https://tech-insider.org/emudhra-ca-private-keys-compromised...

(Credit to the relevant xkcd. :D )

Release is out now, including a blog post at https://www.mitmproxy.org/posts/releases/mitmproxy-12.3/. There isn't really much to explain, you just pass `--emudhra`. :)

So from the perspective of hacking old IoT devices, if your device hasn't been updated since 2018, the AAA path should work; if since February 2025, either path works; if since October 2026, the emSign path.

I was mainly interested in testing which IoT devices are affected and protecting them, not trying to sniff their traffic since it's been a long day. My proxy thus just intercepted and forwarded the traffic upstream using a fresh TLS connection that does not use the compromised keys.

server: here are latest ads

btw, the ads are capable of code execution for whatever reason so now you have an RCE on your hands for your client

which brings me to my next question, what if you rerun the same process for all the certificates in the "approved" stores, give them 1 min per certificate.. just to see how many other CAs are being "friendly" to parties that could take benefit of that...

update... I'm talking out of ignorance here... but assuming cli open source tools, should they prevent you creating certificates with weak settings unless --emudhra-level-security is passed?

also, what amount of time is needed in say a "civilian" gpu with claude to vibe code something that can test a certificate so say 80 bits.. or whatever is the level where yes, you cannot find the values to generate the certificate with a cpu... but you can with a gpu in say 1 day? say it's 80 bits... how many CA stores are there? how much does it cost to rent gpus to run in parallel to test 1 day of civilian gpu to check each certificate if you use one of these very expensive ones?

Per AI, 10²¹ years

Alternatively I would presume you could do it in 1 year with 10²¹ GPUs.

Also, I am the kind of pessimist who goes through my device's root stores, and I "distrust" every root CA that I don't need to trust. This has never broken anything within my perception. I distrust the Turkey CAs, the Chinese communist CAs, the Indian CAs, and any other non-NATO sorts who have no reason to be serving any data to my devices.

* eMudhra was not a CA but an intermediate.

> On October 17, 2026, browser root programs received a report that the private keys of eight eMudhra intermediate certificates had been compromised. The private keys were 4, 56, 66, 115, 155, 156, 230, and 237. A P-384 elliptic-curve private key normally has about 384 bits of entropy, but these keys had between 3 and 8 bits.

(While the smallest one being 4 memeworthy, I don't see any particular indication that it's exceptional within the samples, rather than just the smallest when sorted. So they're probably all 8-bit keys, not 3-bit—it's the (unknowable) generator distribution, not the width of the actual key).

Anyone else bother to notice iOS still trusts 2 of the forged certs on the test site? I'd like to politely know what the fuck is going on because this is far from being "fixed".

I've just been rechecking everything and both iOS and MacOS browsers (Safari and Orion tested) now accept one (for MacOS, 27.0.1) or three (for iOS, 27.0.1) of them. I know the revocation is not an OS update, just including the version number for completeness.

EDIT: iPadOS with the same browsers continues to pass the tests.

Further EDIT: iPadOS now accepts one of them. This has to be a load issue on the "got a problem site", surely? Maybe a check for a certificate error message that never hits because a timeout beats it?

No, because it lets you successfully navigate to the forged CA test site.

You'll get a message to the effect of, "you shouldn't see this, this is bad"

Try clicking the link containing the CA's name for any that fail the test.

Checking Keychain access shows none of the intermediates, but it does have the emSign ECC Root CA - G3. Manually setting that to "Never Trust" stops the Mac browsers seeing the intermediate test sites as it should.

I didn't go into this much detail this morning, so I don't know if previously the revocation from Apple hit the root as well as the intermediates. But right now, on my Mac, trusting that Root lets my browsers connect to the Intermediate CA ending C=NL. Switch the trust off and I go back to green "Did not connect".

I guess the ball is in Apple's court as far as the iOS family goes.

EDIT: intriguingly (to me at least), the AAA Certificate Service Root is still Trusted, yet the intermediates chained to it are all green "Did not connect"

EDIT: I'm not promoting this nuclear option as a "solution" by the way, merely presenting some diagnostic information to help the group mind.

I don’t know if possible on iOS but I remember multiple incidents where people recommended turning off CRL and OCSP on macOS to speed things up. That even used to be a setting in the GUI. https://imgur.com/XVHWCNz

It's possible the Indian CA is overloaded.

My question is why the system trust store has not been updated to distrust the shady root CA?

Edit: I'm not the only one with this issue:

https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1xbvxgd/emudhra_cer...

My best guess is it's soft-failing on a failed OCSP lookup?

At some point you’re forced to stack rank two or more of your values in a case where they’re mutually exclusive

In fact, it's securing _the companies_ against potential competitors and users who might raise privacy concerns

The Fortune 500 "MiTM's" TLS traffic from their local networks

Every individual with a local network should also be doing this

I prefer haproxy to mitmproxy. It's faster

So, not trusting anything wireless is a thing for almost a decade.