Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) P. Yee Request for Comments: 6818 AKAYLA Updates: 5280 January 2013 Category: Standards Track ISSN: 2070-1721
Updates to the Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile
Abstract
This document updates RFC 5280, the "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile". This document changes the set of acceptable encoding methods for the explicitText field of the user notice policy qualifier and clarifies the rules for converting internationalized domain name labels to ASCII. This document also provides some clarifications on the use of self-signed certificates, trust anchors, and some updated security considerations.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6818.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2 1.1. Terminology ................................................3 2. Update to RFC 5280, Section 3.2: "Certification Paths and Trust" 3 3. Update to RFC 5280, Section 4.2.1.4: "Certificate Policies" .....3 4. Update to RFC 5280, Section 6.2: "Using the Path Validation Algorithm" ......................................................4 5. Update to RFC 5280, Section 7.3: "Internationalized Domain Names in Distinguished Names" ............................5 6. Security Considerations .........................................5 7. Update to RFC 5280, Section 11.1: "Normative References" ........7 8. Update to RFC 5280, Section 11.2: "Informative References" ......7 9. References ......................................................7 9.1. Normative References .......................................7 9.2. Informative References .....................................7 10. Acknowledgements ................................................8
1. Introduction
This document updates the "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile" [RFC5280].
This document makes a recommendation that self-signed certificates used to convey trust anchor data be marked as certificate authority (CA) certificates, which is not always current practice.
The use of self-signed certificates as trust anchors in Section 6.2
of [RFC5280] is clarified. While it is optional to use additional
information in these certificates in the path validation process,
[RFC5937] is noted as providing guidance in that regard.
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The acceptable and unacceptable encodings for the explicitText field of the user notice policy qualifier are updated to bring them in line with existing practice.
The rules in Section 7.3 of [RFC5280] for ASCII encoding of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) as Distinguished Names are aligned with the rules in Section 7.2 of that document that govern IDN encoding as GeneralNames.
In light of some observed attacks [Prins], the Security Considerations section now gives added depth to the consequences of CA key compromise. This section additionally notes that collision resistance is not a required property of one-way hash functions when used to generate key identifiers.
This document also adds normative and informative references for Trust Anchor formats and how they may be used to initialize the path validation inputs. These are needed as a result of the changes made in Section 4 of this document.
1.1. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
2. Update to RFC 5280, Section 3.2: "Certification Paths and Trust"
Add the following paragraph to the end of RFC 5280, Section 3.2:
3. Update to RFC 5280, Section 4.2.1.4: "Certificate Policies"
RFC 5280, Section 4.2.1.4, the tenth paragraph says:
An explicitText field includes the textual statement directly in the certificate. The explicitText field is a string with a maximum size of 200 characters. Conforming CAs SHOULD use the
| UTF8String encoding for explicitText, but MAY use IA5String.
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the UTF8String encoding is used, all character sequences SHOULD benormalized according to Unicode normalization form C (NFC) [NFC]. This paragraph is replaced with: An explicitText field includes the textual statement directly in the certificate. The explicitText field is a string with a maximum size of 200 characters. Conforming CAs SHOULD use the |
4. Update to RFC 5280, Section 6.2: "Using the Path Validation
Algorithm"
RFC 5280, Section 6.2, the third paragraph says:
Where a CA distributes self-signed certificates to specify trust anchor information, certificate extensions can be used to specify recommended inputs to path validation. For example, a policy constraints extension could be included in the self-signed certificate to indicate that paths beginning with this trust anchor should be trusted only for the specified policies. Similarly, a name constraints extension could be included to indicate that paths beginning with this trust anchor should be trusted only for the specified name spaces. The path validation algorithm presented in Section 6.1 does not assume that trust anchor information is provided in self-signed certificates and does not specify processing rules for
| additional information included in such certificates.
