CBOR Encoded Message Syntax
draft-ietf-cose-msg-03
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (cose WG) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Jim Schaad | ||
| Last updated | 2015-08-09 | ||
| Replaces | draft-schaad-cose-msg | ||
| Stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
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draft-ietf-cose-msg-03
COSE Working Group J. Schaad
Internet-Draft August Cellars
Intended status: Informational August 9, 2015
Expires: February 10, 2016
CBOR Encoded Message Syntax
draft-ietf-cose-msg-03
Abstract
Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) is data format designed
for small code size and small message size. There is a need for the
ability to have the basic security services defined for this data
format. This document specifies how to do signatures, message
authentication codes and encryption using this data format.
Contributing to this document
The source for this draft is being maintained in GitHub. Suggested
changes should be submitted as pull requests at <https://github.com/
cose-wg/cose-spec>. Instructions are on that page as well.
Editorial changes can be managed in GitHub, but any substantial
issues need to be discussed on the COSE mailing list.
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 http://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 February 10, 2016.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 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
(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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Design changes from JOSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2. Requirements Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3. CBOR Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4. CBOR Related Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5. Document Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.6. Mandatory to Implement Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. The COSE_MSG structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Header Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1. COSE Headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4. Signing Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1. Externally Supplied Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2. Signing and Verification Process . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5. Encryption object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.1. Key Management Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.2. Encryption Algorithm for AEAD algorithms . . . . . . . . 20
5.3. Encryption algorithm for AE algorithms . . . . . . . . . 21
6. MAC objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7. Key Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7.1. COSE Key Common Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
8. Signature Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
8.1. ECDSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
8.1.1. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
8.2. RSASSA-PSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
8.2.1. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
9. Message Authentication (MAC) Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . 31
9.1. Hash-based Message Authentication Codes (HMAC) . . . . . 31
9.1.1. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
9.2. AES Message Authentication Code (AES-CBC-MAC) . . . . . . 32
9.2.1. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
10. Content Encryption Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
10.1. AES GCM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
10.1.1. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
10.2. AES CCM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
10.2.1. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
10.3. ChaCha20 and Poly1305 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
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10.3.1. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
11. Key Derivation Functions (KDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
11.1. HMAC-based Extract-and-Expand Key Derivation Function
(HKDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
11.2. Context Information Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
12. Key Management Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
12.1. Direct Encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
12.1.1. Direct Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
12.1.2. Direct Key with KDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
12.2. Key Wrapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
12.2.1. AES Key Wrapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
12.3. Key Encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
12.3.1. RSAES-OAEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
12.4. Direct Key Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
12.4.1. ECDH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
12.5. Key Agreement with KDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
12.5.1. ECDH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
12.6. Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
12.6.1. PBES2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
13. Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
13.1. Elliptic Curve Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
13.1.1. Single Coordinate Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
13.1.2. Double Coordinate Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
13.2. RSA Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
13.3. Symmetric Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
14. CBOR Encoder Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
15. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
15.1. CBOR Tag assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
15.2. COSE Object Labels Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
15.3. COSE Header Parameter Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
15.4. COSE Header Algorithm Label Table . . . . . . . . . . . 60
15.5. COSE Algorithm Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
15.6. COSE Key Common Parameter Registry . . . . . . . . . . . 61
15.7. COSE Key Type Parameter Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
15.8. Media Type Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
15.8.1. COSE Security Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
15.8.2. COSE Key media type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
16. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
17. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
17.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
17.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Appendix A. AEAD and AE algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Appendix B. Three Levels of Recipient Information . . . . . . . 70
Appendix C. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
C.1. Examples of MAC messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
C.1.1. Shared Secret Direct MAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
C.1.2. ECDH Direct MAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
C.1.3. Wrapped MAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
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C.1.4. Multi-recipient MAC message . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
C.2. Examples of Encrypted Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
C.2.1. Direct ECDH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
C.2.2. Direct plus Key Derivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
C.3. Examples of Signed Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
C.3.1. Single Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
C.3.2. Multiple Signers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
C.4. COSE Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
C.4.1. Public Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
C.4.2. Private Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Appendix D. COSE Header Algorithm Label Table . . . . . . . . . 83
Appendix E. Document Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
E.1. Version -02 to -03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
E.2. Version -02 to -03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
E.3. Version -01 to -2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
E.4. Version -00 to -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
1. Introduction
There has been an increased focus on the small, constrained devices
that make up the Internet of Things (IOT). One of the standards that
has come of of this process is the Concise Binary Object
Representation (CBOR). CBOR extended the data model of the
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) by allowing for binary data among
other changes. CBOR is being adopted by several of the IETF working
groups dealing with the IOT world as their encoding of data
structures. CBOR was designed specifically to be both small in terms
of messages transport and implementation size as well having a schema
free decoder. A need exists to provide basic message security
services for IOT and using CBOR as the message encoding format makes
sense.
The JOSE working group produced a set of documents
[RFC7515][RFC7516][RFC7517][RFC7518] that defined how to perform
encryption, signatures and message authentication (MAC) operations
for JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) documents and then to encode
the results using the JSON format [RFC7159]. This document does the
same work for use with the Concise Binary Object Representation
(CBOR) [RFC7049] document format. While there is a strong attempt to
keep the flavor of the original JOSE documents, two considerations
are taken into account:
o CBOR has capabilities that are not present in JSON and should be
used. One example of this is the fact that CBOR has a method of
encoding binary directly without first converting it into a base64
encoded string.
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o The author did not always agree with some of the decisions made by
the JOSE working group. Many of these decisions have been re-
examined, and where it seems to the author to be superior or
simpler, replaced.
1.1. Design changes from JOSE
o Define a top level message structure so that encrypted, signed and
MACed messages can easily identified and still have a consistent
view.
o Signed messages separate the concept of protected and unprotected
parameters that are for the content and the signature.
o Key management has been made to be more uniform. All key
management techniques are represented as a recipient rather than
only have some of them be so.
o MAC messages are separated from signed messages.
o MAC messages have the ability to do key management on the MAC
authentication key.
o Use binary encodings for binary data rather than base64url
encodings.
o Combine the authentication tag for encryption algorithms with the
ciphertext.
o Remove the flattened mode of encoding. Forcing the use of an
array of recipients at all times forces the message size to be two
bytes larger, but one gets a corresponding decrease in the
implementation size that should compensate for this. [CREF1]
1.2. Requirements 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
[RFC2119].
When the words appear in lower case, their natural language meaning
is used.
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1.3. CBOR Grammar
There currently is no standard CBOR grammar available for use by
specifications. While we describe the CBOR structures in prose, they
are agumented in the text by the use of the CBOR Data Definition
Language (CDDL) [I-D.greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-cddl]. The use of
CDDL is intended to be explanitory. In the event of a conflict
between the text and the CDDL grammar, the text is authorative.
(Problems may be introduced at a later point because the CDDL grammar
is not yet fixed.)
CDDL productions that together define the grammar are interspersed in
the document like this:
start = COSE_MSG / COSE_Key / COSE_KeySet
The collected CDDL can be extracted from the XML version of this
document via the following XPath expression below. (Depending on the
XPath evaluator one is using, it may be necessary to deal with >
as an entity.)
//artwork[@type='CDDL']/text()
1.4. CBOR Related Terminology
In JSON, maps are called objects and only have one kind of map key: a
string. In COSE, we use both strings and integers (both negative and
non-negative integers) as map keys, as well as data items to identify
specific choices. The integers (both positive and negative) are used
for compactness of encoding and easy comparison. (Generally, in this
document the value zero is going to be reserved and not used.) Since
the work "key" is mainly used in its other meaning, as a
cryptographic key, we use the term "label" for this usage of either
an integer or a string to identify map keys and choice data items.
The CDLL grammar that defines a type that represents a label is given
below:
label = int / tstr
values = any
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1.5. Document Terminology
In this document we use the following terminology: [CREF2]
Byte is a synonym for octet.
Key management is used as a term to describe how a key at level n is
obtained from level n+1 in encrypted and MACed messages. The term is
also used to discuss key life cycle management, this document does
not discuss key life cycle operations.
1.6. Mandatory to Implement Algorithms
One of the issues that needs to be addressed is a requirement that a
standard specify a set of algorithms that are required to be
implemented. [CREF3] This is done to promote interoperability as it
provides a minimal set of algorithms that all devices can be sure
will exist at both ends. However, we have elected not to specify a
set of mandatory algorithms in this document.
It is expected that COSE is going to be used in a wide variety of
applications and on a wide variety of devices. Many of the
constrained devices are going to be setup to used a small fixed set
of algorithms, and this set of algorithms may not match those
available on a device. We therefore have deferred to the application
protocols the decision of what to specify for mandatory algorithms.
Since the set of algorithms in an environment of constrained devices
may depend on what the set of devices are and how long they have been
in operation, we want to highlight that application protocols will
need to specify some type of discovery method of algorithm
capabilities. The discovery method may be as simple as requiring
preconfiguration of the set of algorithms to providing a discovery
method built into the protocol. S/MIME provided a number of
different ways to approach the problem:
o Advertising in the message (S/MIME capabilities) [RFC5751].
o Advertising in the certificate (capabilities extension) [RFC4262]
o Minimum requirements for the S/MIME which have been updated over
time [RFC2633][RFC5751]
2. The COSE_MSG structure
The COSE_MSG structure is a top level CBOR object that corresponds to
the DataContent type in the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)
[RFC5652]. This structure allows for a top level message to be sent
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that could be any of the different security services. The security
service is identified within the message.
The COSE_Tagged_MSG CBOR type takes the COSE_MSG and prepends a CBOR
tag of TBD1 to the encoding of COSE_MSG. By having both a tagged and
untagged version of the COSE_MSG structure, it becomes easy to either
use COSE_MSG as a top level object or embedded in another object.
The tagged version allows for a method of placing the COSE_MSG
structure into a choice, using a consistent tag value to determine
that this is a COSE object.
The existence of the COSE_MSG and COSE_Tagged_MSG CBOR data types are
not intended to prevent protocols from using the individual security
primitives directly. Where only a single service is required, that
structure can be used directly.
Each of the top-level security objects use a CBOR map as the base
structure. Items in the map at the top level are identified by a
label. The type of the value associated with the label is determined
by the definition of the label.
The set of labels present in a security object is not restricted to
those defined in this document. However, it is not recommended that
additional fields be added to a structure unless this is going to be
done in a closed environment. When new fields need to be added, it
is recommended that a new message type be created so that processing
of the field can be ensured. Using an older structure with a new
field means that any security properties of the new field will not be
enforced. Before a new field is added at the outer level, strong
consideration needs to be given to defining a new header field and
placing it into the protected headers. Applications should make a
determination if non-standardized fields are going to be permitted.
It is suggested that libraries allow for an option to fail parsing if
non-standardized fields exist, this is especially true if they do not
allow for access to the fields in other ways.
A label 'msg_type' is defined to distinguish between the different
structures when they appear as part of a COSE_MSG object. [CREF4]
[CREF5]
0 - Reserved.
1 - Signed Message.
2 - Encrypted Message
3 - Authenticated Message (MACed message)
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Implementations MUST be prepared to find an integer under this label
that does not correspond to the values 1 to 3. If this is found then
the client MUST stop attempting to parse the structure and fail. The
value of 0 is reserved and not to be used. If the value of 0 is
found, then clients MUST fail processing the structure.
Implementations need to recognize that the set of values might be
extended at a later date, but they should not provide a security
service based on guesses of what is there.
NOTE: Is there any reason to allow for a marker of a COSE_Key
structure and allow it to be a COSE_MSG? Doing so does allow for a
security risk, but may simplify the code. [CREF6]
The CDDL grammar that corresponds to the above is:
COSE_MSG = COSE_Sign /
COSE_encrypt /
COSE_mac
COSE_Tagged_MSG = #6.999(COSE_MSG) ; Replace 999 with TBD1
; msg_type values
msg_type_reserved=0
msg_type_signed=1
msg_type_encrypted=2
msg_type_mac=3
The top level of each of the COSE message structures are encoded as
maps. We use an integer to distinguish between the different
security message types. By searching for the integer under the label
identified by msg_type (which is in turn an integer), one can
determine which security message is being used and thus what syntax
is for the rest of the elements in the map.
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+-------------+--------+--------------------------------------------+
| name | number | comments |
+-------------+--------+--------------------------------------------+
| msg_type | 1 | Occurs only in top level messages |
| | | |
| protected | 2 | Occurs in all structures |
| | | |
| unprotected | 3 | Occurs in all structures |
| | | |
| payload | 4 | Contains the content of the structure |
| | | |
| signatures | 5 | For COSE_Sign - array of signatures |
| | | |
| signature | 6 | For COSE_signature only |
| | | |
| ciphertext | 4 | TODO: Should we reuse the same as payload |
| | | or not? |
| | | |
| recipients | 9 | For COSE_encrypt and COSE_mac |
| | | |
| tag | 10 | For COSE_mac only |
+-------------+--------+--------------------------------------------+
Table 1: COSE Map Labels
The CDDL grammar that provides the label values is:
; message_labels
msg_type=1
protected=2
unprotected=3
payload=4
signatures=5
signature=6
ciphertext=4
recipients=9
tag=10
3. Header Parameters
The structure of COSE has been designed to have two buckets of
information that are not considered to be part of the payload itself,
but are used for holding information about algorithms, keys, or
evaluation hints for the processing of the layer. These two buckets
are available for use in all of the structures in this document
except for keys. While these buckets can be present, they may not
all be usable in all instances. For example, while the protected
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bucket is defined as part of recipient structures, most of the
algorithms that are used for recipients do not provide the necessary
functionality to provide the needed protection and thus the bucket
should not be used.
Both buckets are implemented as CBOR maps. The map key is a 'label'
(Section 1.4). The value portion is dependent on the definition for
the label. Both maps use the same set of label/value pairs. The
integer range for labels has been divided into several sections with
a standard range, a private range, and a range that is dependent on
the algorithm selected. The defined labels can be found in the 'COSE
Header Parameters' IANA registry (Section 15.3).
Two buckets are provided for each layer: [CREF7]
protected contains parameters about the current layer that are to be
cryptographically protected. This bucket MUST NOT be used if it
is not going to be included in a cryptographic computation. This
bucket is encoded in the message as a binary object. This value
is obtained by CBOR encoding the protected map and wrapping it in
a bstr object. This wrapping allows for the encoding of the
protected map to be transported with a greater chance that it will
not be altered in transit. (Badly behaved intermediates could
decode and re-encode, but this will result in a failure to verify
unless the re-encoded byte string is identical to the decoded byte
string.) This finesses the problem of all parties needing to be
able to do a common connical encoding.
unprotected contains parameters about the current layer that are not
cryptographically protected.
Only parameters that deal with the current layer are to be placed at
that layer. As an example of this, the parameter 'content type'
describes the content of the message being carried in the message.
As such this parameter is placed only the the content layer and is
not placed in the key managment or signature layers. In principle,
one should be able to process any given layer without reference to
any other layer. (The only data that should need to cross layers is
the cryptographic key.)
The presence of both buckets is optional, however the requirement
that the 'alg' parameter be present at each level effectively imposes
a requirement that one of the buckets will always be present. The
parameters that go into the buckets come from the IANA "COSE Header
Parameters" (Section 15.3). Some common parameters are defined in
the next section, but a number of parameters are defined throughout
this document.
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The CDDL fragment that describes the two buckets is:
header_map = {+ label => any }
Headers = (
? protected => bstr, ; Contains a header_map
? unprotected => header_map
)
3.1. COSE Headers
This document defines a set of common header parameters. A summary
of the parameters defined in this section can be found in Table 2.
This table should be consulted to determine the value of label used
as well as the type of the value.
The set of header parameters defined in this section are:
alg This parameter is used to indicate the algorithm used for the
security processing. This parameter MUST be present at each level
of a signed, encrypted or authenticated message. The value is
taken from the 'COSE Algorithm Registry' (see Section 15.4).
crit This parameter is used to ensure that applications will take
appropriate action based on the values found. The parameter is
used to indicate which protected header labels an application that
is processing a message is required to understand. The value is
an array of COSE Header Labels. When present, this parameter MUST
be placed in the protected header bucket.
* Integer labels in the range of 0 to 10 SHOULD be omitted.
