ANNOUNCEMENT: Live Wireshark University & Allegro Packets online APAC Wireshark Training Session
April 17th, 2024 | 14:30-16:00 SGT (UTC+8) | Online

Wireshark-dev: [Wireshark-dev] SSL decryption help needed

From: "prashanth s" <prbanglore@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 19:54:23 +0530
Hi all,

In SSL, by "encryption key", it means the secret shared that is calculated based on the random number generated and the master secret key ?
In that case would it not be really difficult to get that key and hence to decrypt the ssl?

I am currently working on writing a decoder for ssl for an internal
server of our organization. Because it is internal server we have access
 to the private and the public keys of the certificate of the server.
 I am interested in knowing whether it is not at all possible to decrypt
 the ssl without using the brute force method. My requirement is that the
 sniffer should act passively in the network between the client and the
 server. And it should be able to decrypt the data without any kind of
 man in the middle kind of attacks. Is this possible?
 I see that the random numbers are exchanged between the client and the
 server initially during the handshake only for preventing the replay
 attacks. there after the master secret key is generated by the client by
 randomly generating a fresh random number. And then this master secret
 key is encrypted. Hence is there no hope to decrypt the ssl ?
 We own the certificates and hence can know the the private and public
 keys of the certificates. Is this information not enough in calculating
 the secret shared key?
 Actually a company called "Unleash Networks" have come with a product
 that they claim as capable of decrypting ssl. How they might have done
 it? By brute force method? Or is it possible to decrypt ssl?


Regards,
Prashanth