Re: Using SSL accelerators in firewalls

[Paul Robertson <proberts () patriot net>]

On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Darren Reed wrote:

> There would seem to be a growing trend in using SSL accelerators not
> next to the web server but attached to a firewall so that it isn't
> https traffic that passes through but http.
>
> To me this screams out "bad design" as the end-to-end encryption is
> lost in the process and the security of transactions eroded.

End-to-end encryption is both a good and a bad thing...

> What do others think?  Is this becoming a "done thing" that is more
> and more acceptable to corporates or is this just an isolated thing?

It's definitely becomming a "done thing," sometimes for performance, and 
other times for "increased security"- that is being able to do NIDS on the 
decrypted data stream.

I'm not sure that there's all that much delineation between the ammount of 
trust necessary to go to the border of a company and the ammount of trust 
of doing SSL directly to an IIS box.

Paul
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Robertson      "My statements in this message are personal opinions
proberts () patriot net      which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."

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