Internet DRAFT - draft-housley-lamps-norevavail
draft-housley-lamps-norevavail
Network Working Group R. Housley
Internet-Draft Vigil Security
Intended status: Standards Track T. Okubo
Expires: 8 April 2024 DigiCert
J. Mandel
SecureG
6 October 2023
No Revocation Available for Short-lived X.509 Public Key Certificates
draft-housley-lamps-norevavail-01
Abstract
Short-lived X.509v3 public key certificates as profiled in RFC 5280
are seeing greater use in the Internet. The Certification Authority
(CA) that issues these short-lived certificates do not publish
revocation information because the certificate lifespan that is
shorter than the time needed to detect, report, and distribute
revocation information. This specification defines the noRevAvail
certificate extension so that a relying party can readily determine
that the CA does not publish revocation information for the
certificate.
Status of This Memo
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://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
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. ASN.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The noRevAvail Certificate Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Other X.509 Certificate Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. ASN.1 Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. Introduction
X.509v3 public key certificates [RFC5280] with short validity periods
are seeing greater use in the Internet. For example, Automatic
Certificate Management Environment (ACME) [RFC8555] provides a
straightforward way to obtain short-lived certificates. In many
cases, no revocation information is made available for short-lived
certificates by the Certification Authority (CA). This is because
short-lived certificates have a validity period that is shorter than
the time needed to detect, report, and distribute revocation
information. As a result, revoking short-lived certificates is
unnecessary and pointless. This specification defines the noRevAvail
certificate extension so that a relying party can readily determine
that the CA does not publish revocation information for the
certificate.
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1.1. Terminology
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.
1.2. ASN.1
X.509 certificates are generated using ASN.1 [X.680], using the Basic
Encoding Rules (BER) and the Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER)
[X.690].
1.3. History
In 1988, CCITT defined the X.509v1 certificate [X.509-1988].
In 1997, ITU-T defined the X.509v3 certificate and the attribute
certificate [X.509-1997].
In 1999, the IETF first profiled the X.509v3 certificate for use in
the Internet [RFC2459].
In 2000, ITU-T defined the noRevAvail certificate extension for use
with attribute certificates [X.509-2000].
In 2002, the IETF first profiled the attribute certificate for use in
the Internet [RFC3281], and this profile included support for the
noRevAvail certificate extension.
In 2019, ITU-T published an update to ITU-T Recommendation X.509
[X.509-2019].
With greater use of short-lived certificates in the Internet, the
recent Technical Corrigendum to ITU-T Recommendation X.509
[X.509-2019-TC2] allows the noRevAvail certificate extension to be
used with public key certificates as well as attribute certificates.
2. The noRevAvail Certificate Extension
The noRevAvail extension, defined in [X.509-2019-TC2], allows an CA
to indicate that no revocation information will be made available for
this certificate.
This extension MUST NOT be present in CA public key certificates.
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Conforming CAs MUST include this extension in certificates for which
no revocation information will be published. When present,
conforming CAs MUST mark this extension as non-critical.
name id-ce-noRevAvail
OID { id-ce 56 }
syntax NULL (i.e. '0500'H is the DER encoding)
criticality MUST be FALSE
A relying party that does not understand this extension might be able
to find a certificate revocation list (CRL) from the CA, but the CRL
will never include an entry for the certificate containing this
extension.
3. Other X.509 Certificate Extensions
Certificates that include the noRevAvail extension MUST NOT include
certificate extensions that point to Certificate Revocation List
(CRL) repositories or provide locations of Online Certificate Status
Protocol (OCSP) Responders. If the noRevAvail extension is present
in a certificate, then:
* The certificate MUST NOT also include the CRL Distribution Points
certificate extension; see Section 4.2.1.13 of [RFC5280].
* The certificate MUST NOT also include the Freshest CRL certificate
extension; see Section 4.2.1.15 of [RFC5280].
* The Authority Information Access certificate extension, if
present, MUST NOT include an id-ad-ocsp accessMethod; see
Section 4.2.2.1 of [RFC5280].
4. ASN.1 Module
This section provides an ASN.1 module [X.680] for the noRevAvail
certificate extension, and it follows the conventions established in
[RFC5912] and [RFC6268].
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<CODE BEGINS>
NoRevAvailExtn
{ iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
id-mod-noRevAvail(TBD) }
DEFINITIONS IMPLICIT TAGS ::=
BEGIN
IMPORTS
EXTENSION
FROM PKIX-CommonTypes-2009 -- RFC 5912
{ iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
id-mod-pkixCommon-02(57) } ;
-- noRevAvail Certificate Extension
ext-noRevAvail EXTENSION ::= {
SYNTAX NULL
IDENTIFIED BY id-ce-noRevAvail
CRITICALITY { FALSE } }
-- noRevAvail Certificate Extension OID
id-ce OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { joint-iso-ccitt(2) ds(5) 29 }
id-ce-noRevAvail OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-ce 56 }
END
<CODE ENDS>
5. Security Considerations
The Security Considerations in [RFC5280] are relevant.
