Whitepaper – HTTP Digest Integrity: Another look, in light of recent attacks
by Timothy D. Morgan
Recent history has proven that web communications security is highly lacking in redundancy. That is, simple breaks in common protocols, such as SSL/TLS or the authentication mechanisms which support it, often lead to catastrophic gaps in security. Recent examples of this fragile architecture abound, and even when protocols and implementations themselves are sound, research indicates browser user interfaces continue to leave room for serious attacks.
This paper explores how the seldom used HTTP digest authentication protocol can be used to mitigate certain recent forms of attack, including SSL/TLS renegotiation and some types of HTTP request smuggling.
This paper can be downloaded below.
Editor’s note: This work was originally published by VSR on January 5 2010 at https://www.vsecurity.com/download/publications/HTTPDigestIntegrity.pdf. VSR is now a part of NCC Group, so we have migrated this content to research.nccgroup.com.