I am required to create a two way mutual handshake between a desktop client and WCF Service. I am using a Let's Encrypt Server Certificate on my Server but open to use Self Signed Certificate as well.
I wish to generate a Client Certificate and install it on the client's machine after successful authentication via OTP. The idea is to authenticate/authorize the desktop app for further communication with the server.
After few of my research I found that OpenSSL.Net enable to create certificates.
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I have a REST API which uses JWT bearer authentication over HTTPS. SSL certificate is installed on the web server hosting my REST API. Do I need to provide client certificates to different applications(users) who want to consume my API, to have a handshake between their server and my server using the client certificate which i provide them.
I tried calling my HTTPS REST API which I developed in C# from a python script running locally from my machine but I had to specify the verify flag to False or ssl.CERT_NONE for the call to succeed
import requests
requests.get('some https url', verify=False)
I know we can also use self signed certificates. I am worried about Man in the Middle attacks if they call my endpoint with verify=False and If someone tries to use my API in his app which is in production over https do I need to give him the client certificate for handshake or his app would be able to call my https api endpoint without me specifically providing a client certificate.
I tried to take some leads from this question but it doesn't explain how different users whose apps are trying to call my endpoint over https, will be able to perform a handshake with my rest api
Any guidance would be highly appreciated.
Quick answer: keep your private key file safe and you wont have any problems.
The long answer has to do with explaining asymmetrical encryption and how its implemented in a TLS handshake. When a client opens a HTTPS connection with your server a series of requests are sent back and forth:
Client sends HELLO
Server sends HELLO back including the servers SSL certificate
Client verifies the certificate with the certificate authority
The client sends back a random string of bytes encrypted with the servers public key
The server decrypts the string using the private key
After the final step a session is created between the client and server. In order for a man-in-the-middle attack to be successful the "man in the middle" needs to have your private key and proxy every action just described back to your server, otherwise one of the steps will fail and the client will get that "SERVER UNVERIFIED" error in their browser warning them that the connection is not secure.
This is a pretty brief explanation of the process, you can do some more reading here
I would like to create an asp.net web forms application which uses ssl client certificates. The way I understand it (which may be wrong), is that during the ssl handshake, the server sends the client a list of trusted certificate authorities. The client then uses this list to see which CA's it also trusts and then the web browser asks the user which client certificate it would like to use (if there is more than 1 for a matching CA).
Is there a way to add code to the ASP.NET web application so only 1 specific CA gets sent down as being trusted? I assume the server will have many of the popular CA's as being trusted and sends them all down; but I just want to send down a specific one to the client.
The negotiation of client certificate happens before ASP.Net gets involved in the request. The configuration is on the HTTP.sys listener via Certificate Trust Lists.
However, this behavior is ignored by IIS 5, 6, and 7, and has been disabled by default on Windows 8 / 2012 and later.
I'm using a Winforms client to connect to a WCF service hosted in IIS. The Winforms application will be available to customers to download and install on their computers. The customers have to login to the application using their username/passwords. I want a secure HTTPS enabled communication between the client application and the WCF. What is the best practice to provide such a functionality? Should I use client certificates or just a server certificate? Any input is much appreciated.
Thanks.
You have to have a server certificate.
If you want stronger authentication you can use client certificates. There is an administration of certificates overhead and potentially other costs to that though: Using certificates from a provider, generating them yourself, maintaining list of revocations and so on.
As you already authenticate the user with password, client certificate authentication is not needed. To ensure the communication is secured use a self-signed server certificate. In case if the clients needs to verify that they are connecting to the correct server then you need to get a signed certificate from a third party CA like verisign which could cost you atleast 100$.
I need to provide mutual authentication using TLS protocol in my server-client communication. Now under development, client and server run on the same machine. My colleague created one certificate (.pfx file) for me. As it is a two-way authenticate, server and client have to authenticate each other.
This thread Mutual authentication in SSL/TLS discussed in which certificate store a certificate should be located on server side or client side. Now I am confused, as I only have one certificate, I dont know whether it is a client certificate or a server certificate, Can I use one certificate for both, if so where should I locate this certificate for both server and client ?
Thank you for your help !
You can use certificate for both ways, however what's the problem to generate standalone certificate (even self-signed) for client authentication?
In the same way as IE handles the client certificate authentication procedure, I would like to do the same from an installed .Net client app that connects to our web server which has been setup for requiring client certificates.
I know how to open the Select Certificate UI allowing the user to select a client certificate from a list of those that are installed, and then add the certificate to the outgoing HttpWebRequest.
What I can figure out is:
How to determine when a client certificate is required by the server. It's not in the HttpResponse. The status code is 403 but I can't read the substatus.
How to then filter the client certificates in the UI to list only those that are valid based on the server certificate (issued by?).
Thanks in advance.