Related papers: Assessing SSL/TLS Certificate Centralization: Impl…
The security of TLS depends on trust in certificate authorities, and that trust stems from their ability to protect and control the use of a private signing key. The signing key is the key asset of a certificate authority (CA), and its…
The Domain Name System (DNS) service is one of the pillars of the Internet. This service allows users to access websites on the Internet through easy-to-remember domain names rather than complex numeric IP addresses. DNS acts as a directory…
The Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol and its public-key infrastructure (PKI) are widely used in the Internet to achieve secure communication. Validating domain ownership by trusted certification authorities (CAs) is a critical step…
In an era where economies and societies are deeply integrated into cyberspace, achieving a robust level of digital sovereignty has become an essential goal for nations aiming to preserve their security and strategic political autonomy,…
Public key infrastructures are essential for Internet security, ensuring robust certificate management and revocation mechanisms. The transition from centralized to decentralized systems presents challenges such as trust distribution and…
Authentication in TLS is predominately carried out with X.509 digital certificates issued by certificate authorities (CA). The centralized nature of current public key infrastructures, however, comes along with severe risks, such as single…
Over the past decade, Internet centralization and its implications for both people and the resilience of the Internet has become a topic of active debate. While the networking community informally agrees on the definition of centralization,…
Let's Encrypt is a new entrant in the Certificate Authority ecosystem that offers free and automated certificate signing. It is visionary in its commitment to Certificate Transparency. In this paper, we shed light on the adoption patterns…
There is a growing concern about consolidation trends in Internet services, with, for instance, a large fraction of popular websites depending on a handful of third-party service providers. In this paper, we report on a large-scale study of…
Many of the benefits we derive from the Internet require trust in the authenticity of HTTPS connections. Unfortunately, the public key certification ecosystem that underwrites this trust has failed us on numerous occasions. Towards an…
This article surveys blockchain-based approaches for several security services. These services include authentication, confidentiality, privacy, and access control list (ACL), data and resource provenance, and integrity assurance. All these…
Digital signatures are crucial for securing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) transactions. Like most forms of digital currencies, CBDC solutions rely on signatures for transaction authenticity and integrity, leading to major issues…
Self-Sovereign Digital Identity (SSDI) enables individuals to control their own identity assertions and data, rather than relying on centralized or federated systems prone to large-scale data breaches. By eliminating centralized databases…
The Web public key infrastructure is essential to providing secure communication on the Internet today, and certificate authorities play a crucial role in this ecosystem by issuing certificates. These authorities may misissue certificates…
Digital identity is evolving from centralized systems to a decentralized approach known as Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). SSI empowers individuals to control their digital identities, eliminating reliance on third-party data custodians and…
If two or more identical HTTPS clients, located at different geographic locations (regions), make an HTTPS request to the same domain (e.g. example.com), on the same day, will they receive the same HTTPS security guarantees in response? Our…
The Location Service (LCS) proposed by the telecommunication industry is an architecture that allows the location of mobile devices to be accessed in various applications. We explore the use of LCS in location-enhanced server…
Managed TLS has become a common approach for deploying HTTPS, with platforms generating and storing private keys and automating certificate issuance on behalf of domain operators. This model simplifies operational management but shifts…
Our increasing reliance on digital technology for personal, economic, and government affairs has made it essential to secure the communications and devices of private citizens, businesses, and governments. This has led to pervasive use of…
There have been growing concerns about the concentration and centralization of Internet infrastructure. In this work, we scrutinize the hosting industry on the Internet by using active measurements, covering 19 Top-Level Domains (TLDs). We…