The precondition for applying this mechanism securely is that the
certificate validity period is shorter than the time needed to
detect, report and distribute revocation information. If the
certificate validity period is not adequately short, it creates a
window of opportunity for attackers to exploit a compromised private
key. Therefore, it is crucial to carefully assess and set an
appropriate certificate validity period before implementing the
noRevAvail certificate extension.
When the noRevAvail certificate extension is included in a
certificate, all revocation checking is bypassed, even if the CRL
Distribution Points, Freshest CRL, or Authority Information Access
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(pointing to an OCSP Responder) certificate extensions are present.
CA policies and practices MUST ensure that the noRevAvail is included
only when appropriate, as any misuse or misconfiguration could result
in a relying party continuing to trust a revoked certificate.
Some applications may have dependencies on revocation information or
assume its availability. The absence of revocation information may
require modifications or alternative configuration settings to ensure
proper application security and functionality.
Since the absence of revocation information may limit the ability to
detect compromised or malicious certificates, relying parties need
confidence that the CA is following security practices, implementing
certificate issuance policies, and properly using operational
controls. Relying parties may evaluate CA reliability, monitoring CA
performance, and observe CA incident response capabilities.
6. IANA Considerations
For the ASN.1 Module in Section 4, IANA is requested to assign an
object identifier (OID) for the module identifier. The OID for the
module should be allocated in the "SMI Security for PKIX Module
Identifier" registry (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.0).
7. Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Erik Anderson for his efforts to make the noRevAvail
certificate extension available for use with public key certificates
as well as attribute certificates.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
[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, DOI 10.17487/RFC5280, May 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5280>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.
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[X.509-2019-TC2]
ITU-T, "Information Technology -- Open Systems
Interconnection -- The Directory: Public-key and attribute
certificate frameworks -- Technical Corrigendum 2", ITU-T
Recommendation X.509-2019/COR.2-2023, October 2023,
<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.509-201910-I>.
[X.680] ITU-T, "Information technology -- Abstract Syntax Notation
One (ASN.1): Specification of basic notation", ITU-T
Recommendation X.680, ISO/IEC 8824-1:2021, February 2021,
<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.680>.
[X.690] ITU-T, "Information technology -- ASN.1 encoding rules:
Specification of Basic Encoding Rules (BER), Canonical
Encoding Rules (CER) and Distinguished Encoding Rules
(DER)", ITU-T Recommendation X.690, ISO/IEC 8825-1-2021,
February 2021, <https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.690>.
8.2. Informative References
[RFC2459] Housley, R., Ford, W., Polk, W., and D. Solo, "Internet
X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and CRL
Profile", RFC 2459, DOI 10.17487/RFC2459, January 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2459>.
[RFC3281] Farrell, S. and R. Housley, "An Internet Attribute
Certificate Profile for Authorization", RFC 3281,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3281, April 2002,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3281>.
[RFC5912] Hoffman, P. and J. Schaad, "New ASN.1 Modules for the
Public Key Infrastructure Using X.509 (PKIX)", RFC 5912,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5912, June 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5912>.
[RFC6268] Schaad, J. and S. Turner, "Additional New ASN.1 Modules
for the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) and the Public
Key Infrastructure Using X.509 (PKIX)", RFC 6268,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6268, July 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6268>.
[RFC8555] Barnes, R., Hoffman-Andrews, J., McCarney, D., and J.
Kasten, "Automatic Certificate Management Environment
(ACME)", RFC 8555, DOI 10.17487/RFC8555, March 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8555>.
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[X.509-1988]
CCITT, "Series X: Data Communication Networks: Directory
-- The Directory -- Authentication Framework", CCITT
Recommendation X.509-1988, November 1988,
<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.509-198811-S>.
[X.509-1997]
ITU-T, "Information Technology -- Open Systems
Interconnection -- The Directory: Authentication
framework", ITU-T Recommendation X.509-1997, August 1997,
<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.509-199708-S>.
[X.509-2000]
ITU-T, "Information Technology -- Open Systems
Interconnection -- The Directory: Public-key and attribute
certificate frameworks", ITU-T Recommendation X.509-2000,
March 2000,
<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.509-200003-S>.
[X.509-2019]
ITU-T, "Information Technology -- Open Systems
Interconnection -- The Directory: Public-key and attribute
certificate frameworks", ITU-T Recommendation X.509-2019,
October 2019,
<https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.509-201910-I>.
Authors' Addresses
Russ Housley
Vigil Security, LLC
Herndon, VA,
United States of America
Email: housley@vigilsec.com
Tomofumi Okubo
DigiCert, Inc.
Fairfax, VA,
United States of America
Email: tomofumi.okubo+ietf@gmail.com
Joseph Mandel
SecureG Inc.
Tacoma, WA,
United States of America
Email: joe.mandel@secureg.io
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