A Minimal (Datagram) Transport Layer Security Implementation
draft-tschofenig-lwig-tls-minimal-01

Network Working Group                                      H. Tschofenig
Internet-Draft                                    Nokia Siemens Networks
Intended status: Standards Track                               J. Gilger
Expires: April 25, 2013                           RWTH Aachen University
                                                        October 22, 2012

      A Minimal (Datagram) Transport Layer Security Implementation
                draft-tschofenig-lwig-tls-minimal-01.txt

Abstract

   Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a widely used security protocol
   that offers communication security services at the transport layer.
   The initial design of TLS was focused on the protection of
   applications running on top of the Transmission Control Protocol
   (TCP), and was a good match for securing the Hypertext Transfer
   Protocol (HTTP).  Subsequent standardization efforts lead to the
   publication of Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS), which added
   the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), and the Datagram Congestion Control
   Protocol (DCCP).  The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), as
   a more recent connection-oriented transport protocol, also benefits
   from TLS support.

   TLS can be customized in a variety of ways and every feature has a
   certain cost.  To offer input for implementers and system architects
   this document illustrates the impact each selected TLS features has
   on the overall code size.

Status of this Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 25, 2013.

Copyright Notice

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   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Communication Relationships  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Design Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   4.  Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   5.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   6.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   7.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   8.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     8.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     8.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

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1.  Introduction

   The IETF published three versions of Transport Layer Security: TLS
   Version 1.0 [RFC2246], TLS Version 1.1 [RFC4346], and TLS Version 1.2
   [RFC5246].  Section 1.1 of [RFC4346] explains the differences between
   Version 1.0 and Version 1.1; those are small security improvements,
   including the usage of an explicit initialization vector to protect
   against cipher-block-chaining attacks, which all have little impact
   for the size of the code.  Section 1.2 of [RFC5246] describes the
   differences between Version 1.1 and Version 1.2.  TLS 1.2 introduces
   a couple of major changes with impact to size of an implementation.
   In particular, prior TLS versions hardcoded the MD5/SHA-1 combination
   in the pseudorandom function (PRF).  As a consequence, any TLS
   Version 1.0 and Version 1.1 implementation had to have MD5 and SHA-1
   code even if the remaining cryptographic primitives used other
   algorithms.  With TLS Version 1.2 the two had been replaced with
   cipher-suite-specified PRFs.  In addition, the TLS extensions
   definition [RFC6066] and various AES ciphersuites [RFC3268] got
   merged into the TLS Version 1.2 specification.

   All three TLS specifications list a mandatory-to-implement
   ciphersuite: for TLS Version 1.0 this was
   TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, for TLS Version 1.1 it was
   TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, and for TLS Version 1.2 it is
   TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA.  There is, however, an important
   qualification to these compliance statements, namely that they are
   only valid in the absence of an application profile standard
   specifying otherwise.

   All TLS versions offer a separation between authentication and key
   exchange and bulk data protection.  The former is more costly
   performance- and message-wise.  The details of the authentication and
   key exchange, using the TLS Handshake, vary with the chosen
   ciphersuite.  With new ciphersuites the TLS feature-set can easily be
   enhanced, in case the already large collection of ciphersuites, see
   [TLS-IANA], does not match the requirements.

   Once the TLS Handshake has been successfully completed the necessary
   keying material and parameters are setup for usage with the TLS
   Record Layer, which is responsible for bulk data protection.  The TLS
   Record Layer could be compared with the IPsec AH and IPsec ESP while
   the Handshake protocol can be compared with the Internet Key Exchange
   Version 2 (IKEv2).  The provided security of the TLS Record Layer
   depends also, but not only, on the chosen ciphersuite algorithms;
   NULL encryption ciphersuites, like those specified in RFC 4785
   [RFC4785], offer only integrity- without confidentiality-protection.
   Example ciphersuites for the TLS Record Layer are RC4 with SHA-1,
   AES-128 with SHA-1, AES-256 with SHA-1, RC4 with SHA-1, RC4 with MD5

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   It is worth mentioning that TLS may also be used without the TLS
   Record Layer.  This has, for example, been exercised with the work on
   the framework for establishing a Secure Real-time Transport Protocol
   (SRTP) security context using the Datagram Transport Layer Security
   (DTLS [RFC4347]) protocol (DTLS-SRTP [RFC5763]).

