***Update 31-MAR-2011***

The purpose of this update is describe the failed attempt on one reseller user account to access the certificate ordering platform on 26-MAR-2011.

What didn't Happen

Our CA infrastructure was not compromised.

Our keys in our HSMs were not compromised.

No certificates have been fraudulently issued.

The attempt to fraudulently access the certificate ordering platform to issue a certificate failed.

What Happened

Comodo detected and thwarted an intrusion into a reseller user account on 26-MAR-2011. The new controls implemented by Comodo following the incident on 15-MAR-2011 removed any risk of the fraudulent issue of certificates. We believed the attack was from the same perpetrator as the incident on 15-MAR-2011.

A second issue associated with a second reseller was initially detected and reported by Comodo. After further investigation, Comodo has determined that this was in fact a login error on the part of the reseller.

Report of incident on 15-MAR-2011

An RA suffered an attack that resulted in a breach of one user account of that specific RA.

This RA account was then used fraudulently to issue 9 certificates (across 7 different domains).

All of these certificates were revoked immediately on discovery.

Monitoring of OCSP responder traffic has not detected any attempted use of these certificates after their revocation.

Fraudulently issued certificates

9 certificates were issued as follows:

Domain: mail.google.com [NOT seen live on the internet]

Serial: 047ECBE9FCA55F7BD09EAE36E10CAE1E

Domain: www.google.com [NOT seen live on the internet]

Serial: 00F5C86AF36162F13A64F54F6DC9587C06

Domain: login.yahoo.com [Seen live on the internet]

Serial: 00D7558FDAF5F1105BB213282B707729A3

Domain: login.yahoo.com [NOT seen live on the internet]

Serial: 392A434F0E07DF1F8AA305DE34E0C229

Domain: login.yahoo.com [NOT seen live on the internet]

Serial: 3E75CED46B693021218830AE86A82A71

Domain: login.skype.com [NOT seen live on the internet]

Serial: 00E9028B9578E415DC1A710A2B88154447

Domain: addons.mozilla.org [NOT seen live on the internet]

Serial: 009239D5348F40D1695A745470E1F23F43

Domain: login.live.com [NOT seen live on the internet]

Serial: 00B0B7133ED096F9B56FAE91C874BD3AC0

Domain: global trustee [NOT seen live on the internet]

Serial: 00D8F35F4EB7872B2DAB0692E315382FB0

What didn�t Happen

Our CA infrastructure was not compromised.

Our keys in our HSMs were not compromised.

No other RA was compromised. No other RA user accounts were compromised.

What Happened

One user account in one RA was compromised.

The attacker created himself a new userID (with a new username and password) on the compromised user account.

The attack came from several IP addresses, but mainly from Iran.

IP Address Location IP Address 212.95.136.18 City Tehran State or Region Tehran Country Iran, Islamic Republic of ISP Pishgaman TOSE Ertebatat Tehran Network. Latitude & Longitude 35.696111 51.423056

The attacker was well prepared and knew in advance what he was to try to achieve. He seemed to have a list of targets that he knew he wanted to obtain certificates for, was able quickly to generate the CSRs for these certificates and submit the orders to our system so that the certificates would be produced and made available to him.

Although they requested 9 certificates we do not know if they received all of these certificates.

We know that they definitely received one of the certificates.

All certificates were revoked immediately on discovery.

Our systems indicate that when this one certificate was first tested it received a �revoked� response from our OCSP responders.

The site in Iran on which the certificate was tested quickly became unavailable.

We immediately got in touch with the principal browsers and domain owners and alerted them to what had happened.

There was a coordinated effort for a responsible disclosure.

All relevant government authorities were informed and involved.

The RA account in question has been suspended pending on-going forensic investigation.

We immediately introduced new controls in the wake of this new threat to the authentication platform.

Our interpretation

The circumstantial evidence suggests that the attack originated in Iran.

The perpetrator has focussed simply on the communication infrastructure (not the financial infrastructure as a typical cyber-criminal might).

The perpetrator can only make use of these certificates if it had control of the DNS infrastructure.

The perpetrator has executed its attacks with clinical accuracy.

The Iranian government has recently attacked other encrypted methods of communication.

All of the above leads us to one conclusion only:- that this was likely to be a state-driven attack.