| Internet-Draft | Early Attestation Considered Harmful | October 2026 |
| Sardar, et al. | Expires 5 April 2027 | [Page] |
- Workgroup:
- SEAT
- Internet-Draft:
- draft-intra-handshake-fail-53
- Published:
- Intended Status:
- Informational
- Expires:
Early Attestation Considered Very Harmful (CVE-2026-92701 of CVSS 9.1, CVE-2026-92702 of CVSS 9.1, CVE-2026-33697 of CVSS 7.5, and 37 other CVEs of up to expected CVSS 10.0 upcoming)
Abstract
The draft aims to provide technical details of [CVE-2026-33697], [EUVD-2026-16488], [CVE-2026-92701], [EUVD-2026-83194], [CVE-2026-92702], [EUVD-2026-83192] and several GitHub Security Advisories (GHSAs) which provide substantial technical evidence of how early attestation fails in practice, even without physical access to the desired machine. Moreover, since continuous attestation is generally required [CSA-eBPF] [MITRE-Continuous-Attestation], early attestation adds unnecessary complexity. The results are backed by the research [Intra-handshake.fail], [TLS-RA], [EarlyAttestationBleed] and the artifacts [Intra-handshake.fail-repo] in state-of-the-art formal analysis tool, ProVerif, under Apache-2.0 license for reproducibility, extensibility, and review, and have been acknowledged by the relevant stakeholders. Currently, there are two CVEs of CVSS 9.1, one CVE of CVSS 7.5, one GHSA of 9.0-10.0, one GHSA of CVSS 7.8, seven GHSAs of CVSS 7.4, and one GHSA of CVSS 6.3 published against the broader early attestation covering all layers of the ecosystem up to the application. The research papers on these are currently either under submission or being prepared for submission. The artifacts of these papers will be shared with the community under Apache-2.0 license for reproducibility, extensibility, and review. Based on our work, all except two implementations of early attestation have been archived, withdrawn, or moved to post-handshake attestation. In our analysis [Intra-handshake.fail-repo], the remaining two implementations of early attestation -- Edgeless Systems Contrast and Meta's AI -- remain vulnerable. We recommend users to carefully evaluate their systems.¶
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.¶
The latest revision of this draft can be found at https://muhammad-usama-sardar.github.io/intra-handshake-fail/draft-intra-handshake-fail.html. Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-intra-handshake-fail/.¶
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/muhammad-usama-sardar/intra-handshake-fail.¶
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 https://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 5 April 2027.¶
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶
1. Introduction
We first present the executive summary of published GHSAs/CVEs against early attestation and then an overview of the research works that led to those discoveries.¶
1.1. Executive Summary of Current Status
The table below presents the current status of published GHSAs and CVEs against implementations of early attestation with confirmed scores. Severity is based on NIST standard metrics, where 10.0 is the highest possible vulnerability score. For TLS reference, Heartbleed was CVSS 7.5. Scores of 13 more published GHSAs is yet to be confirmed and will be added later in this table.¶
| CVSS | Severity | Number of Published GHSAs | Number of Published CVEs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9.0-10.0 | Critical | 1 | - |
| 9.8 | Critical | 1 | - |
| 9.1 | Critical | 8 | 3 |
| 8.2 | High | 1 | - |
| 7.8 | High | 2 | - |
| 7.7 | High | 2 | - |
| 7.5 | High | 3 | 1 |
| 7.4 | High | 4 | - |
| 6.5 | Medium | 1 | - |
| 6.3 | Medium | 3 | - |
| 5.3 | Medium | 1 | - |
| 4.4 | Medium | 1 | - |
| 4.2 | Medium | 1 | - |
| 3.7 | Low | 1 | - |
1.2. Intra-handshake.fail
[Intra-handshake.fail] presents a general approach to analyze the intra-handshake (aka early) attestation proposals, regardless of whether they are within the scope of SEAT charter or not. From a security perspective, one of the key decision factors is the candidate binding mechanism. Some binding mechanisms are within scope of SEAT charter and others are not. The artifacts are available in [Intra-handshake.fail-repo] under Apache-2.0 license for reproducibility, extensibility, and further research.¶
-
This work resulted in [CVE-2026-33697] of CVSS 7.5.¶
1.3. ID-Crisis
A complementary paper [ID-Crisis] presents the identity crisis in pre- and intra-handshake attestation. The formal analysis is available in [ID-Crisis-repo] under Apache-2.0 license for reproducibility, extensibility, and extensibility.¶
