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Recommended SSL to enable site


Samet Chan
Posts: 36
Topic starter
(@samet-chan)
Eminent Member
Joined: 10 years ago

What is SSL, Why do we need SSL, HTTPS is safe? Many questions.

	The principle of HTTPS operation
	HTTP protocol is built on top of TCP. TCP guarantees that the data will be delivered, or it is impossible to deliver (target not reachable, etc.). You open a TCP connection and send HTTP messages through it.
	
	But TCP does not guarantee any level of security. Therefore an intermediate layer named SSL is put between TCP and HTTP and you get the so-called HTTPS. This way of working is called tunneling – you dump data into one end of (SSL) tunnel and collect it at the other one. SSL gets HTTP messages, encrypts them, sends them over TCP and decrypts them again at the other end. Encryption protects you from eavesdropping and transparent MITM attack (altering the messages).
	
	But SSL does not only provide encryption, it also provides authentication. A server must have a certificate signed by a well-known certification authority (CA) that proves its identity. Without authentication, encryption is useless as MITM attack is still possible. The attacker could trick you into thinking that he is the server you want to connect to. Private chat with the devil is not what you want, you want to verify that the server you are connecting to really is the one you want to connect to. Authentication protects you from MITM.
	
	Weak points
	So where are the weak points?
	
	
  • Endpoints of a secure connection. The transfer could be secure, but what about the server itself? Or the client? They may not.
  • Not using HTTPS. Users can be tricked into not using the scheme in various ways.
  • Untrustworthy CAs. They break the authentication part, allowing for MITM attack.
  • Weak encryption mechanism. Crypto technologies age in two ways: Serious flaws might be found in their design, leading to attacks much more efficient than brute force, or their parameters and processing power increase due to Moore's law might allow for a feasible brute-force attack.
  • Implementation of the scheme. Well, if you specify A and implement B, properties of A may not hold for B.
Direct answers
  • You seem to say that you secured the transfer (using SSL). This is not enough, the security of your server can be compromised – you should not store passwords there in plain text, use their hashed form, with salt added, …
  • SSL encrypts data both when sending and receiving. MITM attacks are possible virtually only when the attacker has the certificate signed by an authority the client trusts. Unless the client is tricked into not using HTTPS, nobody can read nor modify the messages being sent.
  • GET and POST is just two methods of making an HTTP request. There are several other, too. The method is just a property of HTTP request. All messages are secured, both requests and responses, regardless of HTTP method being used.

If their site has upgrade account, I recommend for SSL needed to enable. The secure site more than HTTP/GET.

I'm an InfoSec well.

InfoSec = Information security,
What does this mean? Let's what say here,

	the state of being protected against the unauthorized use of information, especially electronic data, or the measures are taken to achieve this.
	"the growing use of mobile applications is posing a risk to information security"
	

CloudFlare SSL is free. You can enable SSL with Flexible. But not "Full".

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4 Replies
Cyb3r
Posts: 1598
(@cyb3r)
Noble Member
Joined: 10 years ago

Thanks for your suggestion but moving to SSL will cause some indexing errors with search engines and will bring so much errors to the site at first, we were running SSL on GZ before and it was so much of a hassle so i'll stick to http for now.

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Samet Chan
Posts: 36
Topic starter
(@samet-chan)
Eminent Member
Joined: 10 years ago

Thanks for your suggestion but moving to SSL will cause some indexing errors with search engines and will bring so much errors to the site at first, we were running SSL on GZ before and it was so much of a hassle so i'll stick to http for now.

Oh, I suggest you report to XenForo would be better. ^^

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GregoryRasputin
Posts: 3
(@GregoryRasputin)
New Member
Joined: 6 years ago

Thanks for your suggestion but moving to SSL will cause some indexing errors with search engines and will bring so much errors to the site at first, we were running SSL on GZ before and it was so much of a hassle so i'll stick to http for now.

You should be able to move without any problem, just redirect all your http links to https, there are not that many threads, should't take that long :p

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Cyb3r
Posts: 1598
(@cyb3r)
Noble Member
Joined: 10 years ago

You should be able to move without any problem, just redirect all your http links to https, there are not that many threads, should't take that long :p

I messed up the permissions I didn't know you could post a reply here either way I may think about moving to SSL later when I have some free time.

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