印度认证机构 eMudhra 在令人尴尬的报告披露其私钥薄弱（其中一个仅为单个数字）后，决定认栽并彻底退出全球 SSL/TLS 证书业务。eMudhra 周四宣布放弃该业务板块。诚然，公司遭受的高度关注是一个因素，但该公司也辩称，不断增长的合规成本以及免费证书提供商的竞争，使得该业务越来越难以证明其合理性。
After embarrassing reports revealed weak private keys, one of which was just a single digit, Indian certification authority eMudhra has decided to take the L and get out of the global SSL/TLS cert game entirely. eMudhra announced Thursday that it was abandoning that arm of its business. Sure, the intense scrutiny heaped on the company was a factor, but the firm also argued that growing compliance costs and competition from free certificate providers had made the business increasingly difficult to justify.
“全球 SSL/TLS 业务仅占 eMudhra 全球收入的约 1%”，公司解释称，大型公司免费发放 SSL/TLS 证书，加上合规和数据主权要求的增加，使其成为公司业务中微不足道的一部分，不值得承受如此多的负面报道。“围绕此事的社交媒体放大效应带来的关注度，与 SSL/TLS 在我们业务中的地位不成比例”，eMudhra 解释道。“鉴于此，经过详细审议，董事会得出结论，退出全球 SSL/TLS 业务是 eMudhra 及其股东的正确决定。”
“Global SSL/TLS is a small part of eMudhra’s business contributing to about 1 percent of the global revenue,” the company explained, noting that free SSL/TLS cert issuance from large firms and increased compliance and data sovereignty requirements have made it a minor part of the firm’s operation, and one that doesn’t merit so much bad press. “The level of social media amplification around this incident has brought scrutiny that is out of proportion to SSL/TLS’s place in our business,” eMudhra explained. “In view of this, after detailed deliberations our board has concluded that withdrawing from global SSL/TLS is the right decision for eMudhra and its shareholders.”
有人可能会争辩说，即使 SSL/TLS 仅占其全球收入的 1%，私钥值为 4 的私有 CA 密钥仍然值得彻底的公开羞辱。自 eMudhra 的弱私钥在公开报告中被曝光以来，仅过去了两天，此前有人于 10 月 17 日向 Mozilla 提交了报告，而安全研究人员恢复这些密钥并非难事：受影响的八个私钥值从数字 4（是的，就是一个普通的数字 4）到 56 和 66，再到稍微复杂一点的 115、155、156、230 和 237。破解这些密钥不需要量子计算机。哇——最好留着量子比特备用。
An argument could be made that, even if SSL/TLS accounts for just 1 percent of its global revenue, a private CA key with a value of 4 still deserves a thorough public shaming. It’s only been two days since eMudhra’s weak private keys were exposed in public reports, following a report to Mozilla on October 17, and it wasn’t exactly hard for security researchers to recover them: The eight affected private-key values ranged from the number 4 (yes – a plain old number 4), to 56 and 66, to the far more complicated 115, 155, 156, 230, and 237. No quantum computer required to crack those keys. Wow – better save the qubits.
这不仅仅是一组令人尴尬的数字：这些弱密钥属于八个中间证书颁发机构，可能允许攻击者伪造证书，从而被尚未屏蔽这些证书的系统所信任。然而，eMudhra 维称，受影响的 CA 并未颁发任何最终实体证书。
This wasn’t just an embarrassing collection of numbers, either: The weak keys belonged to eight intermediate certificate authorities, potentially allowing attackers to forge certificates trusted by systems that hadn’t blocked them. eMudhra, however, maintains that the affected CAs had issued no end-entity certificates. eMudhra quickly went on the defensive about its mind-boggling key-management failure, acknowledging the weak keys while pointing to independent audits and a problem during its key-generation ceremony that it said produced the weak keys alongside the intended strong ones.
对于这一令人难以置信的密钥管理失误，eMudhra 迅速采取了防御姿态，承认存在弱密钥，同时指出曾接受独立审计，并称其密钥生成仪式出现问题，导致在预期的强密钥之外产生了弱密钥。“密钥生成仪式中的一个缺陷导致封装/解封步骤在原始强密钥之外产生了第二组弱密钥，”公司在密钥事故曝光次日表示。“发布到浏览器根存储中的正是这些弱密钥。”
“A flaw in the key generation ceremony caused a wrap/unwrap step to produce a second set of weak keys alongside the original strong keys,” the company said the day after the key fiasco was reported. “The weak keys were the ones published to the browser root stores.”
尽管如此，eMudhra 称相关证书基础设施已接受两年的独立审计，并自 2025 年中以来已列入浏览器信任列表，这引发了为何弱密钥未能更早被发现的疑问。
Despite that, eMudhra said the relevant certificate infrastructure had undergone two years of independent audits and had been in browser trust lists since mid-2025, raising questions about why the weak keys weren't caught sooner. eMudhra claimed on Thursday that the affected CAs had issued no end-entity certificates, that it had revoked those CAs within 14 hours of discovering the issue, and that neither its infrastructure nor its data had been compromised as a result of its key boo-boo.
eMudhra 周四声称，受影响的 CA 并未颁发任何最终实体证书，公司在发现问题 14 小时内已撤销了这些 CA，且其基础设施和数据均未因这一密钥失误而受到损害。尽管如此，这一事件还是给了 eMudhra 另一个理由，让其剥离一小部分业务，而不是继续面对对其证书运营的审视。公司表示，仍将发布根因报告，并在逐步关闭业务的过程中履行对浏览器根计划的剩余承诺。
Still, the incident has given eMudhra another reason to shave off a small part of its business rather than continue facing scrutiny over its certificate operations. It’s still going to issue a root-cause report and fulfill its remaining commitments to browser root programs as it winds down the business.
公司称将继续提供 G1 RSA 根服务，直到将客户过渡到其他证书颁发机构，这一过渡将免费进行。“撤销和证书状态服务将持续运行，直到每一张已颁发的证书都已过期或被替换，”公司表示。®
The company said it’ll continue to serve G1 RSA roots until it transitions customers to other certificate issuers, which it will do free of charge. “Revocation and certificate status services will keep running until every issued certificate has expired or been replaced,” the company said. ®