1.4. EarlyAttestationBleed
[EarlyAttestationBleed] presents a formal analysis together with regression tests of the broader attestation ecosystem and discovered three critical-severity vulnerabilities in implementations of early attestation:¶
-
Ultraviolet Cocos AI in TDX path resulting in [CVE-2026-92701] of CVSS 9.1¶
-
Ultraviolet Cocos AI in SEV-SNP path resulting in [CVE-2026-92702] of CVSS 9.1¶
-
Edgeless Systems Contrast in policies resulting in [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems2] of CVSS 9.0-10.0¶
2. Published GHSAs/CVEs
The vulnerabilities cover the broader ecosystem, including but not limited to attestation, authentication, authorization, key storage, parsing and resource handling inside the runtime. Any vulnerability in the whole system, and not just attestation, breaks security of the overall system. The key take away is that early attestation adds unnecessary complexity to an already complex system.¶
| GHSA/CVE | CVSS | Finders |
|---|---|---|
| [GHSA-Cocos-AI] | 7.8 | Muhammad Usama Sardar, Viacheslav Dubeyko, and Jean-Marie Jacquet |
| [CVE-2026-33697] | 7.5 | Muhammad Usama Sardar, Viacheslav Dubeyko, and Jean-Marie Jacquet |
| [EUVD-2026-16488] | 7.5 | Muhammad Usama Sardar, Viacheslav Dubeyko, and Jean-Marie Jacquet |
| [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems] | 7.4 | Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [GHSA-Cocos-AI2] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar and Songbo Bu |
| [GHSA-Cocos-AI3] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar and Songbo Bu |
| [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems2] | 9.0-10.0 | Markus Rudy; independently by Songbo Bu and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [GHSA-Privasys-rustls] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar, Viacheslav Dubeyko, Jean-Marie Jacquet, and Songbo Bu |
| [GHSA-Privasys-go] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar, Viacheslav Dubeyko, Jean-Marie Jacquet, and Songbo Bu |
| [GHSA-Privasys-eov] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar, Viacheslav Dubeyko, Jean-Marie Jacquet, and Songbo Bu |
| [GHSA-Privasys-eom] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar, Viacheslav Dubeyko, Jean-Marie Jacquet, and Songbo Bu |
| [GHSA-Privasys-rtc] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar, Viacheslav Dubeyko, Jean-Marie Jacquet, and Songbo Bu |
| [GHSA-Privasys-rtc-da] | 7.4 | Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [GHSA-Privasys-rtc-tcu] | 6.3 | Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [CVE-2026-92701] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar and Songbo Bu |
| [CVE-2026-92702] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar and Songbo Bu |
| [EUVD-2026-83194] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar and Songbo Bu |
| [EUVD-2026-83192] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar and Songbo Bu |
| GHSA-322v-xwfj-63cm | 9.8 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-m9p9-3hxp-4j6j | 9.1 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-ppc4-fg56-x397 | 6.5 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-6j47-3cm6-9cg6 | 8.2 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-4755-rh6c-694j | 7.4 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-6f8q-88mv-c8vr | 6.3 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-qqq3-6c47-684v | 7.5 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-xxr6-w252-4ggx | 7.5 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-fmrx-fjqw-37gp | 7.7 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-f96w-jjf8-xpw3 | 5.3 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-fqrx-3wc2-4g49 | 4.4 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-mrgr-34cc-fcg8 | 3.7 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| GHSA-wqf9-jfmm-f68v | 4.2 | Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems3] | 7.7 | Sebastian Jylanki |
| [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems4] | 7.8 | Chengxin Huang, Songbo Bu, and Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [GHSA-Cocos-AI4] | 7.4 | Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [GHSA-Cocos-AI5] | 6.3 | Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [CVE-2026-100835] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar |
| [EUVD-2026-87851] | 9.1 | Muhammad Usama Sardar |
3. Intra-handshake.fail
3.1. Overview
[Intra-handshake.fail] presents the formal specification and analysis of the candidate binding mechanisms for binding in intra-handshake attestation for standardization for attested TLS protocols:¶