This paragraph is replaced with:
Where a CA distributes self-signed certificates to specify trust anchor information, certificate extensions can be used to specify recommended inputs to path validation. For example, a policy constraints extension could be included in the self-signed certificate to indicate that paths beginning with this trust anchor should be trusted only for the specified policies. Similarly, a name constraints extension could be included to indicate that paths beginning with this trust anchor should be trusted only for the specified name spaces. The path validation algorithm presented in
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Section 6.1 does not assume that trust anchor information is provided
| in self-signed certificates and does not specify processing rules for
5. Update to RFC 5280, Section 7.3: "Internationalized Domain Names in
Distinguished Names"
RFC 5280, Section 7.3, the first paragraph says:
Domain Names may also be represented as distinguished names using domain components in the subject field, the issuer field, the subjectAltName extension, or the issuerAltName extension. As with the dNSName in the GeneralName type, the value of this attribute is defined as an IA5String. Each domainComponent attribute represents a single label. To represent a label from an IDN in the distinguished name, the implementation MUST perform the "ToASCII" label conversion
| specified in Section 4.1 of RFC 3490. The label SHALL be considered
This paragraph is replaced with:
Domain Names may also be represented as distinguished names using domain components in the subject field, the issuer field, the subjectAltName extension, or the issuerAltName extension. As with the dNSName in the GeneralName type, the value of this attribute is defined as an IA5String. Each domainComponent attribute represents a single label. To represent a label from an IDN in the distinguished name, the implementation MUST perform the "ToASCII" label conversion
| specified in Section 4.1 of RFC 3490 with the UseSTD3ASCIIRules flag
6. Security Considerations
This document modifies the Security Considerations section of RFC 5280 as follows. The fifth paragraph of the Security Considerations section of RFC 5280 says:
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The protection afforded private keys is a critical security factor. On a small scale, failure of users to protect their private keys will permit an attacker to masquerade as them or decrypt their personal information. On a larger scale, compromise of a CA's private signing
| key may have a catastrophic effect. If an attacker obtains the
This paragraph is replaced with:
The protection afforded private keys is a critical security factor. On a small scale, failure of users to protect their private keys will permit an attacker to masquerade as them or decrypt their personal information. On a larger scale, compromise of a CA's private signing key may have a catastrophic effect.
|
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The following text is added to the end of the Security Considerations section of 5280:
7. Update to RFC 5280, Section 11.1: "Normative References"
[RFC5914] Housley, R., Ashmore, S., and C. Wallace, "Trust Anchor Format", RFC 5914, June 2010.
8. Update to RFC 5280, Section 11.2: "Informative References"
[RFC5937] Ashmore, S. and C. Wallace, "Using Trust Anchor Constraints during Certification Path Processing", RFC 5937, August 2010.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC5280] Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S., Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, May 2008.
[RFC5914] Housley, R., Ashmore, S., and C. Wallace, "Trust Anchor Format", RFC 5914, June 2010.
[X.509] ITU-T Recommendation X.509 (2008) | ISO/IEC 9594-8:2008, Information Technology - Open Systems Interconnection - The Directory: Public-key and attribute certificate frameworks.
9.2. Informative References
[RFC5937] Ashmore, S. and C. Wallace, "Using Trust Anchor Constraints during Certification Path Processing", RFC 5937, August 2010.
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[Prins] Prins, J. R., "DigiNotar Certificate Authority breach 'Operation Black Tulip'", September 2011, <http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/ documenten-en-publicaties/rapporten/2011/ 09/05/diginotar-public-report-version-1/ rapport-fox-it-operation-black-tulip-v1-0.pdf>.
[NFC] Davis, M. and M. Duerst, "Unicode Standard Annex #15: Unicode Normalization Forms", October 2006, <http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/>.
10. Acknowledgements
David Cooper is acknowledged for his fine work in editing previous versions of this document.
Author's Address
Peter E. Yee AKAYLA 7150 Moorland Drive Clarksville, MD 21029 USA EMail: peter@akayla.com
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