* Integer labels in the range -1 to -255 can be omitted as they
are algorithm dependent. If an application can correctly
process an algorithm, it can be assumed that it will correctly
process all of the parameters associated with that algorithm.
(The algorithm range is -1 to -65536, it is assumed that the
higher end will deal with more optional algorithm specific
items.)
The header parameter values indicated by 'crit' can be processed
by either the security library code or by an application using a
security library, the only requirement is that the parameter is
processed.
content type This parameter is used to indicate the content type of
the data in the payload or ciphertext fields. [CREF8] Integers
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are from the XXXXX[CREF9] IANA registry table. Strings are from
the IANA 'mime-content types' registry. Applications SHOULD
provide this parameter if the content structure is potentially
ambiguous.
kid This parameter one of the ways that can be used to find the key
to be used. The value of this parameter is matched against the
'kid' field in a COSE_Key structure. Applications MUST NOT assume
that 'kid' values are unique. There may be more than one key with
the same 'kid' value, it may be required that all of the keys need
to be checked to find the correct one. The internal structure of
'kid' values is not defined and generally cannot be relied on by
applications. Key identifier values are hints about which key to
use, they are not directly a security critical field, for this
reason they can normally be placed in the unprotected headers
bucket.
nonce This parameter holds either a nonce or Initialization Vector
value. The value can be used either as a counter value for a
protocol or as an IV for an algorithm. TODO: Talk about zero
extending the value in some cases. [CREF10]
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+----------+-------+----------+-------------+-----------------------+
| name | label | value | value | description |
| | | type | registry | |
+----------+-------+----------+-------------+-----------------------+
| alg | 1 | int / | COSE | Integers are taken |
| | | tstr | Algorithm | from table --POINT TO |
| | | | Registry | REGISTRY-- |
| | | | | |
| crit | 2 | [+ | COSE Header | integer values are |
| | | label] | Label | from -- POINT TO |
| | | | Registry | REGISTRY -- |
| | | | | |
| content | 3 | tstr / | media-types | Value is either a |
| type | | int | registry | media-type or an |
| | | | | integer from the |
| | | | | media-type registry |
| | | | | |
| jku | * | tstr | | URL to COSE key |
| | | | | object |
| | | | | |
| jwk | * | COSE_Key | | contains a COSE key |
| | | | | not a JWK key |
| | | | | |
| kid | 4 | bstr | | key identifier |
| | | | | |
| nonce | 5 | bstr | | Nonce or |
| | | | | Initialization Vector |
| | | | | (IV) |
| | | | | |
| x5c | * | bstr* | | X.509 Certificate |
| | | | | Chain |
| | | | | |
| x5t | * | bstr | | SHA-1 thumbprint of |
| | | | | key |
| | | | | |
| x5t#S256 | * | bstr | | SHA-256 thumbprint of |
| | | | | key |
| | | | | |
| x5u | * | tstr | | URL for X.509 |
| | | | | certificate |
| | | | | |
| zip | * | int / | | Integers are taken |
| | | tstr | | from the table |
| | | | | --POINT TO REGISTRY-- |
+----------+-------+----------+-------------+-----------------------+
Table 2: Common Header Parameters
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OPEN ISSUES:
1. Which of the following items do we want to have standardized in
this document: jku, jwk, x5c, x5t, x5t#S256, x5u, zip
2. I am currently torn on the question "Should epk and iv/nonce be
algorithm specific or generic headers?" They are really specific
to an algorithm and can potentially be defined in different ways
for different algorithms. As an example, it would make sense to
defined nonce for CCM and GCM modes that can have the leading
zero bytes stripped, while for other algorithms this might be
undesirable.
3. We might want to define some additional items. What are they? A
possible example would be a sequence number as this might be
common. On the other hand, this is the type of things that is
frequently used as the nonce in some places and thus should not
be used in the same way. Other items might be challenge/response
fields for freshness as these are likely to be common.
4. Signing Structure
The signature structure allows for one or more signatures to be
applied to a message payload. There are provisions for parameters
about the content and parameters about the signature to be carried
along with the signature itself. These parameters may be
authenticated by the signature, or just present. Examples of
parameters about the content would be the type of content, when the
content was created, and who created the content. Examples of
parameters about the signature would be the algorithm and key used to
create the signature, when the signature was created, and counter-
signatures.
When more than one signature is present, the successful validation of
one signature associated with a given signer is usually treated as a
successful signature by that signer. However, there are some
application environments where other rules are needed. An
application that employs a rule other than one valid signature for
each signer must specify those rules. Also, where simple matching of
the signer identifier is not sufficient to determine whether the
signatures were generated by the same signer, the application
specification must describe how to determine which signatures were
generated by the same signer. Support of different communities of
recipients is the primary reason that signers choose to include more
than one signature. For example, the COSE_Sign structure might
include signatures generated with the RSA signature algorithm and
with the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) signature
algorithm. This allows recipients to verify the signature associated
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with one algorithm or the other. (The original source of this text
is [RFC5652].) More detailed information on multiple signature
evaluation can be found in [RFC5752].
The CDDL grammar for a signature message is:
COSE_Sign = {
msg_type => msg_type_signed,
Headers,
? payload => bstr,
signatures => [+ COSE_signature]
}
The fields is the structure have the following semantics:
msg_type identifies this as providing the signed security service.
The value MUST be msg_type_signed (1).
protected is described in Section 3.
unprotected is described in Section 3.
payload contains the serialized content to be signed. If the
payload is not present in the message, the application is required
to supply the payload separately. The payload is wrapped in a
bstr to ensure that it is transported without changes. If the
payload is transported separately, it is the responsibility of the
application to ensure that it will be transported without changes.
signatures is an array of signature items. Each of these items uses
the COSE_signature structure for its representation.
We use the values in Table 1 as the labels in the COSE_Sign map.
While other labels can be present in the map, it is not generally a
recommended practice. The other labels can be either of integer or
string type, use of other types SHOULD be treated as an error.
The CDDL grammar structure for a signature is:
COSE_signature = {
Headers,
signature => bstr
}
The fields in the structure have the following semantics:
protected is described in Section 3.
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unprotected is described in Section 3.
signature contains the computed signature value.
4.1. Externally Supplied Data
One of the features that we supply in the COSE document is the
ability for applications to provide additional data to be
authenticated as part of the security, but that is not carried as
part of the COSE object. The primary reason for supporting this can
be seen by looking at the CoAP message struture [RFC7252] where the
facility exists for options to be carried before the payload. An
example of data that can be placed in this location would be
transaction ids and nonces to check for replay protection. If the
data is in the options section, then it is available for routers to
help in performing the replay detection and prevention. However, it
may also be desired to protect these values so that they cannot be
modified in transit. This is the purpose of the externally supplied
data field.
This document describes the process for using a byte array of
externally supplied authenticated data, however the method of
constructing the byte array is a function of the application.
Applications which use this feature need to define how the externally
supplied authenticated data is to be constructed. Such a
construction needs to take into account the following issues:
o If multiple items are included, care needs to be taken that data
cannot bleed between the items. This is usually addressed by
making fields fixed width and/or encoding the length of the field.
Using options from CoAP as an example, these fields use a TLV
structure so they can be concatenated without any problems.
o If multiple items are included, a defined order for the items
needs to be defined. Using options from CoAP as an example, an
application could state that the fields are to be ordered by the
option number.
4.2. Signing and Verification Process
The COSE structure used to create the byte stream to be signed uses
the following CDDL grammar structure:
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Sig_structure = [
body_protected: bstr,
sign_protected: bstr,
external_aad: bstr,
payload: bstr
]
How to compute a signature:
1. Create a Sig_structure object and populate it with the
appropriate fields. For body_protected and sign_protected, if
the fields are not present in their corresponding maps, an bstr
of length zero is used.
2. If the application has supplied external additional authenticated
data to be included in the computation, then it is placed in the
'external_aad' field. If no data was supplied, then a zero
length binary value is used.
3. Create the value ToBeSigned by encoding the Sig_structure to a
byte string.
4. Call the signature creation algorithm passing in K (the key to
sign with), alg (the algorithm to sign with) and ToBeSigned (the
value to sign).
5. Place the resulting signature value in the 'signature' field of
the map.
How to verify a signature:
1. Create a Sig_structure object and populate it with the
appropriate fields. For body_protected and sign_protected, if
the fields are not present in their corresponding maps, an bstr
of length zero is used.
2. If the application has supplied external additional authenticated
data to be included in the computation, then it is placed in the
'external_aad' field. If no data was supplied, then a zero
length binary value is used.
3. Create the value ToBeSigned by encoding the Sig_structure to a
byte string.
4. Call the signature verification algorithm passing in K (the key
to verify with), alg (the algorithm to sign with), ToBeSigned
(the value to sign), and sig (the signature to be verified).
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In addition to performing the signature verification, one must also
perform the appropriate checks to ensure that the key is correctly
paired with the signing identity and that the appropriate
authorization is done.
5. Encryption object
In this section we describe the structure and methods to be used when
doing an encryption in COSE. In COSE, we use the same techniques and
structures for encrypting both the plain text and the keys used to
protect the text. This is different from the approach used by both
[RFC5652] and [RFC7516] where different structures are used for the
plain text and for the different key management techniques.
One of the byproducts of using the same technique for encrypting and
encoding both the content and the keys using the various key
management techniques, is a requirement that all of the key
management techniques use an Authenticated Encryption (AE) algorithm.
(For the purpose of this document we use a slightly loose definition
of AE algorithms.) When encrypting the plain text, it is normal to
use an Authenticated Encryption with Additional Data (AEAD)
algorithm. For key management, either AE or AEAD algorithms can be
used. See Appendix A for more details about the different types of
algorithms. [CREF11]
The CDDL grammar structure for encryption is:
COSE_encrypt = {
msg_type=>msg_type_encrypted,
COSE_encrypt_fields
}
COSE_encrypt_fields = (
Headers,
? ciphertext => bstr,
? recipients => [+{COSE_encrypt_fields}]
)
Description of the fields:
msg_type identifies this as providing the encrypted security
service. The value MUST be msg_type_encrypted (2).
protected is described in Section 3.
unprotected is described in Section 3.
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ciphertext contains the encrypted plain text. If the ciphertext is
to be transported independently of the control information about
the encryption process (i.e. detached content) then the field is
omitted.
recipients contains the recipient information. It is required that
at least one recipient MUST be present for the content encryption
layer.
5.1. Key Management Methods
A typical encrypted message consists of an encrypted content and an
encrypted CEK for one or more recipients. The content-encryption key
is encrypted for each recipient. The details of this encryption
depends on the key management technique used, but the six generally
techniques are:
none: The CEK is the same as as the identified previously
distributed symmetric key.
symmetric key-encryption keys: The CEK is encrypted using a
previously distributed symmetric key-encryption key.
key agreement: the recipient's public key and a sender's private key
are used to generate a pairwise symmetric key, then the CEK is
either the derived key or encrypted by the derived key.
key transport: the CEK is encrypted in the recipient's public key
passwords: the CEK is encrypted in a key-encryption key that is
derived from a password or other shared secret value.
Section 12 provides details on a number of different key management
algorithms and discusses which parameters need to be present for each
of the key management techniques.
5.2. Encryption Algorithm for AEAD algorithms
The encryption algorithm for AEAD algorithms is fairly simple. In
order to get a consistent encoding of the data to be authenticated,
the Enc_structure is used to have canonical form of the AAD.
Enc_structure = [
protected: bstr,
external_aad: bstr
]
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1. Copy the protected header field from the message to be sent.
2. If the application has supplied external additional authenticated
data to be included in the computation, then it is placed in the
'external_aad' field. If no data was supplied, then a zero
length binary value is used. (See Section 4.1 for application
guidance on constructing this field.)
3. Encode the Enc_structure using a CBOR Canonical encoding
Section 14 to get the AAD value.
4. Determine the encryption key. This step is dependent on the key
management method being used: For:
No Recipients: The key to be used is determined by the algorithm
and key at the current level.
Direct and Direct Key Agreement: The key is determined by the
key and algorithm in the recipient structure. The encryption
algorithm and size of the key to be used are inputs into the
KDF used for the recipient. (For direct, the KDF can be
thought of as the identity operation.)
Other: The key is randomly generated.
5. Call the encryption algorithm with K (the encryption key to use),
P (the plain text) and AAD (the additional authenticated data).
Place the returned cipher text into the 'ciphertext' field of the
structure.
6. For recipients of the message, recursively perform the encryption
algorithm for that recipient using the encryption key as the
plain text.
5.3. Encryption algorithm for AE algorithms
1. Verify that the 'protected' field is absent.
2. Verify that there was no external additional authenticated data
supplied for this operation.
3. Determine the encryption key. This step is dependent on the key
management method being used: For:
No Recipients: The key to be used is determined by the algorithm
and key at the current level.
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Direct and Direct Key Agreement: The key is determined by the
key and algorithm in the recipient structure. The encryption
algorithm and size of the key to be used are inputs into the
KDF used for the recipient. (For direct, the KDF can be
thought of as the identity operation.)
Other: The key is randomly generated.
4. Call the encryption algorithm with K (the encryption key to use)
and the P (the plain text). Place the returned cipher text into
the 'ciphertext' field of the structure.
5. For recipients of the message, recursively perform the encryption
algorithm for that recipient using the encryption key as the
plain text.
6. MAC objects
In this section we describe the structure and methods to be used when
doing MAC authentication in COSE. This document allows for the use
of all of the same methods of key management as are allowed for
encryption.
When using MAC operations, there are two modes in which it can be
used. The first is just a check that the content has not been
changed since the MAC was computed. Any of the key management
methods can be used for this purpose. The second mode is to both
check that the content has not been changed since the MAC was
computed, and to use key management to verify who sent it. The key
management modes that support this are ones that either use a pre-
shared secret, or do static-static key agreement. In both of these
cases the entity MACing the message can be validated by a key
binding. (The binding of identity assumes that there are only two
parties involved and you did not send the message yourself.)
COSE_mac = {
msg_type=>msg_type_mac,
Headers,
? payload => bstr,
tag => bstr,
recipients => [+{COSE_encrypt_fields}]
}
Field descriptions:
msg_type identifies this as providing the encrypted security
service. The value MUST be msg_type_mac (3).
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protected is described in Section 3.
unprotected is described in Section 3.
payload contains the serialized content to be MACed. If the payload
is not present in the message, the application is required to
supply the payload separately. The payload is wrapped in a bstr
to ensure that it is transported without changes, if the payload
is transported separately it is the responsibility of the
application to ensure that it will be transported without changes.
tag contains the MAC value.
recipients contains the recipient information. See the description
under COSE_Encryption for more info.
MAC_structure = [
protected: bstr,
external_aad: bstr,
payload: bstr
]
How to compute a MAC:
1. Create a MAC_structure and copy the protected and payload fields
from the COSE_mac structure.
2. If the application has supplied external authenticated data,
encode it as a binary value and place in the MAC_structure. If
there is no external authenticated data, then use a zero length
'bstr'. (See Section 4.1 for application guidance on
constructing this field.)
3. Encode the MAC_structure using a canonical CBOR encoder. The
resulting bytes is the value to compute the MAC on.
4. Compute the MAC and place the result in the 'tag' field of the
COSE_mac structure.
5. Encrypt and encode the MAC key for each recipient of the message.
7. Key Structure
A COSE Key structure is built on a CBOR map object. The set of
common parameters that can appear in a COSE Key can be found in the
IANA registry 'COSE Key Common Parameter Registry' (Section 15.6).
Additional parameters defined for different key types can be found in
the IANA registry 'COSE Key Type Parameters' (Section 15.7).
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A COSE Key Set uses a CBOR array object as it's underlying type. The
values of the array elements are COSE Keys. A Key Set MUST have at
least one element in the array. [CREF12]
The CDDL grammar describing a COSE_Key and COSE_KeySet is: [CREF13]
COSE_Key = {
key_kty => tstr / int,
? key_ops => [+ (tstr / int) ],
? key_alg => tstr / int,
? key_kid => bstr,
* label => values
}
COSE_KeySet = [+COSE_Key]
The element "kty" is a required element in a COSE_Key map.
7.1. COSE Key Common Parameters
This document defines a set of common parameters for a COSE Key
object. Table 3 provides a summary of the parameters defined in this
section. There are also a set of parameters that are defined for a
specific key type. Key type specific parameters can be found in
Section 13.
