This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia.(July 2024) |
Formerly | Comodo Security Solutions, Inc. |
---|---|
Company type | Private |
Industry | Computer software |
Founded | United Kingdom (1998 ) [1] |
Headquarters | , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Melih Abdulhayoğlu (President and Chairman) |
Number of employees | 1,200+[ citation needed ] |
Website | www |
Comodo Security Solutions, Inc., is a cybersecurity company headquartered in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Under the brand Sectigo, the company acts as a web Certificate authority (CA) and issues SSL/TLS certificates.
The company was founded in 1998 in the United Kingdom [1] by Melih Abdulhayoğlu. The company relocated to the United States in 2004. Its products are focused on computer and internet security. The firm operates a certificate authority that issues SSL certificates. The company also helped on setting standards by contributing to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) DNS Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) Resource Record. [2]
In October 2017, Francisco Partners acquired Comodo Certification Authority (Comodo CA) from Comodo Security Solutions, Inc. Francisco Partners rebranded Comodo CA in November 2018 to Sectigo. [3] [4]
On June 28, 2018, the new organization announced that it was expanding from TLS/SSL certificates into IoT security with the announcement of its IoT device security platform. [5] The company announced its new headquarters in Roseland, New Jersey on July 3, 2018 [6] and its acquisition of CodeGuard, a website maintenance and disaster recovery company, on August 16, 2018. [7]
On June 29, 2020, Comodo announced their strategic partnership with the company CyberSecOp.[ citation needed ] The firm has partnered with Comodo in the past, and seeks to provide a range of cybersecurity products and consulting services.
Comodo is a member of the following industry organizations:
In response to Symantec's comment asserting paid antivirus is superior to free antivirus, the CEO of Comodo Group, Melih Abdulhayoğlu had challenged Symantec on 18 September 2010 to see whether paid or free products can better defend the consumer against malware. [19] GCN'S John Breeden understood Comodo's stance on free Antivirus software and challenging Symantec: "This is actually a pretty smart move based on previous reviews of AV performance we've done in the GCN Lab. Our most recent AV review this year showed no functional difference between free and paid programs in terms of stopping viruses, and it's been that way for many years. In fact you have to go all the way back to 2006 to find an AV roundup where viruses were missed by some companies." [20]
Symantec responded saying that if Comodo is interested they should have their product included in tests by independent reviewers. [21]
Comodo volunteered to a Symantec vs. Comodo independent review. [22] Though this showdown did not take place, Comodo has since been included in multiple independent reviews with AV-Test, [23] PC World, [24] Best Antivirus Reviews, [25] AV-Comparatives, [26] and PC Mag. [27]
On 23 March 2011, Comodo posted a report that 8 days earlier, on 15 March 2011, a user account with an affiliate registration authority had been compromised and was used to create a new user account that issued nine certificate signing requests. [28] Nine certificates for seven domains were issued. [28] The attack was traced to IP address 212.95.136.18, which originates in Tehran, Iran. [28] Moxie Marlinspike analyzed the IP address on his website the next day and found it to have English localization and Windows operating system. [29] Though the firm initially reported that the breach was the result of a "state-driven attack", it subsequently stated that the origin of the attack may be the "result of an attacker attempting to lay a false trail.". [28] [30]
Comodo revoked all of the bogus certificates shortly after the breach was discovered. Comodo also stated that it was actively looking into ways to improve the security of its affiliates. [31]
In an update on 31 March 2011, Comodo stated that it detected and thwarted an intrusion into a reseller user account on 26 March 2011. The new controls implemented by Comodo following the incident on 15 March 2011, removed any risk of the fraudulent issue of certificates. Comodo believed the attack was from the same perpetrator as the incident on 15 March 2011. [32]
In regards to this second incident, Comodo stated, "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." [33]
On 26 March 2011, a person under the username "ComodoHacker" verified that they were the attacker by posting the private keys online [34] and posted a series of messages detailing how poor Comodo's security is and bragging about his abilities: [35] [36]
I hacked Comodo from InstantSSL.it, their CEO's e-mail address mfpenco@mfpenco.com
Their Comodo username/password was: user: gtadmin password: globaltrust
Their DB name was: globaltrust and instantsslcms
Enough said, huh? Yes, enough said, someone who should know already knows...
Anyway, at first I should mention we have no relation to Iranian Cyber Army, we don't change DNSes, we
just hack and own.
I see Comodo CEO and other wrote that it was a managed attack, it was a planned attack, a group of
cyber criminals did it, etc.
Let me explain:
a) I'm not a group, I'm single hacker with experience of 1000 hacker, I'm single programmer with
experience of 1000 programmer, I'm single planner/project manager with experience of 1000 project
managers, so you are right, it's managed by 1000 hackers, but it was only I with experience of 1000
hackers.