| No. | Binding mechanism | Used in | Artifacts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Client’s TLS nonce | - | binder1 |
| 2. | Client’s attestation nonce | - | binder2 |
| 3. | Early exporter | - | binder3 |
| 4. | Server’s public key | - | binder4 |
| 5. | Combination of #2 and #3 | - | binder5 |
| 6. | Combination of #2 and #4 | Edgeless Systems Contrast; Cocos AI v0.8.2; CCC Attestation SIG's adopted project intra-handshake attestation; Meta's AI updated spec | binder6 |
| 7. | Combination of #2, #3, and #4 | [I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-06] | binder7 |
We provide a formal proof of insecurity of all the above candidate binding mechanisms of intra-handshake attestation using the state-of-the-art tool ProVerif and propose a mitigation for the discovered security vulnerabilities. Our study reveals that it may not be possible to achieve strong application-traffic (level 3) binding using intra-handshake attestation alone. This can be exploited for relay attacks, where an attacker makes a client accept an evidence from a different machine. So the client cannot be sure that it connects to its desired server.¶
We responsibly disclosed the vulnerability in intra-handshake attestation -- as noted in [GHSA-Cocos-AI] issued -- to the vendors, which resulted in [CVE-2026-33697] of CVSS 7.5.¶
3.2. Modeling Other Binding Mechanisms
The artifacts are quite flexible for modification and testing of different intra-handshake attestation binding mechanisms by simply changing single rdata parameter in the Client and Server processes. Folder aggregate contains all analyzed and proposed binding mechanisms in [Intra-handshake.fail] to select via comment and uncomment. Other folders contain one specific binding mechanism.¶
3.3. SEAT-Early-Attestation
The draft [I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation] is an extension of the provably vulnerable (and withdrawn) draft [I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-10] with the following two main changes from a formal perspective:¶
-
Binder has been updated¶
-
Optional post-handshake attestation part has been added for re-attestation¶
The current binder in [I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation] does not prevent relay attacks as there is no shared secret in the binder. In addition to the formal analysis in [Intra-handshake.fail], see [TLS-RA] for arguments why shared secret is necessary to prevent relay attacks.¶
Post-handshake attestation part may prevent relay attacks, but then the additional complexity of intra-handshake attestation is unjustified.¶
4. Threat Model
The threat model is explained in Sec. 6.1 of [Intra-handshake.fail] and Sec. 4 of [ID-Crisis].¶
Beyond post-generation leakage of privEK considered in [Intra-handshake.fail], the same adversary capability may arise from failures during key generation or entropy provisioning. Platform-attestation keys and workload-controlled TLS keys belong to distinct key-generation domains: for example, in AMD SEV-SNP the VCEK is derived by SNP firmware from chip-unique secrets and a TCB version, while several other platform secrets are specified as CSRNG-generated; by contrast, privEK and TLS (EC)DHE private values are typically generated by software executing inside the confidential VM using the guest OS or cryptographic-library random subsystem. Furthermore, SEV-SNP REPORT_DATA is supplied by the guest and incorporated into the signed attestation report without being interpreted by SNP firmware; consequently, valid Evidence can authenticate a binding value without attesting the entropy provenance, generation procedure, or exclusive possession of the corresponding private key. The LEK(privEK) capability should therefore also encompass predictable or repeated key generation caused by deficient entropy, cloned or rolled-back DRBG state, defective software or firmware, or malicious provisioning. CVE-2025-62626 provides a concrete manufacturer-layer fault model: affected AMD Zen 5 processors could return insufficiently random values from certain RDSEED forms while incorrectly signaling success. This does not establish compromise of the AMD-SP-internal CSRNG or of a specific attested-TLS implementation, but demonstrates that ideal-randomness assumptions can fail below the protocol layer; software dependencies such as OpenSSL's --with-rand-seed=rdcpu (OpenSSL 3.5.0 INSTALL.md), which can use RDSEED or RDRAND as CSPRNG seed input, illustrate a possible propagation path from hardware entropy interfaces to workload TLS key generation.¶
