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Mozilla says eMudhra missed CA questions deadline, citing social media
Mozilla's root program said Friday that eMudhra had not answered questions sent Oct. 20 after a 24-hour deadline and a one-day extension; an eMudhra engineer blamed social-media and investor scrutiny [1].
- bugzilla.mozilla.org is now reporting this
- New headline Was: “eMudhra ignored Mozilla Root investigation deadline; blames social media”
- Our desk filed its story
we have been subject to intense social media scrutiny and analysis by investors/customers over the last few days — Naveen Kumar ML, eMudhra
Mozilla's root program said Friday that certificate authority eMudhra had not answered a set of written questions first sent Oct. 20, after a 24-hour deadline and a further one-day extension, in a public Mozilla CA Program bug about eight intermediate certificates whose private keys were recovered as trivially weak1.
Dennis Jackson of Mozilla wrote that the questions went to eMudhra at 20:31 UTC on Oct. 20 and that eMudhra was asked to give an initial response within 24 hours1. After that deadline passed on Oct. 21, eMudhra asked for another 24 hours, Jackson wrote1. As of Friday, Oct. 23, Mozilla had not received a response to those questions, he said, attaching the questionnaire as a PDF on Bug 20834491.
Hours earlier, Naveen Kumar ML, assigned on the bug as eMudhra's contact, said the company had been under intense social-media scrutiny and analysis by investors and customers, which he said had made meaningful analysis of the April 30, 2025, key-generation event almost impossible1. He wrote that eMudhra would still meet disclosure obligations tied to browser-program trust1.
Google's Chrome Root Program replied that social-media scrutiny and investor or customer analysis were not acceptable explanations for delayed answers on the bug1. It said that scrutiny followed from eMudhra's own failure, described as intermediate CA keys anyone could recover, and that eMudhra should prioritize its review and security response1. Jackson said Mozilla shared those concerns and still expected eMudhra to meet its obligations to Mozilla and the wider community1.
The same bug, opened Oct. 18, records that Mozilla received a report on Oct. 17 that private keys for eight eMudhra intermediates had been compromised, with proof of key control, and that Mozilla independently recovered the keys the same day1. Jackson wrote earlier that the eight P-384 keys from an April 30, 2025, batch used integers less than 256 and could be recovered quickly1. Six of the certificates were TLS intermediates trusted by Chrome, Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple root programs; two were code-signing intermediates trusted by Microsoft, according to the bug1.
eMudhra marked the eight certificates revoked for CA compromise on Oct. 18, according to Jackson1. Browser makers have already published distrust actions for the affected intermediates and the ECC root above them in separate statements; this filing is limited to the Bugzilla record of the unanswered questions and the Friday exchange1. What eMudhra will file in response, and when, is not established on the bug1.