Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps) Internet Drafts


      
 Composite ML-KEM for use in X.509 Public Key Infrastructure
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-pq-composite-kem-12.txt
 Date: 07/01/2026
 Authors: Mike Ounsworth, John Gray, Massimiliano Pala, Jan Klaussner, Scott Fluhrer
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This document defines combinations of US NIST ML-KEM [FIPS.203] in hybrid with traditional algorithms RSA-OAEP, ECDH, X25519, and X448. These combinations are tailored to meet security best practices and regulatory guidelines. Composite ML-KEM is applicable in any application that uses X.509 or PKIX data structures that accept ML- KEM, but where the operator wants extra protection against breaks or catastrophic bugs in ML-KEM.
 Use of Remote Attestation with Certification Signing Requests
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-csr-attestation-23.txt
 Date: 01/03/2026
 Authors: Mike Ounsworth, Hannes Tschofenig, Henk Birkholz, Monty Wiseman, Ned Smith
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
Certification Authorities (CAs) issuing certificates to Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) end entities may require a certificate signing request (CSR) to include additional verifiable information to confirm policy compliance. For example, a CA may require an end entity to demonstrate that the private key corresponding to a CSR's public key is secured by a hardware security module (HSM), is not exportable, etc. The process of generating, transmitting, and verifying additional information required by the CA is called remote attestation. While work is currently underway to standardize various aspects of remote attestation, a variety of proprietary mechanisms have been in use for years, particularly regarding protection of private keys. This specification defines an ASN.1 structure for remote attestation that can accommodate proprietary and standardized attestation mechanisms, as well as an attribute and an extension to carry the structure in PKCS#10 and Certificate Request Message Format (CRMF) messages, respectively.
 Updates to Lightweight OCSP Profile for High Volume Environments
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-rfc5019bis-12.txt
 Date: 13/09/2024
 Authors: Tadahiko Ito, Clint Wilson, Corey Bonnell, Sean Turner
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This specification defines a profile of the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) that addresses the scalability issues inherent when using OCSP in large scale (high volume) Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) environments and/or in PKI environments that require a lightweight solution to minimize communication bandwidth and client- side processing. This specification obsoletes RFC 5019. The profile specified in RFC 5019 has been updated to allow and recommend the use of SHA-256 over SHA-1.
 Nonce-based Freshness for Remote Attestation in Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs) for the Certification Management Protocol (CMP),for Enrollment over Secure Transport (EST),and for Certificate Management over CMS (CMC)
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-attestation-freshness-05.txt
 Date: 19/10/2025
 Authors: Hannes Tschofenig, Hendrik Brockhaus, Joe Mandel, Sean Turner
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
When an end entity includes attestation Evidence in a Certificate Signing Request (CSR), it may be necessary to demonstrate the freshness of the provided Evidence. Current attestation technology commonly achieves this using nonces. This document outlines the process through which nonces are supplied to the end entity by an RA/CA for inclusion in Evidence, leveraging the Certificate Management Protocol (CMP), Enrollment over Secure Transport (EST), and Certificate Management over CMS (CMC).
 Composite ML-DSA for use in X.509 Public Key Infrastructure
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-pq-composite-sigs-15.txt
 Date: 24/02/2026
 Authors: Mike Ounsworth, John Gray, Massimiliano Pala, Jan Klaussner, Scott Fluhrer
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This document defines combinations of US NIST ML-DSA in hybrid with traditional algorithms RSASSA-PKCS1-v1.5, RSASSA-PSS, ECDSA, Ed25519, and Ed448. These combinations are tailored to meet regulatory guidelines. Composite ML-DSA is applicable in applications that uses X.509 or PKIX data structures that accept ML-DSA, but where the operator wants extra protection against breaks or catastrophic bugs in ML-DSA, and where EUF-CMA-level security is acceptable.
 Certificate Management over CMS (CMC)
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-rfc5272bis-11.txt
 Date: 26/02/2026
 Authors: Joe Mandel, Sean Turner
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This document defines the base syntax for CMC, a Certificate Management protocol using the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS). This protocol addresses two immediate needs within the Internet Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) community:
 Certificate Management over CMS (CMC): Transport Protocols
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-rfc5273bis-11.txt
 Date: 26/02/2026
 Authors: Joe Mandel, Sean Turner
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This document defines a number of transport mechanisms that are used to move CMC (Certificate Management over CMS (Cryptographic Message Syntax)) messages. The transport mechanisms described in this document are HTTP, file, mail, and TCP. This document obsoletes RFC 5273 and RFC 6402.
 Certificate Management Messages over CMS (CMC): Compliance Requirements
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-rfc5274bis-11.txt
 Date: 26/02/2026
 Authors: Joe Mandel, Sean Turner
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This document provides a set of compliance statements about the CMC (Certificate Management over CMS) enrollment protocol. The ASN.1 structures and the transport mechanisms for the CMC enrollment protocol are covered in other documents. This document provides the information needed to make a compliant version of CMC. This document obsoletes RFC 5274 and RFC 6402.
