The certificate security patch used by Superfish the installed add-on on Lenovo computers has just been cracked (Cracked).
We recently reported that the Superfish software used by Lenovo generates a security certificate to re-sign all security certificates it receives from HTTPS pages, such as bank pages, effectively allowing access to plaintext information in traffic between client and a server that would otherwise be encrypted.
Many security experts who have examined the subject have discovered that the add-on uses the same RSA key (1024 bits) on all devices, which means that if someone manages to break it, they will be able to "read" the encrypted traffic exchanged between a user with a Lenovo user computer and a secure service. This is exactly what he did Robert Graham, Chief Executive Officer of Errata Security.
The researcher used a system with Superfish installed by dumping the data generated by the processes into system memory.
After discovering the encrypted private key of the security certificate used by Superfish, and the certificate itself, it tried to verify that the data is protected by a password.
Cracking the password turned out to be a bit more difficult than expected, as it required a modified brute-force program. When Graham had to develop a new brute-force software for the needs of this attack.
He assumed the password wouldn't be complicated, so he gave the program a command searchs only between lowercase letters. In less than 10 seconds, he discovered the password which was “komodia.”
The password decrypts the root certificate and could be used to attacks man-in-the-middle against Lenovo users who have Superfish installed on their system.
