Updates to OAuth 2.0 JSON Web Token (JWT) Client Authentication and Assertion-Based Authorization Grants

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Multiple OAuth 2.0 specifications use tokens (also known as "assertions") that are sent to authorization servers. These tokens contain an audience value or values intended to identify the recipients that the token is intended for. When the token is a JSON Web Token (JWT) [JWT], the audience value(s) are contained in the aud (audience) claim.¶

When performing a security analysis of a pre-final version of the OpenID Federation specification [OpenID.Federation], University of Stuttgart security researchers Pedram Hosseyni, Dr. Ralf Küsters, and Tim Würtele discovered a vulnerability affecting multiple OpenID and OAuth specifications caused by ambiguities in the audience values of tokens sent to authorization servers. The vulnerability was disclosed to the OAuth working group in an interim meeting in January 2025 called for that purpose, including providing a description of the vulnerability [private_key_jwt.Disclosure]. A paper they published describing the attack is [Audience.Injection].¶

This specification updates the affected OAuth specifications to address the security vulnerability identified. Specifically, it eliminates former ambiguities in the audience values of tokens sent to OAuth 2.0 authorization servers.¶

A general description of the updates made is to require that the issuer identifier URL of the authorization server, as defined in [RFC8414], be used as the sole value of the audience of the JWT client authentication assertion. Furthermore, the authorization server rejects any JWT client authentication assertion that does not contain its own issuer identifier as the sole audience value. An explicit type for each affected kind of token, as defined in [RFC8725], is also defined to facilitate distinguishing between tokens produced in accordance with specifications published prior to these updates and those incorporating them. Specific updates made to each affected specification follow.¶

2. Updates to RFC 7521

This section updates "Assertion Framework for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7521] to tighten its audience requirements.¶

The description of the Audience parameter in Section 5.1 of [RFC7521] (Assertion Metamodel) is replaced by:¶

Audience

A value that identifies the party intended to process the assertion. The issuer identifier of the authorization server, as defined in [RFC8414], can be used to indicate that the authorization server is a valid intended audience of the assertion.¶

3. Updates to RFC 7522

This section updates "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7522]. It tightens its audience requirements for SAML authorization grants and it deprecates the use of SAML assertions for client authentication.¶

The text and example in Section 2.2 of [RFC7522] (Using SAML Assertions for Client Authentication) is replaced by:¶

• It is RECOMMENDED that SAML Bearer Assertions not be used for client authentication.¶

The description of the Audience element in Item 2 of Section 3 of [RFC7522] (Assertion Format and Processing Requirements) is replaced by:¶

• The Assertion MUST contain a <Conditions> element with an <AudienceRestriction> element with an <Audience> element that identifies the authorization server as the intended audience. The client is responsible for ensuring that the audience of the Assertion is appropriate for the authorization server to which it is sent. This MAY be the issuer identifier of the authorization server, the token endpoint URL of the authorization server, or a SAML Entity ID. Section 2.5.1.4 of "Assertions and Protocols for the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) V2.0" [OASIS.saml-core-2.0-os] defines the <AudienceRestriction> and <Audience> elements. The authorization server MUST reject any assertion that does not contain its own identity as the intended audience.¶

4. Updates to RFC 7523

This section updates "JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7523] to tighten its audience requirements.¶

In Section 3 of [RFC7523] (JWT Format and Processing Requirements), Item 3, which describes the audience value, is replaced by:¶

• The JWT MUST contain an aud (audience) claim containing a value that identifies the authorization server as the intended audience. Two cases are differentiated:¶

  1. For the authorization grant, the client is responsible for ensuring that the audience of the JWT assertion is appropriate for the authorization server to which it is sent. An authorization server MAY be identified by either its issuer identifier or its token endpoint URL.¶

  2. For client authentication, the aud (audience) claim value MUST use the issuer identifier [RFC8414] of the authorization server as its sole value. The authorization server MUST have an issuer identifier to be used with this specification. Unlike the aud value specified in [RFC7523], there MUST be no value other than the issuer identifier of the intended authorization server used as the audience of the JWT; this includes that the token endpoint URL of the authorization server MUST NOT be used as an audience value. The authorization server MUST reject any JWT that does not contain its issuer identifier as its sole audience value.¶

  In the absence of an application profile specifying otherwise, applications MUST compare the audience values using the Simple String Comparison method defined in Section 6.2.1 of RFC 3986 [RFC3986].¶

In Section 3.2 of [RFC7523] (Client Authentication Processing), the following requirement is added:¶

• Client authentication JWTs SHOULD be explicitly typed by using the typ header parameter value client-authentication+jwt or another more specific explicit type value defined by a specification profiling this specification.¶

In Section 4 of [RFC7523] (Authorization Grant Example), the sentence:¶

• The intended audience of the JWT is https://jwt-rp.example.net, which is an identifier with which the authorization server identifies itself.¶

is replaced by:¶

• The intended audience of the JWT is https://authz.example.net, which is the authorization server's issuer identifier.¶

In the same section, the JWT Claims Set example is replaced by:¶

  {
    "aud": "https://authz.example.net",
    "iss": "https://jwt-idp.example.com",
    "sub": "mailto:mike@example.com",
    "iat": 1731721541,
    "exp": 1731725141,
    "http://claims.example.com/member": true
  }

In the list of agreements required by participants in Section 5 of [RFC7523] (Interoperability Considerations), an agreement on "audience identifiers" is no longer needed for client authentication JWTs.¶

