topic Inbound HTTPS inspection certificate chain in Firewall and Security Management

Inbound HTTPS inspection certificate chain

i80r — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 12:34:39 GMT

Hello everyone!

Recently stumbled upon a peculiar problem with the inbound HTTPS inspection. We host a server, inbound traffic to which is being inspected. The server can be accessed via web by regular browsers or by a mobile app designed specifically for this server application. Everything works as expected with regular browser connections. However, problem arises when the mobile app tries to connect. Strictly speaking, the problem is with the Android version of the app. Sometimes the app doesn't respond to Server's TLS Hello, other times it responds with "TLSv Record Layer: Alert (Level: Fatal, Description: Certificate Unknown)"

I did some investigating and found out that Checkpoint's Inspection mechanism sends just the web certificate of the server in Server Hello, while the server itself sends the whole certificate chain including the CA. Otherwise Checkpoint's and servers' Hello packets are nearly identical.

Checkpoint's Server Hello:

Original Server Hello:

Now the question is, is it possible to enable transmission of the whole certificate chain in HTTPS Inspection and, if yes, how can it be done?

Re: Inbound HTTPS inspection certificate chain

_Val_ — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 13:59:26 GMT

When setting up inbound inspection certificate, you need to take it with the whole chain, not just intermediary CA one.

Re: Inbound HTTPS inspection certificate chain

i80r — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 05:02:21 GMT

Thank you _Val_!

For those, who are interested how to convert a pfx/p12 certificate to a chain here is the solution:

https://www.computertechblog.com/create-a-pfx-file-with-a-certificate-chain/

Re: Inbound HTTPS inspection certificate chain

HristoGrigorov — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 05:08:51 GMT

Strictly speaking you should not include CA root certificate in a chain. It is supposed to be fetched from a local trusted store. For Windows that is Trusted Root Certificate Authorities store and for CheckPoint that is Trusted CAs store.

If your software *requires* CA root certificate to be included in the chain then that is kind of not correct...

Re: Inbound HTTPS inspection certificate chain

i80r — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 05:12:45 GMT

The software does fetch CA from a trusted store but apparently not all of the android devices have Sectigo root certificate in it.