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encryptiontls1.2windows-server-2008-r2

How to set cipher priority for TLS1.2 on Server 2008 R2

I have enabled TLS1.2 on Windows Server 2008 R2. I need this for a CC payment gateway. Recently they disabled acceptance of certain insecure ciphers which has broken my connection to their server. In order to get it to work again I need to get my server to use accepted ciphers. These ciphers are already enabled on the server but my connection keeps defaulting back to these disallowed ciphers.

First I tired disabling these ciphers.

TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA

This killed RDP and SSL on my server. This is not a good thing.

So instead I tried setting the priority of the ciphers but nothing seems to work. I tried using gpedit to set cipher priority as follows but to no avail.

TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384_P384,
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P384,
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P384,
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P256,
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P256,
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256_P384,
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P384,
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256_P256,
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P256,
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P384,
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P256,
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P384,
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P256,
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P384,
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P256,
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256,
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256,
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256,
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256,
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,
TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,
SSL_CK_DES_192_EDE3_CBC_WITH_MD5

I tried using IIS Crypto to reorganise the order of ciphers but again, no luck.

I use the following ASP Classic script to see what ciphers my server is using.

dim winhttp

Set winhttp = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP")
winhttp.open "GET", "https://howsmyssl.com/a/check", False
winhttp.Send
Response.Write winhttp.responseText

The response get is:

{"given_cipher_suites": 
["TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256","TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA","TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256","TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA","TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA"],"ephemeral_keys_supported":false,"session_ticket_supported":false,"tls_compression_supported":false,"unknown_cipher_suite_supported":false,"beast_vuln":false,"able_to_detect_n_minus_one_splitting":false,"insecure_cipher_suites":{},"tls_version":"TLS 1.2","rating":"Improvable"}

Link

I am at somewhat of a loss here. Does anyone know how I can set the cipher priority for TLS1.2 so that it uses accepted ciphers or do I have to remove those insecure ciphers completely and if so how can I dot it without killing RDP and SSL on IIS?

Thanks for your time.

Solution

  • Finally got this worked out. If anyone else happens to have this issue this is what I did to fix it.

    The easyfix on this page at Microsoft helped by setting the registry keys that I needed. I then opened up IIS Crypto to see my ciphers were all over the place. Fortunately I had Server 2008 R2 running in a VM on my work PC (I was using it to try to find answers to my problem) so I could grab the correct order. Here's what I used (last two may not be necessary).

    TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P521
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P521
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P521
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P521
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256_P256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
SSL_CK_DES_192_EDE3_CBC_WITH_MD5

    Also, make sure that Diffie-Hellman and ECDH are selected under Key Exchanges in IIS Crypto, otherwise it defaults to weak ciphers.