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+----------+-------+-------------+------------+---------------------+
| name | label | CBOR type | registry | description |
+----------+-------+-------------+------------+---------------------+
| kty | 1 | tstr / int | COSE | Identification of |
| | | | General | the key type |
| | | | Values | |
| | | | | |
| key_ops | 4 | [* | | Restrict set of |
| | | (tstr/int)] | | permissible |
| | | | | operations |
| | | | | |
| alg | 3 | tstr / int | COSE | Key usage |
| | | | Algorithm | restriction to this |
| | | | Values | algorithm |
| | | | | |
| kid | 2 | bstr | | Key Identification |
| | | | | value - match to |
| | | | | kid in message |
| | | | | |
| x5u | * | tstr | | |
| | | | | |
| x5c | * | bstr* | | |
| | | | | |
| x5t | * | bstr | | |
| | | | | |
| x5t#S256 | * | bstr | | |
| | | | | |
| use | * | tstr | | deprecated - don't |
| | | | | use |
+----------+-------+-------------+------------+---------------------+
Table 3: Key Map Labels
kty: This parameter is used to identify the family of keys for this
structure, and thus the set of key type specific parameters to be
found. The set of values can be found in Table 21.
alg: This parameter is used to restrict the algorithms that are to
be used with this key. If this parameter is present in the key
structure, the application MUST verify that this algorithm matches
the algorithm for which the key is being used. If the algorthms
do not match, then this key object MUST NOT be used to perform the
cryptographic operation. Note that the same key can be in a
different key structure with a different or no algorithm
specified, however this is considered to be a poor security
practice.
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kid: This parameter is used to give an identifier for a key. The
identifier is not structured and can be anything from a user
provided string to a value computed on the public portion of the
key. This field is intended for matching against a 'kid'
parameter in a message in order to filter down the set of keys
that need to be checked.
key_ops: This parameter is defined to restrict the set of operations
that a key is to be used for. The value of the field is an array
of values from Table 4.
Only the 'kty' field MUST be present in a key object. All other
parameters can be omitted if their behavior is not needed.
+---------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
| name | value | description |
+---------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
| sign | 1 | The key is used to create signatures. Requires |
| | | private key fields. |
| | | |
| verify | 2 | The key is used for verification of signatures. |
| | | |
| encrypt | 3 | The key is used for key transport encryption. |
| | | |
| decrypt | 4 | The key is used for key transport decryption. |
| | | Requires private key fields. |
| | | |
| wrap | 5 | The key is used for key wrapping. |
| key | | |
| | | |
| unwrap | 6 | The key is used for key unwrapping. Requires |
| key | | private key fields. |
| | | |
| key | 7 | The key is used for key agreement. |
| agree | | |
+---------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
Table 4: Key Operation Values
The following provides a CDDL fragment which duplicates the
assignment labels from Table 3 and Table 4.
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;key_labels
key_kty=1
key_kid=2
key_alg=3
key_ops=4
;key_ops values
key_ops_sign=1
key_ops_verify=2
key_ops_encrypt=3
key_ops_decrypt=4
key_ops_wrap=5
key_ops_unwrap=6
key_ops_agree=7
8. Signature Algorithms
There are two basic signature algorithm structures that can be used.
The first is the common signature with appendix. In this structure,
the message content is processed and a signature is produced, the
signature is called the appendix. This is the message structure used
by our common algorithms such as ECDSA and RSASSA-PSS. (In fact the
SSA in RSASSA-PSS stands for Signature Scheme with Appendix.) The
basic structure becomes:
signature = Sign(message content, key)
valid = Verification(message content, key, signature)
The second is a signature with message recovery. (An example of such
an algorithm is [PVSig].) In this structure, the message content is
processed, but part of is included in the signature. Moving bytes of
the message content into the signature allows for an effectively
smaller signature, the signature size is still potentially large, but
the message content is shrunk. This has implications for systems
implementing these algoritms and for applications that use them. The
first is that the message content is not fully available until after
a signature has been validated. Until that point the part of the
message contained inside of the signature is unrecoverable. The
second is that the security analysis of the strength of the signature
is very much based on the structure of the message content. Messages
which are highly predictable require additional randomness to be
supplied as part of the signature process, in the worst case it
because the same as doing a singature with appendix. Thirdly, in the
event that multple signatures are applied to a message, all of the
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signature algorithms are going to be required to consume the same
number of bytes of message content.
signature, message sent = Sign(message content, key)
valid, message content = Verification(message sent, key, signature)
At this time, only signatures with appendixes are defined for use
with COSE, however considerable interest has been expressed in using
a signature with message recovery algorithm due to the effective size
reduction that is possible. Implementations will need to keep this
in mind for later possible integration.
8.1. ECDSA
ECDSA [DSS] defines a signature algorithm using ECC.
The ECDSA signature algorithm is parameterized with a hash function
(h. In the event that the length of the hash function output is
greater than group of the key, the left most bytes of the hash output
are used.
The algorithms defined in this document can be found in Table 5.
+-------+-------+---------+------------------+
| name | value | hash | description |
+-------+-------+---------+------------------+
| ES256 | -7 | SHA-256 | ECDSA w/ SHA-256 |
| | | | |
| ES384 | -8 | SHA-384 | ECDSA w/ SHA-384 |
| | | | |
| ES512 | -9 | SHA-512 | ECDSA w/ SHA-512 |
+-------+-------+---------+------------------+
Table 5: ECDSA Algorithm Values
In order to promote interoperability, it is suggested that SHA-256 be
used only with keys of length 256, SHA-384 be used only with keys of
length 384 and SHA-512 be used only with keys of length 521. This is
aligned with the recommendation in Section 4 of [RFC5480].
The signature algorithm results in a pair of integers (R, S). These
integers will be of the same order as length of the key used for the
signature process. The signature is encoded by converting the
integers into byte strings of the same length as the key size. The
length is rounded up to the nearest byte and is left padded with zero
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bits to get to the correct length. The two integers are then
concatenated together to form a byte string that is the resulting
signature.
Using the function defined in [RFC3447] the signature is:
Signature = I2OSP(R, n) | I2OSP(S, n)
where n = ceiling(key_length / 8)
8.1.1. Security Considerations
The security strength of the signature is no greater than the minimum
of the security strength associated with the bit length of the key
and the security strength of the hash function. When a hash function
is used that has greater security than is provided by the length of
the key, the signature algorithm uses the leftmost key length bits of
the hash function output.
System which have poor random number generation can leak their keys
by signing two messages with the same value of 'k'. [RFC6979]
provides a method to deal with this problem by making 'k' be
deterministic based on the message content rather than randomly
generated. Applications which specify ECDSA should evaluate the
ability to get good random number generation and recommend this when
it is not possible. Note: Use of this technique even when good
random number generation exists may still be a good idea.
There are two substitution that can theoretically be mounted against
the ECDSA signature algorithm.
o Changing the curve used to validate the signature: If one changes
the curve used to validate the signature, then potentially one
could have a two messages with the same signature each computed
under a different curve. The only requirement on the new curve is
that it's order be the same as the old one and it be acceptable to
the client. An example would be to change from using the curve
P-256 to using Curve25519. (Both are 256 bit curves.) We current
do not have any way to deal with this version of the attack except
to restrict the overall set of curves that can be used.
o Change the hash function used to validate the signature: If one
has either two different hash functions of the same length, or one
can truncate a hash function down, then one could potentially find
collisions between the hash functions rather than within a single
hash function. (For example, truncating SHA-512 to 256 bits might
collide with a SHA-256 bit hash value.) This attack can be
mitigated by including the signature algorithm identifier in the
data to be signed.
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8.2. RSASSA-PSS
The RSASSA-PSS signature algorithm is defined in [RFC3447].
The RSASSA-PSS signature algorithm is parametized with a hash
function (h), a mask generation function (mgf) and a salt length
(sLen). For this specification, the mask generation function is
fixed to be MGF1 as defined in [RFC3447]. It has been recommended
that the same hash function be used for hashing the data as well as
in the mask generation function, for this specification we following
this recommendation. The salt length is the same length as the hash
function output.
The algorithms defined in this document can be found in Table 6.
+-------+-------+---------+-------------+-----------------------+
| name | value | hash | salt length | description |
+-------+-------+---------+-------------+-----------------------+
| PS256 | -26 | SHA-256 | 32 | RSASSA-PSS w/ SHA-256 |
| | | | | |
| PS384 | -27 | SHA-384 | 48 | RSASSA-PSS w/ SHA-384 |
| | | | | |
| PS512 | -28 | SHA-512 | 64 | RSASSA-PSS w/ SHA-512 |
+-------+-------+---------+-------------+-----------------------+
Table 6: RSASSA-PSS Algorithm Values
8.2.1. Security Considerations
In addition to needing to worry about keys that are too small to
provide the required security, there are issues with keys that are
too large. Denial of service attacks have been mounted with overly
large keys. This has the potential to consume resources with
potentially bad keys. There are two reasonable ways to address this
attack. First, a key should not be used for a cryptographic
operation until it has been matched back to an authorized user. This
approach means that no cryptography would be done except for
authorized users. Second, applications can impose maximum as well as
minimum length requirements on keys. This limits the resources
consumed even if the matching is not performed until the cryptography
has been done.
There is a theoretical hash substitution attack that can be mounted
against RSASSA-PSS. However, the requirement that the same hash
function be used consistently for all operations is an effective
mitigation against it. Unlike ECDSA, hash functions are not
truncated so that the full hash value is always signed. The internal
padding structure of RSASSA-PSS means that one needs to have multiple
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collisions between the two hash functions in order to be successful
in producing a forgery based on changing the hash function. This is
highly unlikely.
9. Message Authentication (MAC) Algorithms
Message Authentication Codes (MACs) provide data authentication and
integrity protection. They provide either no or very limited data
origination. (One cannot, for example, be used to prove the identity
of the sender to a third party.)
MAC algorithms can be based on either a block cipher algorithm (i.e.
AES-MAC) or a hash algorithm (i.e. HMAC). This document defines a
MAC algorithm for each of these two constructions.
9.1. Hash-based Message Authentication Codes (HMAC)
The Hash-base Message Authentication Code algorithm (HMAC)
[RFC2104][RFC4231] was designed to deal with length extension
attacks. The algorithm was also designed to allow for new hash
algorithms to be directly plugged in without changes to the hash
function. The HMAC design process has been vindicated as, while the
security of hash algorithms such as MD5 has decreased over time, the
security of HMAC combined with MD5 has not yet been shown to be
compromised [RFC6151].
The HMAC algorithm is parameterized by an inner and outer padding, a
hash function (h) and an authentication tag value length. For this
specification, the inner and outer padding are fixed to the values
set in [RFC2104]. The length of the authentication tag corresponds
to the difficulty of producing a forgery. For use in constrained
environments, we define a set of HMAC algorithms that are truncated.
There are currently no known issues when truncating, however the
security strength of the message tag is correspondingly reduced in
strength. When truncating, the left most tag length bits are kept
and transmitted.
The algorithm defined in this document can be found in Table 7.
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+-----------+-------+---------+--------+----------------------------+
| name | value | Hash | Length | description |
+-----------+-------+---------+--------+----------------------------+
| HMAC | * | SHA-256 | 64 | HMAC w/ SHA-256 truncated |
| 256/64 | | | | to 64 bits |
| | | | | |
| HMAC | 4 | SHA-256 | 256 | HMAC w/ SHA-256 |
| 256/256 | | | | |
| | | | | |
| HMAC | 5 | SHA-384 | 384 | HMAC w/ SHA-384 |
| 384/384 | | | | |
| | | | | |
| HMAC | 6 | SHA-512 | 512 | HMAC w/ SHA-512 |
| 512/512 | | | | |
+-----------+-------+---------+--------+----------------------------+
Table 7: HMAC Algorithm Values
For some key management methods, the length of the key is known or
determinable from the key management method. For example, if RSA-
OAEP is used then the key will be output at the correct length.
However, if any of the key derivation methods are used, then the size
of the key to be obtained is an input parameter to the key derivation
step. For all HMAC methods defined in this document, the key size
for a key derivation methods MUST be the same size as the hash
function used. It is RECOMMENDED that the key size be the same size
as the hash function for all other key management methods.
9.1.1. Security Considerations
HMAC has proved to be resistant even when used with weakening hash
algorithms. The current best method appears to be a brute force
attack on the key. This means that key size is going to be directly
related to the security of an HMAC operation.
9.2. AES Message Authentication Code (AES-CBC-MAC)
AES-CBC-MAC is defined in [MAC].
AES-CBC-MAC is parameterized by the key length, the authentication
tag length and the IV used. For all of these algorithms, the IV is
fixed to all zeros. We provide an array of algorithms for various
key lengths and tag lengths. The algorithms defined in this document
are found in Table 8.
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+-------------+-------+----------+----------+-----------------------+
| name | value | key | tag | description |
| | | length | length | |
+-------------+-------+----------+----------+-----------------------+
| AES-MAC | * | 128 | 64 | AES-MAC 128 bit key, |
| 128/64 | | | | 64-bit tag |
| | | | | |
| AES-MAC | * | 256 | 64 | AES-MAC 256 bit key, |
| 256/64 | | | | 64-bit tag |
| | | | | |
| AES-MAC | * | 128 | 128 | AES-MAC 128 bit key, |
| 128/128 | | | | 128-bit tag |
| | | | | |
| AES-MAC | * | 256 | 128 | AES-MAC 256 bit key, |
| 256/128 | | | | 128-bit tag |
+-------------+-------+----------+----------+-----------------------+
Table 8: AES-MAC Algorithm Values
9.2.1. Security Considerations
A number of attacks exist against CBC-MAC that need to be considered.
o A single key must only be used for messages of a fixed and known
length. If this is not the case, an attacker will be able to
generated a message with a valid tag given two message, tag pairs.
This can be addressed by using different keys for different length
messages. (CMAC mode also addresses this issue.)
o If the same key is used for both encryption and authentication
operations, using CBC modes an attacker can produce messages with
a valid authentication code.
o If the IV can be modified, then messages can be forged. This is
addressed by fixing the IV to all zeros.
10. Content Encryption Algorithms
10.1. AES GCM
The GCM mode is is a generic authenticated encryption block cipher
mode defined in [AES-GCM]. The GCM mode is combined with the AES
block encryption algorithm to define a an AEAD cipher.
The GCM mode is parameterized with by the size of the authentication
tag. The size of the authentication tag is limited to a small set of
values. For this document however, the size of the authentication
tag is fixed at 128-bits.
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The set of algorithms defined in this document are in Table 9.
+---------+-------+-----------------------------+
| name | value | description |
+---------+-------+-----------------------------+
| A128GCM | 1 | AES-GCM mode w/ 128-bit key |
| | | |
| A192GCM | 2 | AES-GCM mode w/ 192-bit key |
| | | |
| A256GCM | 3 | AES-GCM mode w/ 256-bit key |
+---------+-------+-----------------------------+
Table 9: Algorithm Value for AES-GCM
10.1.1. Security Considerations
When using AES-CCM the following restrictions MUST be enforced:
o The key and nonce pair MUST be unique for every message encrypted.
o The total amount of data encrypted MUST NOT exceed 2^39 - 256 bits
. An explicit check is required only in environments where it is
expected that it might be exceeded.
10.2. AES CCM
Counter with CBC-MAC (CCM) is a generic authentication encryption
block cipher mode defined in [RFC3610]. The CCM mode is combined
with the AES block encryption algorithm to define a commonly used
content encryption algorithm used in constrainted devices.
The CCM mode has two parameter choices. The first choice is M, the
size of the authentication field. The choice of the value for M
involves a trade-off between message expansion and the probably that
an attacker can undetecably modify a message. The second choice is
L, the size of the length field. This value requires a trade-off
between the maximum message size and the size of the Nonce.
It is unfortunate that the specification for CCM specified L and M as
a count of bytes rather than a count of bits. This leads to possible
misunderstandings where AES-CCM-8 is frequently used to refer to a
version of CCM mode where the size of the authentication is 64-bits
and not 8-bits. These values have traditionally been specified as
bit counts rather than byte counts. This document will follow the
tradition of using bit counts so that it is easier to compare the
different algorithms presented in this document.