Such issues have been widely reported, and have led to criticism of how certificates are issued and revoked. [37] [38] [39] [40] As of 2016, all of the certificates remain revoked. [28] Microsoft issued a security advisory and update to address the issue at the time of the event. [41] [42]
For Comodo's lacking response on the issue computer security researcher Moxie Marlinspike called the whole event extremely embarrassing for Comodo and rethinking SSL security. It was also implied that the attacker followed an online video tutorial and searched for basic opsec [29]
Such attacks are not unique to Comodo – the specifics will vary from CA to CA, RA to RA, but there are so many of these entities, all of them trusted by default, that further holes are deemed to be inevitable. [43]
In February 2015, Comodo was associated with a man-in-the-middle enabling tool known as PrivDog, which claims to protect users against malicious advertising. [44]
PrivDog issued a statement on 23 February 2015, saying, "A minor intermittent defect has been detected in a third party library used by the PrivDog standalone application which potentially affects a very small number of users. This potential issue is only present in PrivDog versions, 3.0.96.0 and 3.0.97.0. The potential issue is not present in the PrivDog plug-in that is distributed with Comodo Browsers, and Comodo has not distributed this version to its users. there are potentially a maximum of 6,294 users in the USA and 57,568 users globally that this could potentially impact. The third party library used by PrivDog is not the same third party library used by Superfish....The potential issue has already been corrected. There will be an update tomorrow which will automatically update all 57,568 users of these specific PrivDog versions." [45]
In 2009 Microsoft MVP Michael Burgess accused Comodo of issuing digital certificates to known malware distributors. [46] Comodo responded when notified and revoked the certificates in question, which were used to sign the known malware. [47]
In January 2016, Tavis Ormandy reported that Comodo's Chromodo browser exhibited a number of vulnerabilities, including disabling of the same-origin policy. [48]
The vulnerability wasn't in the browser itself. Rather, the issue was with an add-on. As soon as Comodo became aware of the issue in early February 2016, the company released a statement and a fix: "As an industry, software in general is always being updated, patched, fixed, addressed, improved – it goes hand in hand with any development cycle...What is critical in software development is how companies address an issue if a certain vulnerability is found – ensuring it never puts the customer at risk." Those using Chromodo immediately received an update. [49] The Chromodo browser was subsequently discontinued by Comodo.
Ormandy noted that Comodo received a "Excellence in Information Security Testing" award from Verizon despite the vulnerability in its browser, despite having its VNC delivered with a default of weak authentication, despite not enabling address space layout randomization (ASLR), and despite using access control lists (ACLs) throughout its product. Ormandy has the opinion that Verizon's certification methodology is at fault here. [50]
In October 2015, Comodo applied for "Let's Encrypt", "Comodo Let's Encrypt", and "Let's Encrypt with Comodo" trademarks. [51] [52] [53] These trademark applications were filed almost a year after the Internet Security Research Group, parent organization of Let's Encrypt, started using the name Let's Encrypt publicly in November 2014, [54] and despite the fact Comodo's "intent to use" trademark filings acknowledge that it has never used "Let's Encrypt" as a brand.
On 24 June 2016, Comodo publicly posted in its forum that it had filed for "express abandonment" of their trademark applications. [55]
Comodo's Chief Technical Officer Robin Alden said, "Comodo has filed for express abandonment of the trademark applications at this time instead of waiting and allowing them to lapse. Following collaboration between Let's Encrypt and Comodo, the trademark issue is now resolved and behind us, and we'd like to thank the Let's Encrypt team for helping to bring it to a resolution." [56]
On 25 July 2016, Matthew Bryant showed that Comodo's website is vulnerable to dangling markup injection attacks and can send emails to system administrators from Comodo's servers to approve a wildcard certificate issue request which can be used to issue arbitrary wildcard certificates via Comodo's 30-Day PositiveSSL product. [57]
Bryant reached out in June 2016, and on 25 July 2016, Comodo's Chief Technical Officer Robin Alden confirmed a fix was put in place, within the responsible disclosure date per industry standards. [58]
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It uses encryption for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS) or, formerly, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). The protocol is therefore also referred to as HTTP over TLS, or HTTP over SSL.
Malware is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or which unknowingly interferes with the user's computer security and privacy. Researchers tend to classify malware into one or more sub-types.
A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a set of roles, policies, hardware, software and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store and revoke digital certificates and manage public-key encryption.
Antivirus software, also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware.
In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates. A digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. This allows others to rely upon signatures or on assertions made about the private key that corresponds to the certified public key. A CA acts as a trusted third party—trusted both by the subject (owner) of the certificate and by the party relying upon the certificate. The format of these certificates is specified by the X.509 or EMV standard.