4.1. Low-Level Mapping of the System Model
Figure 2 of [Intra-handshake.fail] provides a TEE-agnostic protocol-level abstraction. For a low-level view, the following table maps the abstract components to representative Intel TDX and AMD SEV-SNP implementations.¶
| Fig. 2 element | Intel TDX | AMD SEV-SNP |
|---|---|---|
| Physical Machine | TDX-capable Intel platform | SEV-SNP-capable AMD platform |
| CC Platform | CPU HW + TDX Module + attestation infrastructure | CPU HW + AMD-SP/SNP (system) firmware + RMP/SEV machinery |
| Quoting Agent | TD QE | AMD-SP / SNP attestation (VM) firmware |
| Confidential VM | Trust Domain (TD) | Part of SNP confidential VM |
| Network stack | Part of guest OS + TLS library inside TD | Part of guest OS + TLS library inside SNP guest |
| HSM/TPM | Secure element | Secure element |
privAK
|
Attestation key of TD Quoting Enclave | VCEK/VLEK signing key |
privEK
|
Workload/TLS-side ephemeral key | Workload/TLS-side ephemeral key |
privLTK
|
Long-term key in secure element | Long-term key in secure element |
The key material shown in the abstract model belongs to different implementation and trust domains. The following table provides a corresponding low-level view.¶
| Component/key | Runs/lives where? | Type | Randomness/key source |
|---|---|---|---|
| TLS ECDHE | Inside network stack | Network stack | OS/library CSPRNG |
privEK
|
Inside confidential VM | Guest software | OS/library CSPRNG |
| AK | Quoting Agent | Firmware/enclave/platform key hierarchy | Platform-specific |
| Memory-encryption key | CC Platform | Hardware/firmware managed | Platform RNG/KDF |
REPORT_DATA
|
Created by Guest Software | Data binding | No independent entropy requirement |
Per-VM memory-encryption key is used to encrypt confidential VM's RAM.¶
5. Detailed Vulnerability Disclosure Timeline and Public Acknowledgements by Affected Vendors
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Our initial responsible disclosure to vendor | 07 Oct, 2025 |
| Acknowledgement by vendor | 14 Dec, 2025 |
| Information to the IETF | 11 Jan, 2026 |
| Public announcement by vendor | 27 Feb, 2026 |
| Cocos AI published [GHSA-Cocos-AI] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.8)] | 23 March, 2026 |
| CVE [CVE-2026-33697] published [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.5)] | 26 March, 2026 |
| ENISA published EUVD [EUVD-2026-16488] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.5)] | 26 March, 2026 |
| Acknowledgment by Privasys for rustls [CVE-2026-33697] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.5)] | 9 July, 2026 |
| Acknowledgment by Privasys for go [CVE-2026-33697] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.5)] | 10 July, 2026 |
| CCC implementation declared vulnerable to relay attacks | 17 July, 2026 |
| Vulnerable CCC implementation repo archived | 22 July, 2026 |
| Vulnerable draft [I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-10] withdrawn by authors | 23 July, 2026 |
| Edgeless Systems published [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)] | 29 July, 2026 |
| Cocos AI published [GHSA-Cocos-AI2] [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)] | 16 August, 2026 |
| Cocos AI published [GHSA-Cocos-AI3] [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)] | 16 August, 2026 |
| Edgeless Systems published [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems2] [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.0-10.0)] | 24 August, 2026 |
| [I-D.ritz-seat-facts] archived | 2 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published [GHSA-Privasys-rustls] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)] | 3 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published [GHSA-Privasys-go] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)] | 3 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published [GHSA-Privasys-eov] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)] | 3 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published [GHSA-Privasys-eom] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)] | 3 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published [GHSA-Privasys-rtc] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)] | 3 September, 2026 |
| Privasys archived early attestation in rustls and moved to post-handshake attestation | 4 September, 2026 |