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We define a matrix of algorithms in this document over the values of
L and M. Constrained devices are usually operating in situations
where they use short messages and want to avoid doing key management
operations. This favors smaller values of M and larger values of L.
Less constrained devices do will want to be able to user larger
messages and are more willing to generate new keys for every
operation. This favors larger values of M and smaller values of L.
(The use of a large nonce means that random generation of both the
key and the nonce will decrease the chances of repeating the pair on
two different messages.)
The following values are used for L:
16-bits (2) limits messages to 2^16 bytes (64Kbyte) in length. This
sufficently long for messages in the constrainted world. The
nonce length is 13 bytes allowing for 2^(13*8) possible values of
the nonce without repeating.
64-bits (8) limits messages to 2^64 byes in length. The nonce
length is 7 bytes allowing for 2^56 possible values of the nonce
without repeating.
The following values are used for M:
64-bits (8) produces a 64-bit authentication tag. This implies that
there is a 1 in 2^64 chance that an modified message will
authenticate.
128-bits (16) produces a 128-bit authentication tag. This implies
that there is a 1 in 2^128 chance that an modified message will
authenticate.
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+--------------------+-------+----+-----+-----+---------------------+
| name | value | L | M | k | description |
+--------------------+-------+----+-----+-----+---------------------+
| AES-CCM-16-64-128 | 10 | 16 | 64 | 128 | AES-CCM mode |
| | | | | | 128-bit key, 64-bit |
| | | | | | tag, 13-byte nonce |
| | | | | | |
| AES-CCM-16-64-256 | 11 | 16 | 64 | 256 | AES-CCM mode |
| | | | | | 256-bit key, 64-bit |
| | | | | | tag, 13-byte nonce |
| | | | | | |
| AES-CCM-64-64-128 | 30 | 64 | 64 | 128 | AES-CCM mode |
| | | | | | 128-bit key, 64-bit |
| | | | | | tag, 7-byte nonce |
| | | | | | |
| AES-CCM-64-64-256 | 31 | 64 | 64 | 256 | AES-CCM mode |
| | | | | | 256-bit key, 64-bit |
| | | | | | tag, 7-byte nonce |
| | | | | | |
| AES-CCM-16-128-128 | 12 | 16 | 128 | 128 | AES-CCM mode |
| | | | | | 128-bit key, |
| | | | | | 128-bit tag, |
| | | | | | 13-byte nonce |
| | | | | | |
| AES-CCM-16-128-256 | 13 | 16 | 128 | 256 | AES-CCM mode |
| | | | | | 256-bit key, |
| | | | | | 128-bit tag, |
| | | | | | 13-byte nonce |
| | | | | | |
| AES-CCM-64-128-128 | 32 | 64 | 128 | 128 | AES-CCM mode |
| | | | | | 128-bit key, |
| | | | | | 128-bit tag, 7-byte |
| | | | | | nonce |
| | | | | | |
| AES-CCM-64-128-256 | 33 | 64 | 128 | 256 | AES-CCM mode |
| | | | | | 256-bit key, |
| | | | | | 128-bit tag, 7-byte |
| | | | | | nonce |
+--------------------+-------+----+-----+-----+---------------------+
Table 10: Algorithm Values for AES-CCM
10.2.1. Security Considerations
When using AES-CCM the following restrictions MUST be enforced:
o The key and nonce pair MUST be unique for every message encrypted.
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o The total number of times the AES block cipher is used MUST NOT
exceed 2^61 operations. This limitation is the sum of times the
block cipher is used in computing the MAC value and in performing
stream encryption operations. An explicit check is required only
in environments where it is expected that it might be exceeded.
[RFC3610] additionally calls out one other consideration of note. It
is possible to do a pre-computation attack against the algorithm in
cases where the portions encryption content is highly predictable.
This reduces the security of the key size by half. Ways to deal with
this attack include adding a random portion to the nonce value and/or
increasing the key size used. Using a portion of the nonce for a
random value will decrease the number of messages that a single key
can be used for. Increasing the key size may require more resources
in the constrained device. See sections 5 and 10 of [RFC3610] for
more information.
10.3. ChaCha20 and Poly1305
ChaCha20 and Poly1305 combined together is a new AEAD mode that is
defined in [RFC7539]. This is a new mode defined to be a cipher
which is not AES and thus would not suffer from any future weaknesses
found in AES. These cryptographic functions are designed to be fast
in software only implementations.
The ChaCha20/Poly1305 AEAD construction defined in [RFC7539] has no
parameterization. It takes a 256-bit key and an a 96-bit nonce as
well as the plain text and additional data as inputs and produces the
cipher text as an option. We define one algorithm identifier for
this algorithm in Table 11.
+-------------------+-------+----------------------------------+
| name | value | description |
+-------------------+-------+----------------------------------+
| ChaCha20/Poly1305 | 11 | ChaCha20/Poly1305 w/ 256-bit key |
+-------------------+-------+----------------------------------+
Table 11: Algorithm Value for AES-GCM
10.3.1. Security Considerations
The pair of key, nonce MUST be unique for every invocation of the
algorithm. Nonce counters are considered to be an acceptable way of
ensuring that they are unique.
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11. Key Derivation Functions (KDF)
11.1. HMAC-based Extract-and-Expand Key Derivation Function (HKDF)
The HKDF key derivation algorithm is defined in [RFC5869].
The HKDF algorithm is defined to take a number of inputs These inputs
are:
secret - a shared value that is secret. Secrets may be either
previously shared or derived from operations like a DH key
agreement.
salt - an optional public value that is used to change the
generation process. If specified, the salt is carried using the
'salt' algorithm parameter. While [RFC5869] suggests that the
length of the salt be the same as the length of the underlying
hash value, any amount of salt will improve the security as
different key values will be generated. A parameter to carry the
salt is defined in Table 13. This parameter is protected by being
included in the key computation and does not need to be separately
authenticated.
length - the number of bytes of output that need to be generated.
context information - Information that describes the context in
which the resulting value will be used. Making this information
specific to the context that the material is going to be used
ensures that the resulting material will always be unique. The
context structure used is encoded into the algorithm identifier.
hash function - The underlying hash function to be used in the
HKDF algorithm. The hash function is encoded into the HKDF
algorithm selection.
HKDF is defined to use HMAC as the underlying PRF. However, it is
possible to use other functions in the same construct to provide a
different KDF function that may be more appropriate in the
constrained world. Specifically, one can use AES-CBC-MAC as the PRF
for the expand step, but not for the extract step. When using a good
random shared secret of the correct length, the extract step can be
skipped. The extract cannot be skipped if the secret is not
uniformly random, for example if it is the result of a ECDH key
agreement step.
The algorithms defined in this document are found in Table 12
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+-------------+-------------+----------+----------------------------+
| name | hash | Skip | context |
| | | extract | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+----------------------------+
| HKDF | SHA-256 | no | XXX |
| SHA-256 | | | |
| | | | |
| HKDF | SHA-512 | no | XXX |
| SHA-512 | | | |
| | | | |
| HKDF AES- | AES-CBC-128 | yes | HKDF using AES-MAC as the |
| MAC-128 | | | PRF w/ 128-bit key |
| | | | |
| HKDF AES- | AES-CBC-128 | yes | HKDF using AES-MAC as the |
| MAC-256 | | | PRF w/ 256-bit key |
+-------------+-------------+----------+----------------------------+
Table 12: HKDF algorithms
+------+-------+------+-------------+
| name | label | type | description |
+------+-------+------+-------------+
| salt | -20 | bstr | Random salt |
+------+-------+------+-------------+
Table 13: HKDF Algorithm Parameters
11.2. Context Information Structure
The context information structure is used to ensure that the derived
keying material is "bound" to the context of the transaction. The
context information structure used here is based on that defined in
[SP800-56A]. By using CBOR for the encoding of the context
information structure, we automatically get the same type of type and
length separation of fields that is obtained by the use of ASN.1.
This means that there is no need to encode the lengths for the base
elements as it is done by the CBOR encoding.
The context information structure refers to PartyU and PartyV as the
two parties which are doing the key derivation. Unless the
application protocol defines differently, we assign PartyU to the
entity that is creating the message and PartyV to the entity that is
receiving the message. This is because we are assuming a set of
stand alone store and forward messaging processes. In [SP800-56A],
PartyU is the initiator and PartyV is the responder. The
specification is written with the idea of on-line protocols rather
than store and forward protocols as the main consumer.
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Application protocols are free to define the roles differently. For
example, they could assign the PartyU role to the entity that
initiates the connection and allow directly sending multiple messages
over the line without changing the role information.
Using the PartyU and PartyV fields is the easiest way to get
different keys in each direction. The use of a transaction
identifier, either in one of the supplemental fields or as the salt
if one is using HKDF, ensures that a unique key is generated for each
set of transactions. Combining nonce fields with the transaction
identifier provides a method so that a different key is used for each
message in each direction.
We encode the context specific information using a CBOR array type.
For the fields that we define an algorithm parameter, the details of
the parameters can be found in Table 14. The fields in the array
are:
AlgorithmID This field indicates the algorithm for which the key
material will be used. This field is required to be present and
is a copy of the algorithm identifier in the message. The field
exists in the context information so that if the same environment
is used for different algorithms, then completely different keys
will be generated each of those algorithms. (This practice means
if algorithm A is broken and thus can is easier to find, the key
derived for algorithm B will not be the same as the key for
algorithm B.)
PartyUInfo This field holds information about party U. The
ParytUInfo structure is divided into three pieces:
identity This contains the identity information for party U. The
identities can be assigned in one of two manners. Firstly, a
protocol can assign identities based on roles. For example,
the roles of "client" and "server" may be assigned to different
entities in the protocol. Each entity would then use the
correct label for the data they they send or receive. The
second way is for a protocol to assign identities is to use a
name based on a naming system (i.e. DNS, X.509 names).
We define an algorithm parameter 'PartyU identity' that can be
used to carry identity information in the message. However,
identity information is often known as part of the protocol and
can thus be inferred rather than made explicit. If identity
information is carried in the message, applications SHOULD have
a way of validating the supplied identity information. The
identity information does not need to be specified and can be
left as absent.
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The identity value supplied will be integrity checked as part
of the key derivation process. If the identity string is
wrong, then the wrong key will be created.
nonce This contains a one time nonce value. The nonce can either
be implicit from the protocol or carried as a value in the
unprotected headers.
We define an algorithm parameter 'PartyU nonce' that can be
used to carry this value in the message However, the nonce
value could be determined by the application and the value
determined from elsewhere.
This item is optional and can be absent.
other This contains other information that is defined by the
protocol.
This item is optional and can be absent.
PartyVInfo M00TODO: Copy down from PartyUInfo when that text is
ready.
SuppPubInfo This field contains public information that is mutually
known to both parties.
keyDataLength This is set to the number of bits of the desired
output value. (This practice means if algorithm A can use two
different key lengths, the key derived for longer key size will
not contain the key for shorter key size as a prefix.)
other The field other is for free form data defined by the
application. An example is that an application could defined
two different strings to be placed here to generate different
keys for a data stream vs a control stream. This field is
optional and will only be present if the application defines a
structure for this information. Applications that define this
SHOULD use CBOR to encode the data so that types and lengths
are correctly include.
SuppPrivInfo This field contains private information that is
mutually known information. An example of this information would
be a pre-existing shared secret. The field is optional and will
only be present if the application defines a structure for this
information. Applications that define this SHOULD use CBOR to
encode the data so that types and lengths are correctly include.
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COSE_KDF_Context = [
AlgorithmID : int / tstr,
PartyUInfo : [
? nonce : bstr / int,
? identity : bstr,
? other : bstr
],
PartyVInfo : [
? nonce : bstr,
? identity : bstr / tstr,
? other : bstr
],
SuppPubInfo : [
keyDataLength : uint,
? other : bstr
],
? SuppPrivInfo : bstr
]
+---------------+-------+-----------+-------------------------------+
| name | label | type | description |
+---------------+-------+-----------+-------------------------------+
| PartyU | -21 | bstr | Party U identity Information |
| identity | | | |
| | | | |
| PartyU nonce | -22 | bstr / | Party U provided nonce |
| | | int | |
| | | | |
| PartyU other | -23 | bstr | Party U other provided |
| | | | information |
| | | | |
| PartyV | -24 | bstr | Party V identity Information |
| identity | | | |
| | | | |
| PartyV nonce | -25 | bstr / | Party V provided nonce |
| | | int | |
| | | | |
| PartyV other | -26 | bstr | Party V other provided |
| | | | information |
+---------------+-------+-----------+-------------------------------+
Table 14: Context Algorithm Parameters
12. Key Management Algorithms
There are a number of different key management methods that can be
used in the COSE encryption system. In this section we will discuss
each of the key management methods, what fields need to be specified,
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and which algorithms are defined in this document to deal with each
of them.
The names of the key management methods used here are the same as are
defined in [RFC7517]. Other specifications use different terms for
the key management methods or do not support some of the key
management methods.
At the moment we do not have any key management methods that allow
for the use of protected headers. This may be changed in the future
if, for example, the AES-GCM Key wrap method defined in [RFC7518]
were extended to allow for authenticated data. In that event, the
use of the 'protected' field, which is current forbidden below, would
be permitted.
12.1. Direct Encryption
In direct encryption mode, a shared secret between the sender and the
recipient is used as the key. When direct encryption mode is used,
it MUST be the only mode used on the message. It is a massive
security leak to have both direct encryption and a different key
management mode on the same message.
For JOSE, direct encryption key management is the only key management
method allowed for doing MACed messages. In COSE, all of the key
management methods can be used for MACed messages.
The COSE_encrypt structure for the recipient is organized as follows:
o The 'protected', 'ciphertext' and 'recipients' fields MUST be
absent.
o At a minimum, the 'unprotected' field MUST contain the 'alg'
parameter and SHOULD contain a parameter identifying the shared
secret.
12.1.1. Direct Key
This key management technique is the simplest method, the supplied
key is directly used as the key for the next layer down in the
message. There are no algorithm parameters defined for this key
management methods. The algorithm identifier assignment can be found
in Table 15.
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+--------+-------+-------------------+
| name | value | description |
+--------+-------+-------------------+
| direct | -6 | Direct use of CEK |
+--------+-------+-------------------+
Table 15: Direct Key
12.1.1.1. Security Considerations
The direct key management technique has several potential problems
that need to be considered:
o These keys need to have some method to be regularly updated over
time. All of the content encryption algorithms specified in this
document have limits on how many times a key can be used without
significant loss of security.
o These keys need to be dedicated to a single algorithm. There have
been a number of attacks developed over time when a single key is
used for multiple different algorithms. One example of this is
the use of a single key both for CBC encryption mode and CBC-MAC
authentication mode.
o Breaking one message means all messages are broken. If an
adversary succeeds in determining the key for a single message,
then the key for all messages is also determined.
12.1.2. Direct Key with KDF
This key managment takes a common shared secret between the two
parties and applies the HKDF function (Section 11.1) using the
context structure defined in Section 11.2 to transform the shared
secret into the necessary key. Either the 'salt' parameter of HKDF
or the partyU 'nonce' parameter of the context structure MUST be
present. This parameter can be generated either randomly or
deterministically, the requirement is that it be a unique value for
the key pair in question.
If the salt/nonce value is generated randomly, then it is suggested
that the length of the random value be the same length as the hash
function underlying HKDF, i.e 256-bits. While there is no way to
guarantee that it will be unique, there is a high probability that it
will be unique. If the salt/nonce value is generated
deterministically, it can be guaranteed to be unique and thus there
is no length requirement.
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Since with this technique a new key can be generated for every
message, the restrictions on IVs can frequently be relaxed. For the
content encryption algorithms used in this document IVs must be
unique for a specific key. If the key is altered then the IV can be
re-used. Alternatively, an application can be the IV be generated
from the same context as the key is by changing the algorithm
identifier to the string "IV-GENERATION".
The set of algorithms defined in this document can be found in
Table 16.
