General Security Considerations for Crypto Asset Exchange
draft-vcgtf-crypto-assets-security-considerations-01

Abstract

This document discusses the threat, risk, and controls on the followings; Online system of crypto asset exchange that provides the exchange service to its customer (consumers and trade partners); asset information (including the private key of the crypto asset) that the online system of a crypto asset exchange manages; Social impact that can arise from the discrepancy in the security measures that are implemented in the online system of a crypto asset exchange.

This document is applicable to the crypto asset exchanges that manages the private key that corresponds to crypto asset. It includes the organizations that outsources the key management to another organization. In such a case, the certain recommendations applies to those outsourcers.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on January 3, 2019.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Scope of this document
• 3. Conventions and Definitions
• 4. Terminology
• 5. Basic description of a model online system of a crypto asset exchange
• 5.1. General
• 5.2. A basic model of online system of a crypto asset exchange and its functional components
• 5.3. The flow leading to the sending of the transaction
• 5.4. Types of keys that are used for signature and encryption
• 5.4.1. Type of keys
• 5.4.2. A flow for the key generation and the key usage
• 5.4.3. On the usage of multiple keys
• 5.4.4. On the suspension of keys
• 5.5. On the characteristics of crypto asset on Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies
• 5.5.1. General
• 5.5.2. The importance of the private key used for signing
• 5.5.3. Diversity of implementations
• 5.5.4. Risk on the unapproved transactions
• 6. Basic objectives for the security management of crypto asset exchanges
• 7. Approaches to basic security controls
• 8. Sector specific security management controls for crypto asset exchanges
• 8.1. General
• 8.2. On the direction of the information security management
• 8.3. On the controls for key recovery
• 8.4. On the controls against theft and leakage of the private key for signing
• 8.5. On the illegal operation of the private key for signing
• 8.6. On the illegal operation against the asset data
• 8.7. On the user authentication
• 8.8. On the withdrawal of the coins
• 8.9. On the transfer of the crypto asset to an unused address
• 9. Remaining issues
• 10. Security Considerations
• 11. IANA Considerations
• 12. Normative References
• Appendix A. Contributors
• Authors' Addresses

1. Introduction

TBD

2. Scope of this document

In this document, crypto asset exchange operators which hold a private key of crypto asset.

3. Conventions and Definitions

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “NOT RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

4. Terminology

Terms used in this document are defined in other i-d.

5. Basic description of a model online system of a crypto asset exchange

5.1. General

In this section, a model online system of a crypto asset exchange that is used to explain the concepts and provisions in this document are explained.

5.2. A basic model of online system of a crypto asset exchange and its functional components

Followings are the basic model of a crypto asset exchange that this document deals with.

5.3. The flow leading to the sending of the transaction

5.4. Types of keys that are used for signature and encryption

5.4.1. Type of keys

5.4.2. A flow for the key generation and the key usage

5.4.3. On the usage of multiple keys

5.4.4. On the suspension of keys

5.5. On the characteristics of crypto asset on Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies

5.5.1. General

5.5.2. The importance of the private key used for signing

5.5.3. Diversity of implementations

5.5.3.1. On the cryptographic algorithms used by crypto asset

5.5.3.2. On the possibility of the forking of the Blockchain

5.5.3.3. Rollback by reorganization

5.5.3.4. The treatment of the forked crypto asset

5.5.4. Risk on the unapproved transactions

5.5.4.1. General

5.5.4.2. The handling of the unapproved transactions

5.5.4.3. Transaction failures caused by the vulnerabilities of the implementation or the specification of the crypto asset

6. Basic objectives for the security management of crypto asset exchanges

7. Approaches to basic security controls

8. Sector specific security management controls for crypto asset exchanges

8.1. General

8.2. On the direction of the information security management

8.3. On the controls for key recovery

8.4. On the controls against theft and leakage of the private key for signing

8.5. On the illegal operation of the private key for signing

8.6. On the illegal operation against the asset data

8.7. On the user authentication

8.8. On the withdrawal of the coins

8.9. On the transfer of the crypto asset to an unused address

9. Remaining issues

10. Security Considerations

Security Considerations are included in main section of this document.

11. IANA Considerations

None.

12. Normative References

Appendix A. Contributors

Authors' Addresses