 A Mechanism for X.509 Certificate Discovery
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-certdiscovery-02.txt
 Date: 19/11/2025
 Authors: Tomofumi Okubo, Corey Bonnell, John Gray, Mike Ounsworth, Joe Mandel
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This document specifies a method to discover a secondary X.509 certificate associated with an X.509 certificate to enable efficient multi-certificate handling in protocols. The objective is threefold: to enhance cryptographic agility, improve operational availability, and accommodate multi-key/certificate usage. The proposed method aims to maximize compatibility with existing systems and is designed to be legacy-friendly, making it suitable for environments with a mix of legacy and new implementations. It includes mechanisms to provide information about the target certificate's signature algorithm, public key algorithm and the location of the secondary X.509 certificate, empowering relying parties to make informed decisions on whether to fetch the Secondary Certificate. The primary motivation for this method is to address the limitations of traditional certificate management approaches, which often lack flexibility, scalability, and seamless update capabilities. By leveraging this mechanism, subscribers can achieve cryptographic agility by facilitating the transition between different algorithms or X.509 certificate types. Operational redundancy is enhanced by enabling the use of backup certificates and minimizing the impact of Primary Certificate expiration or CA infrastructure failures. The approach ensures backward compatibility with existing systems and leverages established mechanisms, such as the subjectInfoAccess extension, to enable seamless integration.
 Clarification to Processing Key Usage Values During Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Validation
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-keyusage-crl-validation-04.txt
 Date: 06/01/2026
 Authors: Corey Bonnell, Tadahiko Ito, Tomofumi Okubo
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
RFC 5280 (Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile) defines the profile of X.509 certificates and CRLs for use in the Internet. Section 4.2.1.3 of RFC 5280 requires CRL issuer certificates to contain the keyUsage extension with the cRLSign bit asserted. However, the CRL validation algorithm specified in Section 6.3 of RFC 5280 does not explicitly include a corresponding check for the presence of the keyUsage certificate extension. This document updates RFC 5280 to require that check.
 Media Access Control (MAC) Addresses in X.509 Certificates
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-macaddress-on-06.txt
 Date: 18/02/2026
 Authors: Russ Housley, Corey Bonnell, Joe Mandel, Tomofumi Okubo, Michael StJohns
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This document defines a new GeneralName.otherName for inclusion in the X.509 Subject Alternative Name (SAN) and Issuer Alternative Name (IAN) extensions to carry an IEEE Media Access Control (MAC) address. The new name form makes it possible to bind a layer-2 interface identifier to a public key certificate. Additionally, this document defines how constraints on this name form can be encoded and processed in the X.509 Name Constraints extension (NCE).
 Best Practices for Signed Attributes in CMS SignedData
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-cms-euf-cma-signeddata-02.txt
 Date: 27/02/2026
 Authors: Daniel Van Geest, Falko Strenzke
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
The Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) has different signature verification behaviour based on whether signed attributes are present or not. This results in a potential existential forgery vulnerability in CMS and protocols which use CMS. This document describes the vulnerability and lists mitigations and best practices to avoid it.
 Composite ML-DSA for use in Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-cms-composite-sigs-04.txt
 Date: 05/02/2026
 Authors: Mike Ounsworth, John Gray, Jan Klaussner, Daniel Van Geest
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
Composite ML-DSA defines combinations of ML-DSA with RSA, ECDSA, and EdDSA. This document specifies the conventions for using Composite ML-DSA algorithms within the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS).
 Certificate Renewal Recommendations for Enrollment over Secure Transport
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-est-renewal-info-00.txt
 Date: 12/02/2026
 Authors: Rifaat Shekh-Yusef, Michael Richardson, Mike Ounsworth
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
This document describes an extension to RFC7030, Enrollment over Secure Transport to give an indication to a end-entity device when it should start attempting to renew its certificates. Prior art is that client decides, with a typical recommmendation to start when the remaining lifetime of the certificate is at the 50% point. As typical certificate lifetimes are reduced from years to fractions of a year, the 50% may be far too early, and this document provides a way to give alternate advice.
 Composite ML-KEM for use in Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)
 
 draft-ietf-lamps-cms-composite-kem-00.txt
 Date: 25/02/2026
 Authors: Daniel Van Geest, Mike Ounsworth, John Gray, Jan Klaussner
 Working Group: Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)
Composite ML-KEM defines combinations of ML-KEM with RSA-OAEP, ECDH, X25519, and X448. This document specifies the conventions for using Composite ML-KEM algorithms with the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) using the KEMRecipientInfo structure defined in “Using Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM) Algorithms in the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)” (RFC 9629).