+--------------------+-------+-------------+------------------------+
| name | value | KDF | description |
+--------------------+-------+-------------+------------------------+
| direct+KDF-SHA-256 | * | HKDF | Shared secret w/ KDF |
| | | SHA-256 | |
| | | | |
| direct+KDF-SHA-512 | * | HKDF | Shared secret w/ KDF |
| | | SHA-512 | |
| | | | |
| direct+KDF-AES-128 | * | HKDF AES- | Shared secret w/ AES- |
| | | MAC-128 | MAC 128-bit key |
| | | | |
| direct+KDF-AES-256 | * | HKDF AES- | Shared secret w/ AES- |
| | | MAC-256 | MAC 256-bit key |
+--------------------+-------+-------------+------------------------+
Table 16: Direct Key
12.1.2.1. Security Considerations
The shared secret need to have some method to be regularly updated
over time. The shared secret is forming the basis of trust, although
not used directly it should still be subject to scheduled rotation.
12.2. Key Wrapping
In key wrapping mode, the CEK is randomly generated and that key is
then encrypted by a shared secret between the sender and the
recipient. All of the currently defined key wrapping algorithms for
JOSE (and thus for COSE) are AE algorithms. Key wrapping mode is
considered to be superior to direct encryption if the system has any
capability for doing random key generation. This is because the
shared key is used to wrap random data rather than data has some
degree of organization and may in fact be repeating the same content.
The COSE_encrypt structure for the recipient is organized as follows:
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o The 'protected' field MUST be absent if the key wrap algorithm is
an AE algorithm.
o The 'recipients' field is normally absent, but can be used.
Applications MUST deal with a recipients field present, not being
able to decrypt that recipient is an acceptable way of dealing
with it. Failing to process the message is not an acceptable way
of dealing with it.
o The plain text to be encrypted is the key from next layer down
(usually the content layer).
o At a minimum, the 'unprotected' field MUST contain the 'alg'
parameter and SHOULD contain a parameter identifying the shared
secret.
12.2.1. AES Key Wrapping
The AES Key Wrapping algorithm is defined in [RFC3394]. This
algorithm uses an AES key to wrap a value that is a multiple of
64-bits, as such it can be used to wrap a key for any of the content
encryption algorithms defined in this document. [CREF14] The
algorithm requires a single fixed parameter, the initial value. This
is fixed to the value specified in Section 2.2.3.1 of [RFC3394].
There are no public parameters that vary on a per invocation basis.
+--------+-------+----------+-----------------------------+
| name | value | key size | description |
+--------+-------+----------+-----------------------------+
| A128KW | -3 | 128 | AES Key Wrap w/ 128-bit key |
| | | | |
| A192KW | -4 | 192 | AES Key Wrap w/ 192-bit key |
| | | | |
| A256KW | -5 | 256 | AES Key Wrap w/ 256-bit key |
+--------+-------+----------+-----------------------------+
Table 17: AES Key Wrap Algorithm Values
12.2.1.1. Security Considerations for AES-KW
The shared secret need to have some method to be regularly updated
over time. The shared secret is forming the basis of trust, although
not used directly it should still be subject to scheduled rotation.
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12.3. Key Encryption
Key Encryption mode is also called key transport mode in some
standards. Key Encryption mode differs from Key Wrap mode in that it
uses an asymmetric encryption algorithm rather than a symmetric
encryption algorithm to protect the key. This document defines one
Key Encryption mode algorithm.
When using a key encryption algorithm, the COSE_encrypt structure for
the recipient is organized as follows:
o The 'protected' field MUST be absent.
o The plain text to be encrypted is the key from next layer down
(usually the content layer).
o At a minimum, the 'unprotected' field MUST contain the 'alg'
parameter and SHOULD contain a parameter identifying the
asymmetric key.
12.3.1. RSAES-OAEP
RSAES-OAEP is an asymmetric key encryption algorithm. The defintion
of RSAEA-OAEP can be find in Section 7.1 of [RFC3447]. The algorithm
is parameterized using a masking generation function (mgf), a hash
function (h) and encoding parameters (P). For the algorithm
identifiers defined in this section:
o mgf is always set to MFG1 from [RFC3447] and uses the same hash
function as h.
o P is always set to the empty octet string.
Table 18 summarizes the rest of the values.
+----------------------+-------+---------+-----------------------+
| name | value | hash | description |
+----------------------+-------+---------+-----------------------+
| RSAES-OAEP w/SHA-256 | -25 | SHA-256 | RSAES OAEP w/ SHA-256 |
| | | | |
| RSAES-OAEP w/SHA-512 | -26 | SHA-512 | RSAES OAEP w/ SHA-512 |
+----------------------+-------+---------+-----------------------+
Table 18: RSAES-OAEP Algorithm Values
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12.3.1.1. Security Considerations for RSAES-OAEP
A key size of 2048 bits or larger MUST be used with these algorithms.
This key size corresponds roughly to the same strength as provided by
a 128-bit symmetric encryption algorithm.
It is highly recommended that checks on the key length be done before
starting a decryption operation. One potential denial of service
operation is to provide encrypted objects using either abnormally
long or oddly sized RSA modulus values. Implementations SHOULD be
able to encrypt and decrypt with modulus between 2048 and 16K bits in
length.[CREF15] Applications can impose additional restrictions on
the length of the modulus.
12.4. Direct Key Agreement
When using the 'Direct Key Agreement' key managment method, the two
parties use a key agreement method to create a shared secret. A KDF
is then applied to the shared secret to derive a key to be used in
protecting the data. This key is normally used as a CEK or MAC key,
but could be used for other purposes if more than two layers are in
use (see Appendix B).
The most commonly used key agreement algorithm used is Diffie-
Hellman, but other variants exist. Since COSE is designed for a
store and forward environment rather than an on-line environment,
many of the DH variants cannot be used as the receiver of the message
cannot provide any key material. One side-effect of this is that
perfect forward security is not achievable, a static key will always
be used for the receiver of the COSE message.
Two variants of DH that are easily supported are:
- Ephemeral-Static DH: where the sender of the message creates a
one time DH key and uses a static key for the recipient. The use
of the ephemeral sender key means that no additional random input
is needed as this is randomly generated for each message.
Static-Static DH: where a static key is used for both the sender
and the recipient. The use of static keys allows for recipient to
get a weak version of data origination for the message. When
static-static key agreement is used, then some piece of unique
data is require to ensure that a different key is created for each
message
In this specification, both variants are specified. This has been
done to provide the weak data origination option for use with MAC
operations.
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When direct key agreement mode is used, it MUST be the only key
management mode used on the message and there MUST be only one
recipient. This method creates the key directly and that makes it
difficult to mix with additional recipients. If multiple recipients
are needed, then the version with key wrap needs to be used.
The COSE_encrypt structure for the recipient is organized as follows:
o The 'protected' field MUST be absent.
o At a minimum, the 'unprotected' field MUST contain the 'alg'
parameter and SHOULD contain a parameter identifying the
recipient's asymmetric key.
o The 'unprotected' field MUST contain the 'epk' parameter.
12.4.1. ECDH
The basic mathematics for Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman can be found
in [RFC6090]. Two new curves have been defined in
[I-D.irtf-cfrg-curves].
ECDH is parameterized by the following:
o Curve Type/Curve: The curve selected controls not only the size of
the shared secret, but the mathematics for computing the shared
secret. The curve selected also controls how a point in the curve
is represented and what happens for the identity points on the
curve. In this specification we allow for a number of different
curves to be used. The curves are defined in Table 22.
Since the only the math is changed by changing the curve, the
curve is not fixed for any of the algorithm identifiers we define,
instead it is defined by the points used.
o Ephemeral-static or static-static: The key agreement process may
be done using either a static or an ephemeral key at the senders
side. When using ephemeral keys, the sender MUST generate a new
ephemeral key for every key agreement operation. The ephemeral
key is placed in in the 'ephemeral key' parameter and MUST be
present for all algorithm identifiers which use ephemeral keys.
When using static keys, the sender MUST either generate a new
random value placed in either in the KDF parameters or the context
structure. For the KDF functions used, this means either in the
'salt' parameter for HKDF (Table 13) or in in the 'PartyU nonce'
parameter for the context struture (Table 14) MUST be present.
(Both may be present if desired.) The value in the parameter MUST
be unique for the key pair being used. It is acceptable to use a
global counter which is incremented for every static-static
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operation and use the resulting value. When using static keys,
the static key needs to be identified to the recipient. The
static key can be identified either by providing the key ('static
key') or by providing a key identifier for the static key ('static
key id'). Both of these parameters are defined in Table 20
o Key derivation algorithm: The result of an ECDH key agreement
process does not provide a uniformly random secret, as such it
needs to be run through a KDF in order to produce a usable key.
Processing the secret through a KDF also allows for the
introduction of both context material, how the key is going to be
used, and one time material in the even to of a static-static key
agreement.
o Key Wrap algorithm: The key wrap algorithm can be 'none' if the
result of the KDF is going to be used as the key directly. This
option, along with static-static, should be used if knowledge
about the sender is desired. If 'none' is used then the content
layer encryption algorithm size is value fed to the context
structure. Support is also provided for any of the key wrap
algorithms defined in section Section 12.2.1. If one of these
options is used, the input key size to the key wrap algorithm is
the value fed into the context structure as the key size.
The set of algorithms direct ECDH defined in this document are found
in Table 19.
+-------------+------+-------+----------------+--------+------------+
| name | valu | KDF | Ephemeral- | Key | descriptio |
| | e | | Static | Wrap | n |
+-------------+------+-------+----------------+--------+------------+
| ECDH-ES + | 50 | HKDF | yes | none | ECDH ES w/ |
| HKDF-256 | | - SHA | | | HKDF - |
| | | -256 | | | generate |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | directly |
| | | | | | |
| ECDH-ES + | 51 | HKDF | yes | none | ECDH ES w/ |
| HKDF-512 | | - SHA | | | HKDF - |
| | | -256 | | | generate |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | directly |
| | | | | | |
| ECDH-SS + | 52 | HKDF | no | none | ECDH ES w/ |
| HKDF-256 | | - SHA | | | HKDF - |
| | | -256 | | | generate |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | directly |
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| | | | | | |
| ECDH-SS + | 53 | HKDF | no | none | ECDH ES w/ |
| HKDF-512 | | - SHA | | | HKDF - |
| | | -256 | | | generate |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | directly |
| | | | | | |
| ECDH- | 54 | HKDF | yes | A128KW | ECDH ES w/ |
| ES+A128KW | | - SHA | | | Concat KDF |
| | | -256 | | | and AES |
| | | | | | Key wrap |
| | | | | | w/ 128 bit |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | |
| ECDH- | 55 | HKDF | yes | A192KW | ECDH ES w/ |
| ES+A192KW | | - SHA | | | Concat KDF |
| | | -256 | | | and AES |
| | | | | | Key wrap |
| | | | | | w/ 192 bit |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | |
| ECDH- | 56 | HKDF | yes | A256KW | ECDH ES w/ |
| ES+A256KW | | - SHA | | | Concat KDF |
| | | -256 | | | and AES |
| | | | | | Key wrap |
| | | | | | w/ 256 bit |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | |
| ECDH- | 57 | HKDF | no | A128KW | ECDH SS w/ |
| SS+A128KW | | - SHA | | | Concat KDF |
| | | -256 | | | and AES |
| | | | | | Key wrap |
| | | | | | w/ 128 bit |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | |
| ECDH- | 58 | HKDF | no | A192KW | ECDH SS w/ |
| SS+A192KW | | - SHA | | | Concat KDF |
| | | -256 | | | and AES |
| | | | | | Key wrap |
| | | | | | w/ 192 bit |
| | | | | | key |
| | | | | | |
| ECDH- | 59 | HKDF | no | A256KW | ECDH SS w/ |
| SS+A256KW | | - SHA | | | Concat KDF |
| | | -256 | | | and AES |
| | | | | | Key wrap |
| | | | | | w/ 256 bit |
| | | | | | key |
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+-------------+------+-------+----------------+--------+------------+
Table 19: ECDH Algorithm Values
+-----------+-------+----------+-----------+------------------------+
| name | label | type | algorithm | description |
+-----------+-------+----------+-----------+------------------------+
| ephemeral | -1 | COSE_Key | ECDH-ES | Ephemeral Public key |
| key | | | | for the sender |
| | | | | |
| static | -2 | COSE_Key | ECDH-ES | Static Public key for |
| key | | | | the sender |
| | | | | |
| static | -3 | bstr | ECDH-SS | Static Public key |
| key id | | | | identifier for the |
| | | | | sender |
+-----------+-------+----------+-----------+------------------------+
Table 20: ECDH Algorithm Parameters
12.5. Key Agreement with KDF
Key Agreement with Key Wrapping uses a randomly generated CEK. The
CEK is then encrypted using a Key Wrapping algorithm and a key
derived from the shared secret computed by the key agreement
algorithm.
The COSE_encrypt structure for the recipient is organized as follows:
o The 'protected' field MUST be absent if the key wrap algorithm is
an AE algorithm. [CREF16]
o The plain text to be encrypted is the key from next layer down
(usually the content layer).
o At a minimum, the 'unprotected' field MUST contain the 'alg'
parameter, a parameter identifying the recipient asymmetric key,
and a parameter with the sender's asymmetric public key.
12.5.1. ECDH
These algorithms are defined in Table 19.
12.6. Password
[CREF17]
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12.6.1. PBES2
+--------------------+-------+--------------------------------------+
| name | value | description |
+--------------------+-------+--------------------------------------+
| PBES2-HS256+A128KW | * | PBES2 w/ HMAC SHA-256 and AES Key |
| | | wrap w/ 128 bit key |
| | | |
| PBES2-HS384+A192KW | * | PBES2 w/ HMAC SHA-384 and AES Key |
| | | wrap w/ 192 bit key |
| | | |
| PBES2-HS512+A256KW | * | PBES2 w/ HMAC SHA-512 and AES Key |
| | | wrap w/ 256 bit key |
+--------------------+-------+--------------------------------------+
13. Keys
The COSE_Key object defines a way to hold a single key object, it is
still required that the members of individual key types be defined.
This section of the document is where we define an initial set of
members for specific key types.
For each of the key types, we define both public and private members.
The public members are what is transmitted to others for their usage.
We define private members mainly for the purpose of archival of keys
by individuals. However, there are some circumstances where private
keys may be distributed by various entities in a protocol. Examples
include: Entities which have poor random number generation.
Centralized key creation for multi-cast type operations. Protocols
where a shared secret is used as a bearer token for authorization
purposes.
Keys are identified by the 'kty' member of the COSE_Key object. In
this document we define four values for the member.
+-----------+-------+--------------------------------------------+
| name | value | description |
+-----------+-------+--------------------------------------------+
| EC1 | 1 | Elliptic Curve Keys w/ X Coordinate only |
| | | |
| EC2 | 2 | Elliptic Curve Keys w/ X,Y Coordinate pair |
| | | |
| RSA | 3 | RSA Keys |
| | | |
| Symmetric | 4 | Symmetric Keys |
+-----------+-------+--------------------------------------------+
Table 21: Key Type Values
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13.1. Elliptic Curve Keys
Two different key structures are being defined for Elliptic Curve
keys. One version uses both an x and a y coordinate, potentially
with point compression. This is the traditional EC point
representation that is used in [RFC5480]. The other version uses
only the x coordinate as the y coordinate is either to be recomputed
or not needed for the key agreement operation. An example of this is
Curve25519 [I-D.irtf-cfrg-curves].
+------------+----------+-------+-----------------------------------+
| name | key type | value | description |
+------------+----------+-------+-----------------------------------+
| P-256 | EC2 | 1 | NIST P-256 also known as |
| | | | secp256r1 |
| | | | |
| P-384 | EC2 | 2 | NIST P-384 also known as |
| | | | secp384r1 |
| | | | |
| P-521 | EC2 | 3 | NIST P-521 also known as |
| | | | secp521r1 |
| | | | |
| Curve25519 | EC1 | 1 | Provide reference |
| | | | |
| Goldilocks | EC1 | 2 | Provide reference |
+------------+----------+-------+-----------------------------------+
Table 22: EC Curves
13.1.1. Single Coordinate Curves
NOTE: This section represents at risk work depending on the ability
to get good references for Curve25519 and Goldilocks.
New versions of ECC have been targeted at variants where only a
single value of the EC Point need to be transmitted. This work is
currently going on in the IRTF CFRG group.
For EC keys with both coordinates, the 'kty' member is set to 1
(EC1). The members that are defined for this key type are:
crv contains an identifier of the curve to be used with the key.