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2.  Communication Relationships

   A security solution is strongly influenced by the communication
   relationships [RFC4101], which will have an impact on the code size.
   Having a good understanding of these relationships will be essential.

   Consider the following scenario where a smart meter transmits its
   energy readings to other parties.  The public utility has to ensure
   that the meter readings it obtained can be attributed to a specific
   meter in a household.  It is simply not acceptable for public utility
   to have any meter readings in transit or by a rogue endpoint
   (particularly if the attack leads to a disadvantage, for example
   financial loss, for the utility).  Users in a household may want to
   ensure that only certain parties are able to read their meter;
   privacy concerns come to mind.

   In this example, a sensor may only ever need to talk to servers of a
   specific utility or even only to a single pre-configured server.
   Clearly, some information has to be pre-provisioned into the device
   to ensure the desired behavior to talk only to selected servers.  The
   meter may come pre-configured with the domain name and certificate
   belonging to the utility.  The device may, however, also be
   configured to accept one or multiple server certificates.  It may
   even be pre-provisioned with the server's raw public key, or a shared
   secret instead of relying on certificates.

   Lowering the flexibility decreases the implementation overhead.  TLS-
   PSK [RFC4279], if shared secrets are used, or raw public keys used
   with TLS [I-D.ietf-tls-oob-pubkey] require fewer lines of code than
   employing X.509 certificate, as it will be explained later in this
   document.  A decision for constraining the client-side TLS
   implementation, for example by offering only a single ciphersuite,
   has to be made in awareness of what functionality will be available
   on the TLS server-side.  In certain communication environments it may
   be easy to influence both communication partners while in other cases
   the existing deployment needs to be taken into consideration.

   To illustrate another example, consider an Internet radio, which
   allows a user to connect to available radio stations.  A device like
   this will be more demanding than an IP-enabled scale that only
   connects to the single Web server offered by the device manufacturer.
   A threat assessment may even lead to the conclusion that TLS support
   is not necessary at all.

   Consider the following extension to our earlier scenario where the
   meter is attached to a home WLAN network and the interworking with
   WLAN security mechanisms need to be taken care of.  On top of the
   link layer authentication, a transport layer or application layer

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   security mechanism needs to be implemented.  Quite likely the
   security mechanisms will be different due to the different credential
   requirements.  While there is a possibility for re-use of
   cryptographic libraries (such as the SHA-1, MD5, or HMAC) the overall
   code footprint will very likely be larger.

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3.  Design Decisions

   To evaluate the required TLS functionality a couple of high level
   design decisions have to be made:

   o  What type of protection for the data traffic is required?  Is
      confidentiality protection in addition to integrity protection
      required?  Many TLS ciphersuites also provide a variant for NULL
      encryption.  If confidentiality protection is required, a
      carefully chosen set of algorithms may have a positive impact on
      the code size.  For example, the RC4 stream cipher code size is
      1,496 bytes compared to 7,096 bytes for AES usage.  Re-use of
      crypto-libraries (within TLS but also among the entire protocol
      stack) will also help to reduce the overall code size.

   o  What functionality is available in hardware?  For example, certain
      hardware platforms offer support for a random number generator as
      well as cryptographic algorithms (e.g., AES).  These functions can
      be re-used and allow to reduce the amount of required code.

   o  What credentials for client and server authentication are
      required: passwords, pre-shared secrets, certificates, raw public
      keys (or a mixture of them)?  Is certificate handling necessary?
      If not, then the ASN.1 library as well as the certificate parsing
      and processing can be omitted.  If pre-shared secrets are used
      then the big integer implementation can be omitted.

   o  What TLS version and what TLS features, such as session
      resumption, can or have to be used?

   o  Is necessary to design only the client-side TLS stack, or to
      provide the server-side implementation as well?

   o  Is it possible to hardwire credentials into the code rather than
      loading them from storage?  If so, then no file handling or
      parsing of the credentials is needed and the credentials are
      already available in form that they can be used within the TLS
      implementation.

