile enough to add, change or remove a CA quickly and easily if business conditions require it.

Read our next 5 predictions.

Subscribe to our Weekly Blog Updates!

Join thousands of other security professionals

Get top blogs delivered to your inbox every week

See Popular Tags

{[{item.name}]} {[{item.uuid}]} tags

White Paper

CIO Study: Certificate-Related Outages Continue to Plague Organizations

eBook

Machine Identity Protection for Dummies

About the author

Kevin Bocek

Kevin is Vice President of Security Strategy & Threat Intelligence at Venafi. He is recognized as a subject matter expert in threat detection, encryption, digital signatures, and key management, and has previously held positions at CipherCloud, PGP Corporation and Thales.

Read Posts by Author

Sign up for Venafi Cloud

Venafi Cloud manages and protects certificates

End User License Agreement needs to be viewed and accepted

Already have an account? Login Here

Scroll to the bottom to accept

VENAFI CLOUD SERVICE

*** IMPORTANT ***

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE CONTINUING WITH REGISTRATION AND/OR ACTIVATION OF THE VENAFI CLOUD SERVICE (“SERVICE”).

This is a legal agreement between the end user (“You”) and Venafi, Inc. ("Venafi" or “our”). BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, EITHER BY CLICKING A BOX INDICATING YOUR ACCEPTANCE AND/OR ACTIVATING AND USING THE VENAFI CLOUD SERVICE FOR WHICH YOU HAVE REGISTERED, YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU ARE ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF A COMPANY OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY, YOU REPRESENT THAT YOU HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO BIND SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, IN WHICH CASE THE TERMS "YOU" OR "YOUR" SHALL REFER TO SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE SUCH AUTHORITY, OR IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, YOU MUST NOT ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT AND MAY NOT USE THE SERVICE.

You shall not access the Service if You are Our competitor or if you are acting as a representative or agent of a competitor, except with Our prior written consent. In addition, You shall not access the Service for purposes of monitoring its availability, performance or functionality, or for any other benchmarking or competitive purposes, and you shall not perform security vulnerability assessments or penetration tests without the express written consent of Venafi.

This Agreement was last updated on April 12, 2017. It is effective between You and Venafi as of the date of Your accepting this Agreement.

The Venafi Cloud Service includes two separate services that are operated by Venafi as software as a service, each of which is separately licensed pursuant to the terms and conditions of this Agreement and each of which is considered a Service under this Agreement: the Venafi Cloud Risk Assessment Service or the Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service. Your right to use either Service is dependent on the Service for which You have registered with Venafi to use.