The additional example in the following subsection is added after Section 4 of [RFC7523]¶

  {
    "aud": "https://authz.example.net",
    "iss": "https://client.example/",
    "sub": "https://client.example/",
    "iat": 1752702206,
    "exp": 1752705806
  }

  {
    "typ": "client-authentication+jwt",
    "alg": "ES256",
    "kid": "16"
  }

  POST /token.oauth2 HTTP/1.1
  Host: authz.example.net
  Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

  grant_type=authorization_code&
  code=n0esc3NRze7LTCu7iYzS6a5acc3f0ogp4&
  client_assertion_type=urn%3Aietf%3Aparams%3Aoauth%3A
    client-assertion-type%3Ajwt-bearer&
  client_assertion=eyJ0eXAiOiJjbGllbnQtYXV0aGVudGljYXRpb24rand0IiwiYWx
    nIjoiRVMyNTYiLCJraWQiOiIxNiJ9.eyJhdWQiOiAiaHR0cHM6Ly9hdXRoei5leGFt
    cGxlLm5ldCIsImlzcyI6ICJodHRwczovL2NsaWVudC5leGFtcGxlLyIsInN1YiI6IC
    JodHRwczovL2NsaWVudC5leGFtcGxlLyIsImlhdCI6IDE3NTI3MDIyMDYsImV4cCI6
    IDE3NTI3MDU4MDZ9.6KrSQUxdl9ehs[...omitted for brevity...]bwc0ZOJw

5. Updates to RFC 9126

This section updates "OAuth 2.0 Pushed Authorization Requests" [RFC9126] to tighten its audience requirements.¶

The paragraph describing the audience value in Section 2 of [RFC9126] (Pushed Authorization Request Endpoint) is replaced by:¶

• This update resolves the potential ambiguity regarding the appropriate audience value to use when employing JWT client assertion-based authentication (as defined in Section 2.2 of [RFC7523] and as updated by Section 4 with the private_key_jwt or client_secret_jwt authentication method names per Section 9 of [OpenID.Core]) that was described in [RFC9126]. To address that ambiguity, the issuer identifier URL of the authorization server according to [RFC8414] MUST be used as the sole value of the audience. The authorization server MUST reject any such JWT that does not contain its own issuer identifier as the sole audience value.¶

• The introduction of strong typing for JWTs (using explicit typ values) serves as a signal to distinguish between tokens produced in accordance with specifications published prior to these updates and those incorporating them. However, the primary security protection comes from the tightened audience requirements. Since strong typing alone does not prevent the attacks described in [private_key_jwt.Disclosure] and [Audience.Injection], the use of explicit typing is suggestion for clients enabling them to signal their intention of sending a JWT conforming to the requirements herein. This approach balances security signaling with practical deployment considerations, avoiding disruption to client deployments that already conform to the tightened audience requirements but have not yet adopted explicit typing.¶

6. Security Considerations

The security considerations described within the following specifications are all applicable to this document: "Assertion Framework for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7521], "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7522], "JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7523], "OAuth 2.0 Pushed Authorization Requests" [RFC9126], "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework" [RFC6749], and "JSON Web Token (JWT)" [JWT].¶

This specification tightens token audience requirements to prevent attacks that could result from exploiting audience ambiguities previously allowed by [RFC7521], [RFC7522], [RFC7523], and [RFC9126]. These attacks are described in [private_key_jwt.Disclosure] and [Audience.Injection].¶

7. IANA Considerations

Appendix A. Document History

[[ to be removed by the RFC Editor before publication as an RFC ]]¶

-03¶

• Update OAuth Token Endpoint Authentication Methods IANA entries with reference to this specification¶

• Relaxed client requirement to use strong typed JWTs. SHOULD instead of MUST.¶

• Do not restrict the "aud" claim's type. Allow it to be an array with a single member.¶

• Advise the client to ensure that the audience of an assertion authorization grant makes sense with respect to where it’s being sent.¶

• Updates to the abstract and introduction to (hopefully) better reflect the more targeted scope of the work.¶

• Remove JWTs for Client Authentication example replacement (not worth it for including typ in the encoded JWT header).¶

• Add request to update existing OAuth URI registrations to add reference to this specification for the four relevant URNs.¶

• Fixup the new Client Authentication JWT Example.¶

-02¶

• Added Filip Skokan as an author.¶

• Applied Brian Campbell's suggestions made at IETF 122. Specifically:¶

  • Focused RFC 7523 updates on JWT client authentication case.¶

  • Described client responsibilities for the audience value of authorization grants. No longer mandate that the audience for authorization grants be the issuer identifier, so as to make a minimum of breaking changes.¶

  • Deprecated the use of SAML assertions for client authentication.¶

-01¶

• Reworked to make updates to RFC 7523, rather than replacing it.¶

• Removed updates to RFC 9101.¶

• Added reference to the University of Stuttgart paper [Audience.Injection].¶

-00¶

• Initial working group draft, replacing draft-jones-oauth-rfc7523bis-00.¶

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following people to this specification: Brock Allen John Bradley, Ralph Bragg, Joseph Heenan, Pedram Hosseyni, Pieter Kasselman, Ralf Küsters, Martin Lindström, Aaron Parecki, Dean H. Saxe, Arndt Schwenkschuster, and Tim Würtele.¶

Authors' Addresses