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4.  Conclusion

   The IAB published a document, RFC 5218 [RFC5218], on the success
   criteria for protocols.  A "wildly successful" protocol far exceeds
   its original goals, in terms of purpose (being used in scenarios far
   beyond the initial design), in terms of scale (being deployed on a
   scale much greater than originally envisaged), or both.  TLS is an
   example of such a wildly successful protocol.  It can be tailored to
   fit the needs of a specific deployment environment.  This
   customization property offers the basis for a relatively small code
   footprint.  The communication model and the security goals will,
   however, ultimately decide about the resulting code size; this is not
   only true for TLS but for every security solution.

   More flexibility and more features will translate to a bigger
   footprint.  Generic complaints about the large size of TLS stacks are
   not useful and should be accompanied by a description of the assumed
   functionality.  To support the author's opinion this position paper
   provides information about the amount of required code for various
   functions and considers most recent work from the IETF TLS working
   group for the support of raw public keys.

   The author is convinced that TLS is a suitable security protocol
   (with the standardized extensions) for usage in many smart object
   deployments.  Only minor extensions, as currently being developed in
   the IETF TLS working group, are needed to support an even larger set
   of use cases.  There are, however, cases where the security goals ask
   for a security solution other than TLS.  With the wide range of
   embedded applications it is impractical to design for a single
   security architecture or even a single communication architecture.

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5.  Security Considerations

   This document discusses various design aspects for reducing the
   footprint of TLS implementations.  As such, it is entirely about
   security.

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6.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not contain actions for IANA.

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7.  Acknowledgements

   The author would like to thank the participants of the Smart Object
   Security workshop, March 2012.

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8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2246]  Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0",
              RFC 2246, January 1999.

   [RFC4346]  Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
              (TLS) Protocol Version 1.1", RFC 4346, April 2006.

   [RFC5246]  Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
              (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.

   [RFC4347]  Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer
              Security", RFC 4347, April 2006.

8.2.  Informative References

   [RFC6066]  Eastlake, D., "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Extensions:
              Extension Definitions", RFC 6066, January 2011.

   [RFC3268]  Chown, P., "Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
              Ciphersuites for Transport Layer Security (TLS)",
              RFC 3268, June 2002.

   [RFC5763]  Fischl, J., Tschofenig, H., and E. Rescorla, "Framework
              for Establishing a Secure Real-time Transport Protocol
              (SRTP) Security Context Using Datagram Transport Layer
              Security (DTLS)", RFC 5763, May 2010.

   [RFC4785]  Blumenthal, U. and P. Goel, "Pre-Shared Key (PSK)
              Ciphersuites with NULL Encryption for Transport Layer
              Security (TLS)", RFC 4785, January 2007.

   [RFC4279]  Eronen, P. and H. Tschofenig, "Pre-Shared Key Ciphersuites
              for Transport Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 4279,
              December 2005.

   [I-D.ietf-tls-oob-pubkey]
              Wouters, P., Gilmore, J., Weiler, S., Kivinen, T., and H.
              Tschofenig, "Out-of-Band Public Key Validation for
              Transport Layer Security", draft-ietf-tls-oob-pubkey-04
              (work in progress), July 2012.

   [RFC5218]  Thaler, D. and B. Aboba, "What Makes For a Successful
              Protocol?", RFC 5218, July 2008.

   [RFC4101]  Rescorla, E. and IAB, "Writing Protocol Models", RFC 4101,

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              June 2005.

   [TLS-IANA]
              IANA, "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Parameters: http://
              www.iana.org/assignments/tls-parameters/
              tls-parameters.xml", Oct 2012.

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Authors' Addresses

   Hannes Tschofenig
   Nokia Siemens Networks
   Linnoitustie 6
   Espoo,   02600
   Finland

   Phone: +358 (50) 4871445
   Email: Hannes.Tschofenig@gmx.net
   URI:   http://www.tschofenig.priv.at

   Johannes Gilger
   RWTH Aachen University
   Mies-van-der-Rohe-Str. 15
   Aachen,   52074
   Germany

   Phone: +49 (0)241 80 20 781
   Email: Gilger@ITSec.RWTH-Aachen.de

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