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Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME (lamps)

WG Name Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME
Acronym lamps
Area Security Area (sec)
State Active
Charter charter-ietf-lamps-07 Approved
Status update Show Changed 2017-11-16
Document dependencies
Additional resources Issue tracker, Wiki, Zulip stream
Personnel Chairs Russ Housley, Tim Hollebeek
Area Director Deb Cooley
Mailing list Address spasm@ietf.org
To subscribe https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/spasm
Archive https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/spasm/
Chat Room address https://zulip.ietf.org/#narrow/stream/lamps

Charter for Working Group

The PKIX and S/MIME Working Groups have been closed for some time. Some updates have been proposed to the X.509 certificate documents produced by the PKIX Working Group and the electronic mail security documents produced by the S/MIME Working Group.

The LAMPS (Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME) Working Group is chartered to make updates where there is a known constituency interested in real deployment and there is at least one sufficiently well specified approach to the update so that the working group can sensibly evaluate whether to adopt a proposal.

The LAMPS WG is now tackling these topics which will be published as Standards Track:

  1. The LAMPS WG may investigate updates to documents produced by the PKIX and S/MIME WGs. This work will follow the guidelines listed above (real deployment, known constituency, etc). This includes maintenance of protocols such as Certificate Management Protocol (CMP), Certificate Management over Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) (CMC), Enrollment over Secure Transport (EST), S/MIME protocols, and PKIX protocols. These protocols continue to be used in many different environments and they continue to evolve.

  2. Recent progress in the development of quantum computers poses a threat to widely deployed public key algorithms. As a result, there is a need to prepare for a day when cryptosystems such as RSA, Diffie-Hellman, ECDSA, ECDH, and EdDSA cannot be depended upon in the PKIX and S/MIME protocols.

    2.a. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has produced quantum-resistant public-key cryptographic algorithm standards. In addition, CFRG may vet other quantum-resistant public key cryptographic algorithms. The LAMPS WG will specify the use of these new Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) public key algorithms with the PKIX certificates and the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS). These specifications will use object identifiers for the new algorithms that are assigned by NIST or by IANA.

    2.b. A lengthy transition from today's public key algorithms to PQC public key algorithms is expected. Time will be needed to gain full confidence in the new PQC public key algorithms.

      2.b.i. The LAMPS WG will specify formats, identifiers, enrollment, and operational practices for "hybrid key establishment" that combines the shared secret values one or more traditional key-establishment algorithm and one or more NIST PQC key-establishment algorithm or a PQC key-establishment algorithm vetted by the CFRG. The shared secret values will be combined using HKDF (see RFC 5869), one of the key derivation functions in NIST SP 800-56C, or a key derivation function vetted by the CFRG.
    
      2.b.ii. The LAMPS WG will specify formats, identifiers, enrollment, and operational practices for "dual signatures" that combines one or more traditional signature algorithm with one or more NIST PQC signature algorithm or a PQC algorithm vetted by the CFRG.
    

    2.c. Specify the use of techniques that allow streamlined processing for PQC certificates and exchanges. One example of such use is unsigned X.509 Certificates to convey information about the subject. Currently, Trust Anchors use self-signed certificates for this purpose, using bandwidth that could prohibit constrained devices from being able to utilize the larger signature sized quantum resistant algorithms.

Milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Jun 2026 CAA Security (Standards Track RFC)
Jun 2026 Adopt drafts for PQC KEM algorithms in CMS (Standards Track RFCs)
Jun 2026 Adopt drafts for PQC KEM public keys in PKIX certificates (Standards Track RFCs)
Mar 2026 Composite Signatures in PKIX and CMS (Standards Track RFCs)
Jan 2026 Unsigned Trust Anchors (Standards Track RFCs) rfc9925 (was draft-ietf-lamps-x509-alg-none)
Jan 2026 Composite KEM in PKIX and CMS (Standards Track RFCs)
Dec 2025 PKCS#8 content types (Standards Track RFCs)