![]() ![]() Oh, and for additional comedy value - avast! themselves use an EV certificate on their own website. With avast!’s inserted security certificate, you lose this additional protection. EV certificates are intended to give the user additional confirmation that you’re indeed talking to who you think you’re talking to and not Joe’s Phishing & Hijacking service. EV certificates are backed by a much more thorough identity verification process, not to mention that they’re considerably more expensive than a normal certificate. This is what a real certificate is supposed to look like:ĭid you notice the inscription “Microsoft Corporation ” next to the padlock symbol that indicates you’re on an encrypted connection? That shows Microsoft is using an EV (Extended Validation) certificate for this particular site. Now compare the identity information for the “clean” connection with avast! web shield disabled to the information that was showing up in my first example showing Google Maps. ![]() Have a look at the “Issued by:” entry for the certificate information and also the encryption information in the URL box: I case you’re not that familiar with what the connection information is supposed to show you, you can be pretty sure that Google doesn’t have their identity verified by avast!.Īs I was preparing the images for the blog post, I noticed the same behaviour on. Google Maps showing the Avast! certificate A quick check on a Windows machine in my household confirmed that this was also true for Windows: I read about this on a blog post that was linked from Hacker News where someone claimed that Avast’s virus scanner for Mac OS inserts itself into SSL-encrypted connections using a self-signed certificate. I would recommend you turn off web shield’s https scanning or choose another virus scanner. Tl dr - avast’s web shield functionality appears to insert itself into SSL connections using a self signed trusted root certificate and a simple kind of man-in-the middle “attack” on SSL. ![]()
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February 2023
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