[CREF18] The curves defined in this document for this key type can
be found in Table 22. Other curves may be registered in the
future and private curves can be used as well.
x contains the x coordinate for the EC point. The octet string
represents a little-endian encoding of x.
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d contains the private key.
For public keys, it is REQUIRED that 'crv' and 'x' be present in the
structure. For private keys, it is REQUIRED that 'crv' and 'd' be
present in the structure. It is RECOMMENDED that 'x' also be
present, but it can be recomputed from the required elements and
omitting it saves on space.
+------+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------------+
| name | key | value | type | description |
| | type | | | |
+------+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------------+
| crv | 1 | -1 | int / | EC Curve identifier - Taken from |
| | | | tstr | the COSE General Registry |
| | | | | |
| x | 1 | -2 | bstr | X Coordinate |
| | | | | |
| d | 1 | -4 | bstr | Private key |
+------+-------+-------+--------+-----------------------------------+
Table 23: EC Key Parameters
13.1.2. Double Coordinate Curves
The traditional way of sending EC curves has been to send either both
the x and y coordinates, or the x coordinate and a sign bit for the y
coordinate. The latter encoding has not been recommend in the IETF
due to potential IPR issues with Certicom. However, for operations
in constrained environments, the ability to shrink a message by not
sending the y coordinate is potentially useful.
For EC keys with both coordinates, the 'kty' member is set to 2
(EC2). The members that are defined for this key type are:
crv contains an identifier of the curve to be used with the key.
The curves defined in this document for this key type can be found
in Table 22. Other curves may be registered in the future and
private curves can be used as well.
x contains the x coordinate for the EC point. The integer is
converted to an octet string as defined in [SEC1]. Zero octets
MUST NOT be removed from the front of the octet string. [CREF19]
y contains either the sign bit or the value of y coordinate for the
EC point. For the value, the integer is converted to an octet
string as defined in [SEC1]. Zero octets MUST NOT be removed from
the front of the octet string. For the sign bit, the value is
true if the value of y is positive.
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d contains the private key.
For public keys, it is REQUIRED that 'crv', 'x' and 'y' be present in
the structure. For private keys, it is REQUIRED that 'crv' and 'd'
be present in the structure. It is RECOMMENDED that 'x' and 'y' also
be present, but they can be recomputed from the required elements and
omitting them saves on space.
+------+-------+-------+---------+----------------------------------+
| name | key | value | type | description |
| | type | | | |
+------+-------+-------+---------+----------------------------------+
| crv | 2 | -1 | int / | EC Curve identifier - Taken from |
| | | | tstr | the COSE General Registry |
| | | | | |
| x | 2 | -2 | bstr | X Coordinate |
| | | | | |
| y | 2 | -3 | bstr / | Y Coordinate |
| | | | bool | |
| | | | | |
| d | 2 | -4 | bstr | Private key |
+------+-------+-------+---------+----------------------------------+
Table 24: EC Key Parameters
13.2. RSA Keys
This document defines a key structure for both the public and private
halves of RSA keys. Together, an RSA public key and an RSA private
key form an RSA key pair. [CREF20]
The document also provides support for the so-called "multi-prime"
RSA where the modulus may have more than two prime factors. The
benefit of multi-prime RSA is lower computational cost for the
decryption and signature primitives. For a discussion on how multi-
prime affects the security of RSA crypto-systems, the reader is
referred to [MultiPrimeRSA].
This document follows the naming convention of [RFC3447] for the
naming of the fields of an RSA public or private key. The table
Table 25 provides a summary of the label values and the types
associated with each of those labels. The requirements for fields
for RSA keys are as follows:
o For all keys, 'kty' MUST be present and MUST have a value of 3.
o For public keys, the fields 'n' and 'e' MUST be present. All
other fields defined in Table 25 MUST be absent.
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o For private keys with two primes, the fields 'other', 'r_i', 'd_i'
and 't_i' MUST be absent, all other fields MUST be present.
o For private keys with more than two primes, all fields MUST be
present. For the third to nth primes, each of the primes is
represented as a map containing the fields 'r_i', 'd_i' and 't_i'.
The field 'other' is an array of those maps.
+-------+----------+-------+-------+--------------------------------+
| name | key type | value | type | description |
+-------+----------+-------+-------+--------------------------------+
| n | 3 | -1 | bstr | Modulus Parameter |
| | | | | |
| e | 3 | -2 | int | Exponent Parameter |
| | | | | |
| d | 3 | -3 | bstr | Private Exponent Parameter |
| | | | | |
| p | 3 | -4 | bstr | First Prime Factor |
| | | | | |
| q | 3 | -5 | bstr | Second Prime Factor |
| | | | | |
| dP | 3 | -6 | bstr | First Factor CRT Exponent |
| | | | | |
| dQ | 3 | -7 | bstr | Second Factor CRT Exponent |
| | | | | |
| qInv | 3 | -8 | bstr | First CRT Coefficient |
| | | | | |
| other | 3 | -9 | array | Other Primes Info |
| | | | | |
| r_i | 3 | -10 | bstr | i-th factor, Prime Factor |
| | | | | |
| d_i | 3 | -11 | bstr | i-th factor, Factor CRT |
| | | | | Exponent |
| | | | | |
| t_i | 3 | -12 | bstr | i-th factor, Factor CRT |
| | | | | Coefficient |
+-------+----------+-------+-------+--------------------------------+
Table 25: RSA Key Parameters
13.3. Symmetric Keys
Occasionally it is required that a symmetric key be transported
between entities. This key structure allows for that to happen.
For symmetric keys, the 'kty' member is set to 3 (Symmetric). The
member that is defined for this key type is:
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k contains the value of the key.
This key structure contains only private key information, care must
be taken that it is never transmitted accidentally. For public keys,
there are no required fields. For private keys, it is REQUIRED that
'k' be present in the structure.
+------+----------+-------+------+-------------+
| name | key type | value | type | description |
+------+----------+-------+------+-------------+
| k | 4 | -1 | bstr | Key Value |
+------+----------+-------+------+-------------+
Table 26: Symmetric Key Parameters
14. CBOR Encoder Restrictions
There as been an attempt to limit the number of places where the
document needs to impose restrictions on how the CBOR Encoder needs
to work. We have managed to narrow it down to the following
restrictions:
o The restriction applies to the encoding the Sig_structure, the
Enc_structure, and the MAC_structure.
o The rules for Canonical CBOR (Section 3.9 of RFC 7049) MUST be
used in these locations. The main rule that needs to be enforced
is that all lengths in these structures MUST be encoded such that
they are encoded using definite lengths and the minimum length
encoding is used.
o All parsers used SHOULD fail on both parsing and generation if the
same label is used twice as a key for the same map.
15. IANA Considerations
15.1. CBOR Tag assignment
It is requested that IANA assign a new tag from the "Concise Binary
Object Representation (CBOR) Tags" registry. It is requested that
the tag be assigned in the 0 to 23 value range.
Tag Value: TBD1
Data Item: COSE_Msg
Semantics: COSE security message.
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15.2. COSE Object Labels Registry
It is requested that IANA create a new registry entitled "COSE Object
Labels Registry". [CREF21]
This table is initially populated by the table in Table 1.
15.3. COSE Header Parameter Registry
It is requested that IANA create a new registry entitled "COSE Header
Parameters".
The columns of the registry are:
name The name is present to make it easier to refer to and discuss
the registration entry. The value is not used in the protocol.
Names are to be unique in the table.
label This is the value used for the label. The label can be either
an integer or a string. Registration in the table is based on the
value of the label requested. Integer values between 1 and 255
and strings of length 1 are designated as Standards Track Document
required. Integer values from 256 to 65535 and strings of length
2 are designated as Specification Required. Integer values of
greater than 65535 and strings of length greater than 2 are
designated as first come first server. Integer values in the
range -1 to -65536 are delegated to the "COSE Header Algorithm
Label" registry. Integer values beyond -65536 are marked as
private use.
value This contains the CBOR type for the value portion of the
label.
value registry This contains a pointer to the registry used to
contain values where the set is limited.
description This contains a brief description of the header field.
specification This contains a pointer to the specification defining
the header field (where public).
The initial contents of the registry can be found in Table 2. The
specification column for all rows in that table should be this
document.
Additionally, the label of 0 is to be marked as 'Reserved'.
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15.4. COSE Header Algorithm Label Table
It is requested that IANA create a new registry entitled "COSE Header
Algorithm Labels".
The columns of the registry are:
name The name is present to make it easier to refer to and discuss
the registration entry. The value is not used in the protocol.
algorithm The algorithm(s) that this registry entry is used for.
This value is taken from the "COSE Algorithm Value" registry.
Multiple algorithms can be specified in this entry. For the
table, the algorithm, label pair MUST be unique.
label This is the value used for the label. The label is an integer
in the range of -1 to -65536.
value This contains the CBOR type for the value portion of the
label.
value registry This contains a pointer to the registry used to
contain values where the set is limited.
description This contains a brief description of the header field.
specification This contains a pointer to the specification defining
the header field (where public).
The initial contents of the registry can be found in: Table 13,
Table 14, Table 20, and Appendix D. The specification column for all
rows in that table should be this document.
15.5. COSE Algorithm Registry
It is requested that IANA create a new registry entitled "COSE
Algorithm Registry".
The columns of the registry are:
value The value to be used to identify this algorithm. Algorithm
values MUST be unique. The value can be a positive integer, a
negative integer or a string. Integer values between 0 and 255
and strings of length 1 are designated as Standards Track Document
required. Integer values from 256 to 65535 and strings of length
2 are designated as Specification Required. Integer values of
greater than 65535 and strings of length greater than 2 are
designated as first come first server. Integer values in the
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range -1 to -65536 are delegated to the "COSE Header Algorithm
Label" registry. Integer values beyond -65536 are marked as
private use.
description A short description of the algorithm.
specification A document where the algorithm is defined (if publicly
available).
The initial contents of the registry can be found in the following:
Table 10, Table 9, Table 5, Table 7, Table 15, Table 17, Table 18.
The specification column for all rows in that table should be this
document.
15.6. COSE Key Common Parameter Registry
It is requested that IANA create a new registry entitled "COSE Key
Common Parameter" Registry.
The columns of the registry are:
name This is a descriptive name that enables easier reference to the
item. It is not used in the encoding.
label The value to be used to identify this algorithm. Key map
labels MUST be unique. The label can be a positive integer, a
negative integer or a string. Integer values between 0 and 255
and strings of length 1 are designated as Standards Track Document
required. Integer values from 256 to 65535 and strings of length
2 are designated as Specification Required. Integer values of
greater than 65535 and strings of length greater than 2 are
designated as first come first server. Integer values in the
range -1 to -65536 are used for key parameters specific to a
single algorithm delegated to the "COSE Key Parameter Label"
registry. Integer values beyond -65536 are marked as private use.
CBOR Type This field contains the CBOR type for the field
registry This field denotes the registry that values come from, if
one exists.
description This field contains a brief description for the field
specification This contains a pointer to the public specification
for the field if one exists
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This registry will be initially populated by the values in
Section 7.1. The specification column for all of these entries will
be this document.
15.7. COSE Key Type Parameter Registry
It is requested that IANA create a new registry "COSE Key Type
Parameters".
The columns of the table are:
key type This field contains a descriptive string of a key type.
This should be a value that is in the COSE General Values table
and is placed in the 'kty' field of a COSE Key structure.
name This is a descriptive name that enables easier reference to the
item. It is not used in the encoding.
label The label is to be unique for every value of key type. The
range of values is from -256 to -1. Labels are expected to be
reused for different keys.
CBOR type This field contains the CBOR type for the field
description This field contains a brief description for the field
specification This contains a pointer to the public specification
for the field if one exists
This registry will be initially populated by the values in Table 23,
Table 24, Table 25, and Table 26. The specification column for all
of these entries will be this document.
15.8. Media Type Registration
15.8.1. COSE Security Message
This section registers the "application/cose" and "application/
cose+cbor" media types in the "Media Types" registry. [CREF22] These
media types are used to indicate that the content is a COSE_MSG.
Type name: application
Subtype name: cose
Required parameters: N/A
Optional parameters: N/A
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Encoding considerations: binary
Security considerations: See the Security Considerations section
of RFC TBD.
Interoperability considerations: N/A
Published specification: RFC TBD
Applications that use this media type: To be identified
Fragment identifier considerations: N/A
Additional information:
* Magic number(s): N/A
* File extension(s): cbor
* Macintosh file type code(s): N/A
Person & email address to contact for further information:
iesg@ietf.org
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: N/A
Author: Jim Schaad, ietf@augustcellars.com
Change Controller: IESG
Provisional registration? No
Type name: application
Subtype name: cose+cbor
Required parameters: N/A
Optional parameters: N/A
Encoding considerations: binary
Security considerations: See the Security Considerations section
of RFC TBD.
Interoperability considerations: N/A
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Published specification: RFC TBD
Applications that use this media type: To be identified
Fragment identifier considerations: N/A
Additional information:
* Magic number(s): N/A
* File extension(s): cbor
* Macintosh file type code(s): N/A
Person & email address to contact for further information:
iesg@ietf.org
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: N/A
Author: Jim Schaad, ietf@augustcellars.com
Change Controller: IESG
Provisional registration? No
15.8.2. COSE Key media type
This section registers the "application/cose+json" and "application/
cose-set+json" media types in the "Media Types" registry. These
media types are used to indicate, respectively, that content is a
COSE_Key or COSE_KeySet object.
Type name: application
Subtype name: cose-key+cbor
Required parameters: N/A
Optional parameters: N/A
Encoding considerations: binary
Security considerations: See the Security Considerations section
of RFC TBD.
Interoperability considerations: N/A
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Published specification: RFC TBD
Applications that use this media type: To be identified
Fragment identifier considerations: N/A
Additional information:
* Magic number(s): N/A
* File extension(s): cbor
* Macintosh file type code(s): N/A
Person & email address to contact for further information:
iesg@ietf.org
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: N/A
Author: Jim Schaad, ietf@augustcellars.com
Change Controller: IESG
Provisional registration? No
Type name: application
Subtype name: cose-key-set+cbor
Required parameters: N/A
Optional parameters: N/A
Encoding considerations: binary
Security considerations: See the Security Considerations section
of RFC TBD.
Interoperability considerations: N/A
Published specification: RFC TBD
Applications that use this media type: To be identified
Fragment identifier considerations: N/A
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Additional information:
* Magic number(s): N/A
* File extension(s): cbor
* Macintosh file type code(s): N/A
Person & email address to contact for further information:
iesg@ietf.org
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: N/A
Author: Jim Schaad, ietf@augustcellars.com
Change Controller: IESG
Provisional registration? No
16. Security Considerations
There are security considerations:
1. Protect private keys
2. MAC messages with more than one recipient means one cannot figure
out who sent the message
3. Use of direct key with other recipient structures hands the key
to other recipients.
4. Use of direct ECDH direct encryption is easy for people to leak
information on if there are other recipients in the message.
5. Considerations about protected vs unprotected header fields.
17. References
17.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC7049] Bormann, C. and P. Hoffman, "Concise Binary Object
Representation (CBOR)", RFC 7049, October 2013.
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17.2. Informative References
[AES-GCM] Dworkin, M., "NIST Special Publication 800-38D:
Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation:
Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) and GMAC.", Nov 2007.
[DSS] U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology,
"Digital Signature Standard (DSS)", July 2013.
[I-D.greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-cddl]
Vigano, C., Birkholz, H., and R. Sun, "CBOR data
definition language: a notational convention to express
CBOR data structures.", draft-greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-
cddl-05 (work in progress), March 2015.
[I-D.irtf-cfrg-curves]
Langley, A. and R. Salz, "Elliptic Curves for Security",
draft-irtf-cfrg-curves-02 (work in progress), March 2015.
[I-D.mcgrew-aead-aes-cbc-hmac-sha2]
McGrew, D., Foley, J., and K. Paterson, "Authenticated
Encryption with AES-CBC and HMAC-SHA", draft-mcgrew-aead-
aes-cbc-hmac-sha2-05 (work in progress), July 2014.
[MAC] NiST, N., "FIPS PUB 113: Computer Data Authentication",
May 1985.