| Privasys archived early attestation in go and moved to post-handshake attestation | 4 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published [GHSA-Privasys-rtc-da] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)] | 6 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published [GHSA-Privasys-rtc-tcu] [Severity = MEDIUM (CVSS 6.3)] | 6 September, 2026 |
| CVE [CVE-2026-92701] published [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)] | 18 September, 2026 |
| CVE [CVE-2026-92702] published [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)] | 18 September, 2026 |
| ENISA published EUVD [EUVD-2026-83194] [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)] | 18 September, 2026 |
| ENISA published EUVD [EUVD-2026-83192] [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)] | 18 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-322v-xwfj-63cm | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-m9p9-3hxp-4j6j | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-ppc4-fg56-x397 | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-6j47-3cm6-9cg6 | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-4755-rh6c-694j | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-6f8q-88mv-c8vr | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-qqq3-6c47-684v | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-xxr6-w252-4ggx | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-fmrx-fjqw-37gp | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-f96w-jjf8-xpw3 | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-fqrx-3wc2-4g49 | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-mrgr-34cc-fcg8 | 19 September, 2026 |
| Privasys published GHSA-wqf9-jfmm-f68v | 19 September, 2026 |
| Edgeless Systems published [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems3] | 24 September, 2026 |
| Edgeless Systems published [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems4] | 24 September, 2026 |
| Cocos AI published [GHSA-Cocos-AI4] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)] | 25 September, 2026 |
| Cocos AI published [GHSA-Cocos-AI5] [Severity = MODERATE (CVSS 6.3)] | 25 September, 2026 |
| CVE [CVE-2026-100835] published [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)] | 27 September, 2026 |
| ENISA published EUVD [EUVD-2026-87851] [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)] | 27 September, 2026 |
Neither the GHSAs nor the CVEs have any dependency whatsoever on the considered threat model with WeakHash, WeakDH, or BadElement. They hold independent of those, i.e., with StrongHash and StrongDH and all good elements within a group.¶
6. EU ENISA
European Union's ENISA has independently published [EUVD-2026-16488] with CVSS 7.5 to acknowledge this vulnerability.¶
7. Comparison with Other Vulnerabilities in Confidential Computing Literature
Severity is based on NIST metrics.¶
| Vulnerability | CVE | CVSS | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| wiretap.fail | No CVE (Intel and AMD announcements) | - | None |
| TEE.fail | No CVE | - | None |
| DDRop | No CVE (Intel and AMD announcements) | - | None |
| TDXdown | Intel | 2.5 | Low |
| Staleus | CVE-2025-54509 | 4.0 | Medium |
| BreakFAST | CVE-2025-61972 | 4.2 | Medium |
| BadRAM | CVE-2024-21944 | 5.3 | Medium |
| BreakFAST | CVE-2025-61971 | 5.9 | Medium |
| Fabricked | CVE-2025-54510 | 5.9 | Medium |
| Intra-handshake.fail | [CVE-2026-33697] | 7.5 | High |
| [EarlyAttestationBleed] | [CVE-2026-92701] | 9.1 | Critical |
| [EarlyAttestationBleed] | [CVE-2026-92702] | 9.1 | Critical |
| [EarlyAttestationBleed] | [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems2] | 9.0-10.0 | Critical |
The comparison of the above with CVSS up to 10.0 for early attestation indicates that it is not mature yet compared to the rest of the confidential computing stack, and is currently one of the weakest links in the ecosystem.¶
8. More CVEs
Further formal analysis has led to the following potential CVEs for intra-handshake (aka early) attestation (currently under review and disclosure):¶
| CVSS | Severity | Number of CVEs |
|---|---|---|
| 9.0-10.0 | Critical | 1 (confirmed by developers) |
| 9.8 | Critical | 1 |
| 8.7 | High | 1 |
| 7.8 | High | 1 (confirmed by developers) |
| 7.5 | High | 5 |
| 7.4 | High | 9 (5 confirmed by developers) |
| 6.3 | Medium | 7 |
These are preliminary estimates of scores, not final assigned score. They are still under review.¶
9. Vulnerable Implementations
As demonstrated in [Intra-handshake.fail] and [Intra-handshake.fail-repo], at least the following intra-handshake implementations are vulnerable:¶
-
