Always get a Security Error for Internal HTTPS Website

Question

Full disclosure, I asked this question over at Ask Different (https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/96776/always-get-a-security-error-for-internal-https-website) but didn't get much helpful feedback. I'm hoping this question fits better here.

My company recently changed an internal site to use HTTPS instead of HTTP (it is our Jira site in case that matters). From what I can tell, this site is using an internal certificate. On our work computers this certificate appears to be pre installed so the website comes up without trouble in IE, Firefox, and Chrome. However, my personal computer is a Mac (OS X 10.8.4) and I am having major troubles accessing the site through any browser. I have followed instructions to install the certificate in my Keychain and I believe I have successfully done that, but I am still not able to access the site.

When Accessing the site I Get:

Chrome: Invalid Server Certificate You attempted to reach jira.surescripts.local, but the server presented an invalid certificate.

Safari: Safari can't open the page Safari can't open the page "https://jira.local:8081/" because Safari can't establish a secure connection to the server "jira.local"

In Chrome when I view the certificate information it I see: Intermediate certificate authority. Expires: Thursday, May 21, 2015 1:19:28 PM Central Daylight Time. This certificate is valid

To make sure that it wasn't something strange with our company's VPN, I installed a Windows 7 virtual machine on my Mac and installed the certificate in Windows and am able to successfully log on to the site how I always would.

I am not much of an expert with certificates and I really don't know where to go from here. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Answer 1

The problem is probably the encryption protocols that your Mac and the company web site don't match up.

Safari Browsers for OS X before Safari 7 (up to 6.0.7 which was on OS X 10.8.4) use the SSL 3.0 protocol, which has vulnerabilities and is considered insecure. Most newer and well-designed web sites use TLS 1.1 and/or TLS 1.2.

Browser encryption capabilities for Safari 6.0.4

Find out from your company if that is what is set up. The same site that has the specs I linked to allow you to enter a web site, and they'll throw a battery of test transactions at it to test it's security and what will connect, but I doubt you can use that for an internal site. Ask your IT folks what encryption protocols they are using.

As a solution, I believe there are versions of Firefox and/or Chrome that can run on 10.8.4 that use TLS 1.2.

List of major browser versions that support TLS 1.2

Answer 2

Sefl signed certificate always triger warnings in web browsers.

To validate a server certificate you must have in the client browser the CA certificate wich was used to sign the SSL server certificate.

Your company should create a CA cert, then create a server SSL cert. signed with the CA and put it on the web server. The clients install public part of the CA cert in "Trusted CA" certificate store. When client conect to the web server the server sent the signed SSL certificate, the client check if it is a "trusted" cert (was signed by a trusted CA) and if everithing is Ok the client doesn't show the warning.

You ended with this cert chain:

CA cert->SSL cert

CA cert public part is installed in client broser as trusted CA. SSL is put in the web server. Client validate SSL cert agaist its Trusted CA certs installed in its Certificate Stores.

It is like CyberTrus CA. You can see how you have Baltimore Cyber Trust Root and Cybertrust Public SureServer SB CA installed in your computer and when you enter into https://www.bancosantander.es/cssa/Satellite?pagename=SantanderComercial/Page/SAN_Index you can see that *.bancosantander.es certificate is valid because you are trusting in the chain.

Your company needs to create the root, then create the SSL signed by the root. The root (public part) is distributed to the client for install. The server sends the SSL to client in HTTPS protocol.

Check this link for more info.

Answer 3

It almost sounds like you need to trust a self-signed certificate? Perhaps follow: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/SOURCETREEKB/Resolving+SSL+Self-Signed+Certificate+Errors