Definitions
1. “Your Data” means electronic data and information submitted by or for You to the Service or collected and processed by or for You using the Service.
License Grants and Restrictions
1. License Grant by Venafi to You. Venafi grants to You a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-assignable, limited license (the “License”) to access and use the Service during the applicable License Term set out in Section 2.2 below, in accordance with the instructions contained in the user documentation that accompanies the Service (“Documentation). Venafi hereby grants to You the right to use the Documentation solely in connection with the exercise of Your rights under this Agreement. Other than as explicitly set forth in this Agreement, no right to use, copy, display, or print the Documentation, in whole or in part, is granted. This license grant is limited to internal use by You. This License is conditioned upon Your compliance with all of Your obligations under this Agreement. Except for the express licenses granted in this Section, no other rights or licenses are granted by Venafi, expressly, by implication, by way of estoppel or otherwise. The Service and Documentation are licensed to Licensee and are not sold. Rights not granted in this Agreement are reserved by Venafi.
2. License Term.
  1. Venafi Cloud Risk Assessment Service. If you have registered to access and use the Venafi Cloud Risk Assessment Service, Your right to use the Venafi Cloud Risk Assessment Service is limited to ninety (90) days from the date You first register for the Service, unless otherwise extended on Your agreement with Venafi.
  2. Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service. If you have registered to access and use the Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service, Your right to use the Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service shall extend indefinitely and may be terminated by either You or Venafi at any time for any reason.
3. Restrictions on Use. The grant of rights stated in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, above, is subject to the following restrictions and limitations:
  1. If You have registered to access and use the Venafi Cloud for DevOps Service, You must use SSL/TLS certificates issued to you at no charge through the Service for development and testing purposes only, and You are strictly prohibited from using such SSL/TLS certificates in a production environment or in any production capacity. If you are registered with a public Certification Authority (“CA”) supported by the Service and have valid credentials issued by such CA with which you can subscribe to such CA’s SSL/TLS certificates on a fee bearing basis for use in production environments, You may request such certificates through the applicable interface present in the Service by using such credentials. In such instance, the fee bearing certificate(s) will be issued to You by the CA and any access to or use of such certificates by You will be subject to the terms and conditions set out by the CA. No fees will be paid to or processed by Venafi in this case. The use of DigiCert issued certificates shall be subject to the Certificate Services Agreement published by DigiCert at https://www.digicert.com/docs/agreements/Certificate-Services-Agreement.pdf, which terms are hereby incorporated by reference.
  2. You shall not use (or cause to be used) the Service for the benefit of any third party, including without limitation by rental, in the operation of an Applications Service Provider (ASP) service offering or as a service bureau, or any similar means.
  3. You shall not distribute access to the Service, in whole or in any part, to any third party or parties. You shall not permit sublicensing, leasing, or other transfer of the Service.
  4. You shall not (a) interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Service or third-party data contained therein, (b) attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service or its related systems or networks, (c) permit direct or indirect access to or use of the Service in a way that circumvents a contractual usage limit, or (d) access the Service in order to build a competitive product or service.
4. License Grant by You. You grant to Venafi and its affiliates, as applicable, a worldwide, limited-term license to host, copy, transmit and display Your Data as necessary for Venafi to provide the Service in accordance with this Agreement. Subject to the limited licenses granted herein, Venafi acquires no right, title or interest from You or any of Your suppliers or licensors under this Agreement in or to Your Data.
Ownership
1. Venafi Materials. Venafi and/or its suppliers have and shall retain ownership of all right, title and interest in and to the Service and the Documentation and all intellectual property rights embodied in the Service and Documentation, including without limitation any patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets in the Service and any modifications and/or derivatives thereof, whether or not made at Licensee’s request, and all know-how, concepts, methods, programming tools, inventions, and computer source code developed by Venafi (collectively, “Venafi Materials”).
2. Limited Feedback License. You hereby grant to Venafi, at no charge, a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable license under Your intellectual property rights in and to suggestions, comments and other forms of feedback (“Feedback”) regarding the Service provided by or on behalf of You to Venafi, including Feedback regarding features, usability and use, and bug reports, to reproduce, perform, display, create derivative works of the Feedback and distribute such Feedback and/or derivative works in the Service. Feedback is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind and shall not include any of Your confidential information.
Disclaimer of Warranties
1. EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION 4, THE SERVICE AND DOCUMENTATION ARE PROVIDED “AS-IS,” WITH “ALL FAULTS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR NONINFRINGEMENT WHETHER ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING, USAGE, TRADE PRACTICE OR ANY OTHER MANNER. VENAFI IS NOT OBLIGATED TO PROVIDE ANY UPDATES, UPGRADES OR TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR THE SERVICE. VENAFI DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY AND INDEMNIFICATION OBLIGATIONS FOR ANY HARM OR DAMAGES CAUSED BY ANY THIRD-PARTY HOSTING PROVIDERS. In no event does Venafi warrant that the Service is error free or that You will be able to operate the Service without problems or interruptions. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties and to the extent that is the case the above exclusion may not apply.
Limitation of Liability
1. IN NO EVENT WILL VENAFI OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOST REVENUE, PROFIT, OR DATA, OR FOR DIRECT, SPECIAL, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED AND REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE EVEN IF VENAFI OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for incidental or consequential damages and to the extent that is the case the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to You.
Term and Termination
This License is effective until terminated as set forth herein or the License Term expires and is not otherwise renewed by the parties. Venafi may terminate this Agreement and/or the License at any time with or without written notice to You if You fail to comply with any term or condition of this Agreement or if Venafi ceases to make the Service available to end users. You may terminate this Agreement at any time on written notice to Venafi. Upon any termination or expiration of this Agreement or the License, You agree to cease all use of the Service if the License is not otherwise renewed or reinstated. Upon termination, Venafi may also enforce any rights provided by law. The provisions of this Agreement that protect the proprietary rights of Venafi will continue in force after termination.
Compliance With Laws
1. Violation of Laws. You shall not knowingly take any action or omit to take any action where the reasonably predictable result would be to cause Venafi to violate any applicable law, rule, regulation or policy and, to the extent not inconsistent therewith, any other applicable law, rule, regulation and policy.
Governing Law
This Agreement shall be governed by, and any arbitration hereunder shall apply, the laws of the State of Utah, excluding (a) its conflicts of laws principles; (b) the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods; (c) the 1974 Convention on the Limitation Period in the International Sale of Goods; and (d) the Protocol amending the 1974 Convention, done at Vienna April 11, 1980.
General
1. This Agreement is binding on You as well as Your employees, employers, contractors and agents, and on any permitted successors and assignees. Except if otherwise superseded in writing by a separately executed agreement, this Agreement is the entire agreement between You and Venafi with regard to the License granted hereunder, and You agree that Venafi will not have any liability for any statement or representation made by it, its agents or anyone else (whether innocently or negligently) upon which You relied in entering into this Agreement, unless such statement or representation was made fraudulently. This Agreement supersedes any other understandings or agreements, including, but not limited to, advertising, with respect to the Service. If any provision of this Agreement is deemed invalid or unenforceable by any country or government agency having jurisdiction, that particular provision will be deemed modified to the extent necessary to make the provision valid and enforceable and the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect. Should such modification be impractical or denied, You and Venafi shall thereafter each have the right to terminate this Agreement on immediate notice.
2. Survival. The parties agree that the rights and obligations set forth in the above-referenced Section 1 (Definitions), 3 (Ownership), 4 (Disclaimer of Warranties), 5 (Limitation of Liability), 6 (Term and Termination), 7 (Compliance with Laws), 8 (Governing Law), and 9 (General) shall survive the termination of this Agreement for any reason and enforcement thereof shall not be subject to any conditions precedent.
3. Assignment. This Agreement shall be binding upon and inure to the benefit of the parties’ respective successors and permitted assigns. You shall not assign this Agreement or any of Your rights or obligations hereunder without the prior written consent of Venafi and any such attempted assignment shall be void.

Venafi 2017 Predictions: Free Certificates, Code Signing and IoT Ransomware