Collected research

Using Frankencerts for Automated Adversarial Testing of Certificate Validation in SSL/TLS Implementations

Chad Brubaker, Suman Jana, Baishakhi Ray, Sarfraz Khurshid and Vitaly Shmatikov · ieee-security.org

Generates frankencerts by randomly mutating parts of millions of real X.509 certificates, then differentially tests eight SSL/TLS libraries against each other so that any disagreement flags a validation bug. Found 208 discrepancies, including MatrixSSL and GnuTLS accepting any valid X.509v1 certificate as a CA, which enables man-in-the-middle attacks.

Record

Researcher

Chad Brubaker, Suman Jana, Baishakhi Ray, Sarfraz Khurshid and Vitaly Shmatikov

Published by

ieee-security.org

Format

Whitepaper

Topic

Crypto

In the archive

• Collected in the 2014 research round

Tags

• parser-differential
• fuzzing
• tls
• https
• auth-bypass
• dynamic-analysis
• tooling
• owasp-a01-2021
• owasp-a02-2021

This page is the archive's own catalogue record. The research is the work of Chad Brubaker, Suman Jana, Baishakhi Ray, Sarfraz Khurshid and Vitaly Shmatikov, first published at the original source. Preserved copies are kept so the citation survives its host; this one was last captured on 14 August 2026.