Gen Digital Inc. is a multinational software company co-headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague, Czech Republic. The company provides cybersecurity software and services. Gen is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock-market index. The company also has development centers in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore. Its portfolio includes Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, ReputationDefender, and CCleaner.
Linux malware includes viruses, Trojans, worms and other types of malware that affect the Linux family of operating systems. Linux, Unix and other Unix-like computer operating systems are generally regarded as very well-protected against, but not immune to, computer viruses.
The Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) is an Internet protocol used for obtaining the revocation status of an X.509 digital certificate. It is described in RFC 6960 and is on the Internet standards track. It was created as an alternative to certificate revocation lists (CRL), specifically addressing certain problems associated with using CRLs in a public key infrastructure (PKI). Messages communicated via OCSP are encoded in ASN.1 and are usually communicated over HTTP. The "request/response" nature of these messages leads to OCSP servers being termed OCSP responders.
An Extended Validation (EV) Certificate is a certificate conforming to X.509 that proves the legal entity of the owner and is signed by a certificate authority key that can issue EV certificates. EV certificates can be used in the same manner as any other X.509 certificates, including securing web communications with HTTPS and signing software and documents. Unlike domain-validated certificates and organization-validation certificates, EV certificates can be issued only by a subset of certificate authorities (CAs) and require verification of the requesting entity's legal identity before certificate issuance.
Melih Abdulhayoğlu is the CEO of MAVeCap, an incubator Venture Capital firm funded by his family office. MAVeCap focusses on building tomorrow's technology platform companies. His first company was Comodo. The firm is now branded as Sectigo.
VirusTotal is a website created by the Spanish security company Hispasec Sistemas. Launched in June 2004, it was acquired by Google in September 2012. The company's ownership switched in January 2018 to Chronicle, a subsidiary of Google.
Man-in-the-browser, a form of Internet threat related to man-in-the-middle (MITM), is a proxy Trojan horse that infects a web browser by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in browser security to modify web pages, modify transaction content or insert additional transactions, all in a covert fashion invisible to both the user and host web application. A MitB attack will be successful irrespective of whether security mechanisms such as SSL/PKI and/or two- or three-factor authentication solutions are in place. A MitB attack may be countered by using out-of-band transaction verification, although SMS verification can be defeated by man-in-the-mobile (MitMo) malware infection on the mobile phone. Trojans may be detected and removed by antivirus software, but a 2011 report concluded that additional measures on top of antivirus software were needed.
Form grabbing is a form of malware that works by retrieving authorization and log-in credentials from a web data form before it is passed over the Internet to a secure server. This allows the malware to avoid HTTPS encryption. This method is more effective than keylogger software because it will acquire the user’s credentials even if they are input using virtual keyboard, auto-fill, or copy and paste. It can then sort the information based on its variable names, such as email, account name, and password. Additionally, the form grabber will log the URL and title of the website the data was gathered from.
The Certification Authority Browser Forum, also known as the CA/Browser Forum, is a voluntary consortium of certification authorities, vendors of Internet browser and secure email software, operating systems, and other PKI-enabled applications that promulgates industry guidelines governing the issuance and management of X.509 v.3 digital certificates that chain to a trust anchor embedded in such applications. Its guidelines cover certificates used for the SSL/TLS protocol and code signing, as well as system and network security of certificate authorities.
Comodo Dragon is a freeware web browser. It is based on Chromium and is produced by Comodo Group. Sporting a similar interface to Google Chrome, Dragon does not implement Chrome's user tracking and some other potentially privacy-compromising features, replacing them with its own user tracking implementations, and provides additional security measures, such as indicating the authenticity and relative strength of a website's Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.
DigiNotar was a Dutch certificate authority, established in 1998 and acquired in January 2011 by VASCO Data Security International, Inc. The company was hacked in June 2011 and it issued hundreds of fake certificates, some of which were used for man-in-the-middle attacks on Iranian Gmail users. The company was declared bankrupt in September 2011.
The Certificate Authority Security Council (CASC) is a multi-vendor industry advocacy group created to conduct research, promote Internet security standards and educate the public on Internet security issues.
Certificate Transparency (CT) is an Internet security standard for monitoring and auditing the issuance of digital certificates. When an internet user interacts with a website, a trusted third party is needed for assurance that the website is legitimate and that the website's encryption key is valid. This third party, called a certificate authority (CA), will issue a certificate for the website that the user's browser can validate. The security of encrypted internet traffic depends on the trust that certificates are only given out by the certificate authority and that the certificate authority has not been compromised.
DNS Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) is an Internet security policy mechanism that allows domain name holders to indicate to certificate authorities whether they are authorized to issue digital certificates for a particular domain name. It does this by means of a "CAA" Domain Name System (DNS) resource record.
Trustico is a dedicated SSL certificate provider, They are headquartered in the United Kingdom.