[MultiPrimeRSA]
Hinek, M. and D. Cheriton, "On the Security of Multi-prime
RSA", June 2006.
[PVSig] Brown, D. and D. Johnson, "Formal Security Proofs for a
Signature Scheme with Partial Message Recover", February
2000.
[RFC2104] Krawczyk, H., Bellare, M., and R. Canetti, "HMAC: Keyed-
Hashing for Message Authentication", RFC 2104, February
1997.
[RFC2633] Ramsdell, B., "S/MIME Version 3 Message Specification",
RFC 2633, June 1999.
[RFC3394] Schaad, J. and R. Housley, "Advanced Encryption Standard
(AES) Key Wrap Algorithm", RFC 3394, September 2002.
[RFC3447] Jonsson, J. and B. Kaliski, "Public-Key Cryptography
Standards (PKCS) #1: RSA Cryptography Specifications
Version 2.1", RFC 3447, February 2003.
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[RFC3610] Whiting, D., Housley, R., and N. Ferguson, "Counter with
CBC-MAC (CCM)", RFC 3610, September 2003.
[RFC4231] Nystrom, M., "Identifiers and Test Vectors for HMAC-SHA-
224, HMAC-SHA-256, HMAC-SHA-384, and HMAC-SHA-512", RFC
4231, December 2005.
[RFC4262] Santesson, S., "X.509 Certificate Extension for Secure/
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME)
Capabilities", RFC 4262, December 2005.
[RFC5480] Turner, S., Brown, D., Yiu, K., Housley, R., and T. Polk,
"Elliptic Curve Cryptography Subject Public Key
Information", RFC 5480, March 2009.
[RFC5652] Housley, R., "Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)", STD 70,
RFC 5652, September 2009.
[RFC5751] Ramsdell, B. and S. Turner, "Secure/Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions (S/MIME) Version 3.2 Message
Specification", RFC 5751, January 2010.
[RFC5752] Turner, S. and J. Schaad, "Multiple Signatures in
Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)", RFC 5752, January
2010.
[RFC5869] Krawczyk, H. and P. Eronen, "HMAC-based Extract-and-Expand
Key Derivation Function (HKDF)", RFC 5869, May 2010.
[RFC5990] Randall, J., Kaliski, B., Brainard, J., and S. Turner,
"Use of the RSA-KEM Key Transport Algorithm in the
Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)", RFC 5990, September
2010.
[RFC6090] McGrew, D., Igoe, K., and M. Salter, "Fundamental Elliptic
Curve Cryptography Algorithms", RFC 6090, February 2011.
[RFC6151] Turner, S. and L. Chen, "Updated Security Considerations
for the MD5 Message-Digest and the HMAC-MD5 Algorithms",
RFC 6151, March 2011.
[RFC6979] Pornin, T., "Deterministic Usage of the Digital Signature
Algorithm (DSA) and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature
Algorithm (ECDSA)", RFC 6979, DOI 10.17487/RFC6979, August
2013, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6979>.
[RFC7159] Bray, T., "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
Interchange Format", RFC 7159, March 2014.
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[RFC7252] Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252, DOI 10.17487/
RFC7252, June 2014,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7252>.
[RFC7515] Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web
Signature (JWS)", RFC 7515, May 2015.
[RFC7516] Jones, M. and J. Hildebrand, "JSON Web Encryption (JWE)",
RFC 7516, May 2015.
[RFC7517] Jones, M., "JSON Web Key (JWK)", RFC 7517, May 2015.
[RFC7518] Jones, M., "JSON Web Algorithms (JWA)", RFC 7518, May
2015.
[RFC7539] Nir, Y. and A. Langley, "ChaCha20 and Poly1305 for IETF
Protocols", RFC 7539, DOI 10.17487/RFC7539, May 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7539>.
[SEC1] Standards for Efficient Cryptography Group, "SEC 1:
Elliptic Curve Cryptography", May 2009.
[SP800-56A]
Barker, E., Chen, L., Roginsky, A., and M. Smid, "NIST
Special Publication 800-56A: Recommendation for Pair-Wise
Key Establishment Schemes Using Discrete Logarithm
Cryptography", May 2013.
Appendix A. AEAD and AE algorithms
The set of encryption algorithms that can be used with this
specification is restricted to authenticated encryption (AE) and
authenticated encryption with additional data (AEAD) algorithms.
This means that there is a strong check that the data decrypted by
the recipient is the same as what was encrypted by the sender.
Encryption modes such as counter have no check on this at all. The
CBC encryption mode had a weak check that the data is correct, given
a random key and random data, the CBC padding check will pass one out
of 256 times. There have been several times that a normal encryption
mode has been combined with an integrity check to provide a content
encryption mode that does provide the necessary authentication. AES-
GCM [AES-GCM], AES-CCM [RFC3610], AES-CBC-HMAC
[I-D.mcgrew-aead-aes-cbc-hmac-sha2] are examples of these composite
modes.
PKCS v1.5 RSA key transport does not qualify as an AE algorithm.
There are only three bytes in the encoding that can be checked as
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having decrypted correctly, the rest of the content can only be
probabilistically checked as having decrypted correctly. For this
reason, PKCS v1.5 RSA key transport MUST NOT be used with this
specification. RSA-OAEP was designed to have the necessary checks
that that content correctly decrypted and does qualify as an AE
algorithm.
When dealing with authenticated encryption algorithms, there is
always some type of value that needs to be checked to see if the
authentication level has passed. This authentication value may be:
o A separately generated tag computed by both the encrypter and
decrypter and then compared by the decryptor. This tag value may
be either placed at the end of the cipher text (the decision we
made) or kept separately (the decision made by the JOSE working
group). This is the approach followed by AES-GCM [AES-GCM] and
AES-CCM [RFC3610].
o A fixed value that is part of the encoded plain text. This is the
approach followed by the AES key wrap algorithm [RFC3394].
o A computed value is included as part of the encoded plain text.
The computed value is then checked by the decryptor using the same
computation path. This is the approach followed by RSAES-OAEP
[RFC3447].
Appendix B. Three Levels of Recipient Information
All of the currently defined Key Management methods only use two
levels of the COSE_Encrypt structure. The first level is the message
content and the second level is the content key encryption. However,
if one uses a key management technique such as RSA-KEM (see
Appendix A of RSA-KEM [RFC5990], then it make sense to have three
levels of the COSE_Encrypt structure.
These levels would be:
o Level 0: The content encryption level. This level contains the
payload of the message.
o Level 1: The encryption of the CEK by a KEK.
o Level 2: The encryption of a long random secret using an RSA key
and a key derivation function to convert that secret into the KEK.
This is an example of what a triple layer message would look like.
The message has the following layers:
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o Level 0: Has a content encrypted with AES-GCM using a 128-bit key.
o Level 1: Uses the AES Key wrap algorithm with a 128-bit key.
o Level 3: Uses ECDH Ephemeral-Static direct to generate the level 1
key.
In effect this example is a decomposed version of using the ECDH-
ES+A128KW algorithm.
Size of binary file is 220 bytes
{
1: 2,
2: h'a10101',
3: {
5: h'02d1f7e6f26c43d4868d87ce'
},
4: h'64f84d913ba60a76070a9a48f26e97e863e285295a44320878caceb076
3a334806857c67',
9: [
{
3: {
1: -3
},
4: h'5a15dbf5b282ecb31a6074ee3815c252405dd7583e078188',
9: [
{
3: {
1: 50,
4: h'6d65726961646f632e6272616e64796275636b406275636b
6c616e642e6578616d706c65',
-1: {
1: 2,
-1: 1,
-2: h'b2add44368ea6d641f9ca9af308b4079aeb519f11e9b8
a55a600b21233e86e68',
-3: h'1a2cf118b9ee6895c8f415b686d4ca1cef362d4a7630a
31ef6019c0c56d33de0'
}
}
}
]
}
]
}
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Appendix C. Examples
The examples can be found at https://github.com/cose-wg/Examples. I
am currently still in the process of getting the examples up there
along with some control information for people to be able to check
and reproduce the examples.
Examples may have some features that are in questions but not yet
incorporated in the document.
To make it easier to read, the examples are presented using the
CBOR's diagnostic notation rather than a binary dump. [CREF23] Using
the Ruby based CBOR diagnostic tools at ????, the diagnostic notation
can be converted into binary files using the following command line:
(install command is?...)
diag2cbor < inputfile > outputfile
The examples can be extracted from the XML version of this docuent
via an XPath expression as all of the artwork is tagged with the
attribute type='CBORdiag'.
C.1. Examples of MAC messages
C.1.1. Shared Secret Direct MAC
This example users the following:
o MAC: AES-CMAC, 256-bit key, trucated to 64 bits
o Key management: direct shared secret
o File name: Mac-04
Size of binary file is 74 bytes
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{
1: 3,
2: h'a1016f4145532d434d41432d3235362f3634',
4: h'546869732069732074686520636f6e74656e742e',
10: h'd9afa663dd740848',
9: [
{
3: {
1: -6,
4: h'6f75722d736563726574'
}
}
]
}
C.1.2. ECDH Direct MAC
This example uses the following:
o MAC: HMAC w/SHA-256, 256-bit key [CREF24]
o Key management: ECDH key agreement, two static keys, HKDF w/
context structure
Size of binary file is 218 bytes
{
1: 3,
2: h'a10104',
4: h'546869732069732074686520636f6e74656e742e',
10: h'2ba937ca03d76c3dbad30cfcbaeef586f9c0f9ba616ad67e9205d3857
6ad9930',
9: [
{
3: {
1: 52,
4: h'6d65726961646f632e6272616e64796275636b406275636b6c61
6e642e6578616d706c65',
-3: h'706572656772696e2e746f6f6b407475636b626f726f7567682
e6578616d706c65',
"apu": h'4d8553e7e74f3c6a3a9dd3ef286a8195cbf8a23d19558ccf
ec7d34b824f42d92bd06bd2c7f0271f0214e141fb779ae2856abf585a58368b01
7e7f2a9e5ce4db5'
}
}
]
}
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C.1.3. Wrapped MAC
This example uses the following:
o MAC: AES-MAC, 128-bit key, truncated to 64 bits
o Key management: AES keywrap w/ a pre-shared 256-bit key
Size of binary file is 127 bytes
{
1: 3,
2: h'a1016e4145532d3132382d4d41432d3634',
4: h'546869732069732074686520636f6e74656e742e',
10: h'6d1fa77b2dd9146a',
9: [
{
3: {
1: -5,
4: h'30313863306165352d346439622d343731622d626664362d6565
66333134626337303337'
},
4: h'711ab0dc2fc4585dce27effa6781c8093eba906f227b6eb0'
}
]
}
C.1.4. Multi-recipient MAC message
This example uses the following:
o MAC: HMAC w/ SHA-256, 128-bit key
o Key management: Uses three different methods
1. ECDH Ephemeral-Static, Curve P-521, AES-Key Wrap w/ 128-bit
key
2. RSA-OAEP w/ SHA-256
3. AES-Key Wrap w/ 256-bit key
Size of binary file is 677 bytes
{
1: 3,
2: h'a10104',
4: h'546869732069732074686520636f6e74656e742e',
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10: h'7aaa6e74546873061f0a7de21ff0c0658d401a68da738dd8937486519
83ce1d0',
9: [
{
3: {
1: 55,
4: h'62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f626269746f6e2e657861
6d706c65',
-1: {
1: 2,
-1: 3,
-2: h'43b12669acac3fd27898ffba0bcd2e6c366d53bc4db71f909
a759304acfb5e18cdc7ba0b13ff8c7636271a6924b1ac63c02688075b55ef2d61
3574e7dc242f79c3',
-3: h'812dd694f4ef32b11014d74010a954689c6b6e8785b333d1a
b44f22b9d1091ae8fc8ae40b687e5cfbe7ee6f8b47918a07bb04e9f5b1a51a334
a16bc09777434113'
}
},
4: h'f20ad9c96134f3c6be4f75e7101c0ecc5efa071ff20a87fd1ac285
10941ee0376573e2b384b56b99'
},
{
3: {
1: -26,
4: h'62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f626269746f6e2e657861
6d706c65'
},
4: h'46c4f88069b650909a891e84013614cd58a3668f88fa18f3852940
a20b35098591d3aacf91c125a2595cda7bee75a490579f0e2f20fd6bc956623bf
de3029c318f82c426dac3463b261c981ab18b72fe9409412e5c7f2d8f2b5abaf7
80df6a282db033b3a863fa957408b81741878f466dcc437006ca21407181a016c
a608ca8208bd3c5a1ddc828531e30b89a67ec6bb97b0c3c3c92036c0cb84aa0f0
ce8c3e4a215d173bfa668f116ca9f1177505afb7629a9b0b5e096e81d37900e06
f561a32b6bc993fc6d0cb5d4bb81b74e6ffb0958dac7227c2eb8856303d989f93
b4a051830706a4c44e8314ec846022eab727e16ada628f12ee7978855550249cc
b58'
},
{
3: {
1: -5,
4: h'30313863306165352d346439622d343731622d626664362d6565
66333134626337303337'
},
4: h'0b2c7cfce04e98276342d6476a7723c090dfdd15f9a518e7736549
e998370695e6d6a83b4ae507bb'
}
]
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}
C.2. Examples of Encrypted Messages
C.2.1. Direct ECDH
This example uses the following:
o CEK: AES-GCM w/ 128-bit key
o Key managment: ECDH Ephemeral-Static, Curve P-256
Size of binary file is 186 bytes
{
1: 2,
2: h'a10101',
3: {
5: h'c9cf4df2fe6c632bf7886413'
},
4: h'45fce2814311024d3a479e7d3eed063850f3f0b9f3f948677e3ae9869b
cf9ff4e1763812',
9: [
{
3: {
1: 50,
4: h'6d65726961646f632e6272616e64796275636b406275636b6c61
6e642e6578616d706c65',
-1: {
1: 2,
-1: 1,
-2: h'98f50a4ff6c05861c8860d13a638ea56c3f5ad7590bbfbf05
4e1c7b4d91d6280',
-3: h'f01400b089867804b8e9fc96c3932161f1934f4223069170d
924b7e03bf822bb'
}
}
}
]
}
C.2.2. Direct plus Key Derivation
This example uses the following:
o CEK: AES-CCM w/128-bit key, trucate the tag to 64-bits
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o Key managment: Use HKDF on a shared secret with the following
implicit fields as part of the context.
* APU identity: "lighting-client"
* APV identity: "lighting-server"
* Supplimentary Public Other: "Encryption Example 02"
Size of binary file is 99 bytes
{
1: 2,
2: h'a1010a',
3: {
5: h'89f52f65a1c580933b5261a7'
},
4: h'7b9dcfa42c4e1d3182c402dc18ef8b5637de4fb62cf1dd156ea6e6e0',
9: [
{
3: {
1: "dir+kdf",
4: h'6f75722d736563726574',
-20: h'61616262636364646565666667676868'
}
}
]
}
C.3. Examples of Signed Message
C.3.1. Single Signature
This example uses the following:
o Signature Algorithm: RSA-PSS w/ SHA-384, MGF-1
Size of binary file is 332 bytes
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{
1: 1,
4: h'546869732069732074686520636f6e74656e742e',
5: [
{
2: h'a20165505333383404581e62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f
626269746f6e2e6578616d706c65',
6: h'0144e54a23b35cba9f9477beda0578c56653a3642fa64095ab71e2
9527fef410ab3626005267f9c5d75cba5377ab3c46ded94236c77ebfcdea8a71d
9b1d5c6faeb870733993267b0ab40569870602b903a518a273c303f78c129f14c
fdc49f3d1de8be8599c861ddefdfc8f0e8037a3acf195e0da2cc287ce0945e98b
e7b3666ace2183f77c313b45e9488a1dae5925f01a4e7c5ef1622abe9cd678eaa
02f501d950f24161cd7ef9458c13bfc96fb787fcd3e07ff47f1d7e37c9cc50d29
023d0e310c7c36c1a0e44b2c7347136c1ad6a0664c3697919eda6e3af813e1c3b
ef846513d8ff8bd761d4ea979e9a2a2b6d2de57bb26d92220f4188cc0fdd68020
874'
}
]
}
C.3.2. Multiple Signers
This example uses the following:
o Signature Algorithm: RSA-PSS w/ SHA-256, MGF-1
o Signature Algorithm: ECDSA w/ SHA-512, Curve P-521
Size of binary file is 501 bytes
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{
1: 1,
4: h'546869732069732074686520636f6e74656e742e',
5: [
{
2: h'a1013819',
3: {
4: h'62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f626269746f6e2e657861
6d706c65'
},
6: h'2f5e3809c370d409ffb7600b66b15bd597b10ca326da04fdaeedb5
bfc3cdfd289593347bb06fe1fc50f6eed18588d90c270c9dc9613be89b4e043f0
4c1845d1b7ff10c49ebe8e5f373ab3d5b058117b4b5b9a08c7f9b0ae3f5f0debf
03a5b917b5270ccb211765e961b6476542ceaab36d4f994e313f1ffc092ee83ad
bf51c2c9ea06ec0be349f453ef0a64c3831c5709fe8627de1bf47b586b941e0d1
dd8e261c71be0aa28ea288835c4d62e4b56b24eed369483eb3bf8abea00cfc873
8afd86698d7076ba2f6fb1f59936c60668d9d43acef17d1b5eae6bccc9896b0d4
d4ffbc41e2c25011e15a0093c76b9b7d68655216835d467ce4188c107a1093855
7ea'
},
{
3: {
1: -9,
4: h'62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f626269746f6e2e657861
6d706c65'
},
6: h'0118eaa7d62778b5a9525a583f06b115d80cd246bc930f0c285058
8eec85186b427026e096a076bfab738215f354be59f57643a7f6b2c92535cf3c3
7ee2746a908ab1fec618a3f8965b66d426fd1e6604e164d12eb29734a045c4110
c76867438cbe86d4f8e14b95427722667aeeed9b4a3efac04ad0b2ee260db759a
e17226cc25501'
}
]
}
C.4. COSE Keys
C.4.1. Public Keys
This is an example of a COSE Key set. This example includes the
public keys for all of the previous examples.
In order the keys are:
o An EC key with a kid of "meriadoc.brandybuck@buckland.example"
o An EC key with a kid of "peregrin.took@tuckborough.example"
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o An EC key with a kid of "bilbo.baggins@hobbiton.example"
o An RSA key with a kid of "bilbo.baggins@hobbiton.example"
Size of binary file is 703 bytes
[
{
-1: 1,
-2: h'65eda5a12577c2bae829437fe338701a10aaa375e1bb5b5de108de4
39c08551d',
-3: h'1e52ed75701163f7f9e40ddf9f341b3dc9ba860af7e0ca7ca7e9eec
d0084d19c',
1: 2,
2: h'6d65726961646f632e6272616e64796275636b406275636b6c616e64
2e6578616d706c65'
},
{
-1: 1,
-2: h'98f50a4ff6c05861c8860d13a638ea56c3f5ad7590bbfbf054e1c7b
4d91d6280',
-3: h'f01400b089867804b8e9fc96c3932161f1934f4223069170d924b7e
03bf822bb',
1: 2,
2: h'706572656772696e2e746f6f6b407475636b626f726f7567682e6578
616d706c65'
},
{
-1: 3,
-2: h'0072992cb3ac08ecf3e5c63dedec0d51a8c1f79ef2f82f94f3c737b
f5de7986671eac625fe8257bbd0394644caaa3aaf8f27a4585fbbcad0f2457620
085e5c8f42ad',
-3: h'01dca6947bce88bc5790485ac97427342bc35f887d86d65a089377e
247e60baa55e4e8501e2ada5724ac51d6909008033ebc10ac999b9d7f5cc2519f
3fe1ea1d9475',
1: 2,
2: h'62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f626269746f6e2e6578616d70
6c65'
},
{
-2: h'9f810fb4038273d02591e4073f31d2b6001b82cedb4d92f050165d4
7cfcab8a3c41cb778ac7553793f8ef975768d1a2374d8712564c3bcd77b9ea434
544899407cff0099920a931a24c4414852ab29bdb0a95c0653f36c60e60bf90b6
258dda56f37047ba5c2d1d029af9c9d40bac7aa41c78a0dd1068add699e808fea
011ea1441d8a4f7bb4e97be39f55f1ddd44e9c4ba335159703d4d34b603e65147
a4f23d6d3c0996c75edee846a82d190ae10783c961cf0387aed2106d2d0555b6f
d937fad5535387e0ff72ffbe78941402b0b822ea2a74b6058c1dabf9b34a76cb6
3b87faa2c6847b8e2837fff91186e6b1c14911cf989a89092a81ce601ddacd3f9
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cf',
-1: h'010001',
1: 3,
2: h'62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f626269746f6e2e6578616d70
6c65'
}
]
C.4.2. Private Keys
This is an example of a COSE Key set. This example includes the
private keys for all of the previous examples.
In order the keys are:
o An EC key with a kid of "meriadoc.brandybuck@buckland.example"
o A shared-secret key with a kid of "our-secret"
o An EC key with a kid of "peregrin.took@tuckborough.example"
o A shared-secret key with a kid of "018c0ae5-4d9b-471b-
bfd6-eef314bc7037"
o An EC key with a kid of "bilbo.baggins@hobbiton.example"
o An RSA key with a kid of "bilbo.baggins@hobbiton.example"
Size of binary file is 1884 bytes
[
{
1: 2,
2: h'6d65726961646f632e6272616e64796275636b406275636b6c616e64
2e6578616d706c65',
-1: 1,
-2: h'65eda5a12577c2bae829437fe338701a10aaa375e1bb5b5de108de4
39c08551d',
-3: h'1e52ed75701163f7f9e40ddf9f341b3dc9ba860af7e0ca7ca7e9eec
d0084d19c',
-4: h'aff907c99f9ad3aae6c4cdf21122bce2bd68b5283e6907154ad9118
40fa208cf'
},
{
1: 4,
2: h'6f75722d736563726574',
-1: h'849b57219dae48de646d07dbb533566e976686457c1491be3a76dce
a6c427188'
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},
{
1: 2,
-1: 1,
2: h'706572656772696e2e746f6f6b407475636b626f726f7567682e6578
616d706c65',
-2: h'98f50a4ff6c05861c8860d13a638ea56c3f5ad7590bbfbf054e1c7b
4d91d6280',
-3: h'f01400b089867804b8e9fc96c3932161f1934f4223069170d924b7e
03bf822bb',
-4: h'02d1f7e6f26c43d4868d87ceb2353161740aacf1f7163647984b522
a848df1c3'
},
{
1: 4,
2: h'30313863306165352d346439622d343731622d626664362d65656633
3134626337303337',
-1: h'849b57219dae48de646d07dbb533566e976686457c1491be3a76dce
a6c427188'
},
{
1: 2,
2: h'62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f626269746f6e2e6578616d70
6c65',
-1: 3,
-2: h'0072992cb3ac08ecf3e5c63dedec0d51a8c1f79ef2f82f94f3c737b
f5de7986671eac625fe8257bbd0394644caaa3aaf8f27a4585fbbcad0f2457620
085e5c8f42ad',
-3: h'01dca6947bce88bc5790485ac97427342bc35f887d86d65a089377e
247e60baa55e4e8501e2ada5724ac51d6909008033ebc10ac999b9d7f5cc2519f
3fe1ea1d9475',
-4: h'00085138ddabf5ca975f5860f91a08e91d6d5f9a76ad4018766a476
680b55cd339e8ab6c72b5facdb2a2a50ac25bd086647dd3e2e6e99e84ca2c3609
fdf177feb26d'
},
{
1: 3,
2: h'62696c626f2e62616767696e7340686f626269746f6e2e6578616d70
6c65',
-2: h'9f810fb4038273d02591e4073f31d2b6001b82cedb4d92f050165d4
7cfcab8a3c41cb778ac7553793f8ef975768d1a2374d8712564c3bcd77b9ea434
544899407cff0099920a931a24c4414852ab29bdb0a95c0653f36c60e60bf90b6
258dda56f37047ba5c2d1d029af9c9d40bac7aa41c78a0dd1068add699e808fea
011ea1441d8a4f7bb4e97be39f55f1ddd44e9c4ba335159703d4d34b603e65147
a4f23d6d3c0996c75edee846a82d190ae10783c961cf0387aed2106d2d0555b6f
d937fad5535387e0ff72ffbe78941402b0b822ea2a74b6058c1dabf9b34a76cb6
3b87faa2c6847b8e2837fff91186e6b1c14911cf989a89092a81ce601ddacd3f9
cf',
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-1: h'010001',
-3: h'6d6502f41f84151228f24a467e1d19bb218fbcc34abd858db41fe29
221fd936d1e4fe3b5abf23bf1e8999295f15d0d144c4b362ec3514bef2e25bbd0
f80d62ae4c0c48c90ad49dd74c681dae10a4bbd81195d63bb0d03f00a64687e43
aeb5ff8dab20d2d109ef16fa7677e2e8bfa8e7e42e72bd4160c3aa9688b00f9b3
3059648316ed8c5016309074cc1332d81aa39ed389e8a9eab5844c414c704e05d
90c5e2b85854ab5054ea5f83a84896c6a83cdac5edda1f8b3274f7d38e8039826
8462a33ef9b525107c60ac8564c19cfe6e0e3775f242a1cafd3b9617d225dacf7
4ce4f972976d61b057f82ff9870aea056aeee076c3df1cfc718d539c3a906b433
c1',
-4: h'dd297183f0f04d725c6fad3de51a17ca0402019e519c0bd9967a35c
a11ed9d47b1fdfa7b019ffd9d168eec75fff9215f1907aeb5aa364c38c3016538
56ea64f2bc3d251d00cd9d0dd9fbee2009abfd60ac986a5e36a4277afd53ec8c8
4b2787c50cb7e9f909a7e1922933844b2b9a7747e8bc4eaef44996c3e9e99bfc6
d4ab49',
-5: h'b8a136761f9c4dfe84445e24e1efe3cbbf067cf61421a532a12489b
81ce9dc2b9b937382aacea0ad3f1b47f72ed039b5319c169ad76a0f223de47ad4
7aadcc3f5e6f30c38df251d3799bb69662afc2a5bb6a757953384cd6267bcf8c8
c92e530156a01bf263cf7c117bd10fe85da91c47952a80675f76cc1de9545274b
3ba457',
-6: h'07c3d5bd792f26b8f62fe19843bbf7cbdafa2b0e60f526a15c1c2c5
94ce9d7d4d596023e615f39ab53486f5af142d0fe22c5d7477f936a77afb913d1
b7938139d88c190a7ca5bb76ea096361f294fc4f719fe4542c7cf4f9e77d13d81
72ca0f85469e0a73f8f7d0feadbda64e71587a09a74d3d41fd47bc2862c515f9f
5e8629',
-7: h'08b0e60c676e87295cf68eebf38ac45159fba7343a3c5f3763e8816
71e4d4fe4e99ce64a175a44ac031578acc5125e350e51c7aaa04b48cd16d6c385
6f04f16166439bab08ea88398936f0406202de09c929b8bfee4fef260187c07c6
03da5f63e7bcffb3c84903111b9ffabcb873f675d42abd02a0b6c9e2fa91d293d
5c605f',
-8: h'dcf8aabd740dd33c0c784fac06f6608b6f3d5cff57090177556a8fc
cc2a7220429eff4ee828ebe35904a090b0c7f71da1060634d526cfe370af3e4d1
5ef68a7beed931a423f157c175892cb1bbb434a0c386327e1ad8ac79a0d55aded
d707d1c7f0c601541e9421ec5a02ae3149ea1e99129305eb19ae8ece2a3293f3f
1a688e'
}
]
Appendix D. COSE Header Algorithm Label Table
This section disappears when we make a decision on password based key
management.
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+------+-----------+-------+-----------+-------------+
| name | algorithm | label | CBOR type | description |
+------+-----------+-------+-----------+-------------+
| p2c | PBE | -1 | int | |
| | | | | |
| p2s | PBE | -2 | bstr | |
+------+-----------+-------+-----------+-------------+
Appendix E. Document Updates
E.1. Version -02 to -03
o Make a pass over all of the algorithm text.
o Alter the CDDL so that Keys and KeySets are top level items and
the key examples validate.
o Add sample key structures.
o Expand text on dealing with Externally Supplied Data.
o Update the examples to match some of the renumbering of fields.
E.2. Version -02 to -03
o Add a set of straw man proposals for algorithms. It is possible/
expected that this text will be moved to a new document.
o Add a set of straw man proposals for key structures. It is
possible/expected that this text will be moved to a new document.
o Provide guidance on use of externally supplied authenticated data.
o Add external authenticated data to signing structure.
E.3. Version -01 to -2
o Add first pass of algorithm information
o Add direct key derivation example.
E.4. Version -00 to -01
o Add note on where the document is being maintained and
contributing notes.
o Put in proposal on MTI algorithms.
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o Changed to use labels rather than keys when talking about what
indexes a map.
o Moved nonce/IV to be a common header item.
o Expand section to discuss the common set of labels used in
COSE_Key maps.
o Start marking element 0 in registries as reserved.
o Update examples.
Editorial Comments
[CREF1] JLS: Need to check this list for correctness before publishing.
[CREF2] JLS: I have not gone through the document to determine what
needs to be here yet. We mostly want to grab terms which are
used in unusual ways or are not generally understood.
[CREF3] JLS: It would be possible to extend this section to talk about
those decisions which an application needs to think about rather
than just talking about MTI algoithms.
[CREF4] JLS: I have moved msg_type into the individual structures.
However, they would not be necessary in the cases where a) the
security service is known and b) security libraries can setup to
take individual structures. Should they be moved back to just
appearing if used in a COSE_MSG rather than on the individual
structure?
[CREF5] JLS: Should we create an IANA registries for the values of
msg_type?
[CREF6] JLS: OPEN ISSUE
[CREF7] JLS: A completest version of this grammar would list the options
available in the protected and unprotected headers. Do we want
to head that direction?
[CREF8] JLS: After looking at this, I am wondering if the type for this
should be: [int int]/[int tstr] so that we can keep the major/
minor difference of media-types. This does cost a couple of
bytes in the message.
[CREF9] JLS: Need to figure out how we are going to go about creating
this registry -or are we going to modify the current mime-
content table?
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[CREF10] JLS: Open to do.
[CREF11] Ilari: I don't follow/understand this text
[CREF12] JLS: Is there a reason to assign a CBOR tag to identify keys
and/or key sets?
[CREF13] JLS: We can really simplify the grammar for COSE_Key to be just
the kty (the one required field) and the generic item. The
reason to do this is that it makes things simpler. The reason
not to do this says that we really need to add a lot more items
so that a grammar check can be done that is more tightly
enforced.
[CREF14] JLS: Do we also want to document the use of RFC 5649 as well?
It allows for other sizes of keys that might be used for HMAC -
i.e. a 200 bit key. The algorithm exists, but I do not
personally know of any standard uses of it.
[CREF15] JLS: Is this range we want to specify?
[CREF16] JLS: It would be possible to include the protected field in the
KDF rather than the key wrap algorithm if we wanted to. This
would provide the same level of security, it would not be
possible to get the same key if they are different.
[CREF17] JLS: Do we want/need to support this? JOSE did it mainly to
support the encryption of private keys.
[CREF18] JLS: Do we create a registry for curves? Is is the same
registry for both EC1 and EC2?
[CREF19] JLS: Should we use the integer encoding for x, y and d instead
of bstr?
[CREF20] JLS: Looking at the CBOR specification, the bstr that we are
looking in our table below should most likely be specified as
big numbers rather than as binary strings. This means that we
would use the tag 6.2 instead. From my reading of the
specification, there is no difference in the encoded size of
the resulting output. The specification of bignum does
explicitly allow for integers encoded with leading zeros.
[CREF21] JLS: Finish the registration process.
[CREF22] JLS: Should we register both or just the cose+cbor one?
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[CREF23] JLS: Do we want to keep this as diagnostic notation or should
we switch to having "binary" examples instead?
[CREF24] JLS: Need to examine how this is worked out. In this case the
length of the key to be used is implicit rather than explicit.
This needs to be the case because a direct key could be any
length, however it means that when the key is derived, there is
currently nothing to state how long the derived key needs to
be.
Author's Address
Jim Schaad
August Cellars
Email: ietf@augustcellars.com
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