Meta's AI: [CVE-2026-33697] and [EUVD-2026-16488] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.5)]¶
-
Edgeless Systems Contrast: [CVE-2026-100835] [Severity = CRITICAL (CVSS 9.1)]¶
If you are aware of any other intra-handshake attestation implementation, please let us know so that we can check and responsibly disclose the vulnerabilities to them.¶
9.1. Archived/Mitigated Implementations
The following intra-handshake implementations were vulnerable and have been archived or moved to post-handshake attestation:¶
-
CCC Attestation SIG's adopted project intra-handshake attestation: declared vulnerable to relay attacks and archived¶
-
Cocos AI <= v0.8.2: [GHSA-Cocos-AI] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.8)], [CVE-2026-33697] and [EUVD-2026-16488] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.5)]; migrated to post-handshake attestation since v0.9.0¶
-
Privasys rustls <= privasys-v0.2.0: [GHSA-Privasys-rustls] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)], archived and Privasys migrated to post-handshake attestation¶
-
Privasys go <= privasys-v0.3.0-go1.26.5: [GHSA-Privasys-go] [Severity = HIGH (CVSS 7.4)], archived and Privasys migrated to post-handshake attestation¶
10. Vulnerable Protocol Specifications
At least the following protocol specifications with intra-handshake attestation path are vulnerable to [CVE-2026-33697] and [EUVD-2026-16488]:¶
-
[I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-09]: symbolic proof of insecurity; [I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-10] withdrawn after the CVE¶
-
[I-D.ritz-seat-facts]: symbolic proof of insecurity; draft archived¶
-
[I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation]: symbolic and (paper-and-pen-based) computational proof of insecurity (originally done for -04 and applies also to -06)¶
-
As a SEAT WG participant pointed out, please note that both [CVE-2026-33697] and [EUVD-2026-16488] contain a link to [GHSA-Cocos-AI] that contains a link to [SEAT-vulnerability-report] that contains the G3 property (cf. Section 12) that this draft does not satisfy.¶
-
Some WG participants successfully reproduced the vulnerability by substituting the right value of
rdatain the shared formal model [Intra-handshake.fail-repo] that led to the CVE.¶ -
An informal reasoning is that binder is not directly derived from any shared secret in this draft.¶
-
Unnecessary complexity is itself a security concern¶
-
11. Binding Levels
-
DH shared secret (
gxy) used as shared secret between client and server¶ -
Handshake traffic key (
htsc) used for encryption of handshake messages¶ -
Application traffic key (
atsc) used for encryption of application data¶
Please see Sec. 6.2 of [Intra-handshake.fail] for details.¶
12. Security Properties (Correlation Goals)
We consider TLS Server as RATS Attester, which is typical in confidential computing.¶
-
Correlation of Evidence to a DH Shared Secret (G1)¶
-
Correlation of Evidence to Client’s Handshake Traffic Key (G2)¶
-
Correlation of Evidence to Client’s Application Traffic Key (G3)¶
Please see Sec. 6.3 of [Intra-handshake.fail] for details.¶
13. Main Results
-
All analyzed binding mechanisms and the corresponding implementations of intra-handshake attestation are vulnerable to relay attacks.¶
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Early exporter helps achieve level 1 binding.¶
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Our proposed mechanism helps achieve level 2 binding.¶
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It may not be possible to achieve level 3 in intra-handshake attestation alone without additional assumptions.¶
| Property | Mechanism #1,2,4,6 | Mechanism #3,5,7 | Proposed mechanism |
|---|---|---|---|
G1 : Correlation of Evidence to gxy
|
❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
G2 : Correlation of Evidence to kch
|
❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
G3 : Correlation of Evidence to kc
|
❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Please see Sec. 7.1 and Figure 5 of [Intra-handshake.fail] for details of attacks.¶
13.1. Expected Results
| No. | Binding mechanism | Artifacts | Expected results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Client’s TLS nonce | binder1 | binder1 |
| 2. | Client’s attestation nonce | binder2 | binder2 |
| 3. | Early exporter | binder3 | binder3 |
| 4. | Server’s public key | binder4 | binder4 |
| 5. | Combination of #2 and #3 | binder5 | binder5 |
| 6. | Combination of #2 and #4 | binder6 | binder6 |
| 7. | Combination of #2, #3, and #4 | binder7 | binder7 |
| 8. | Proposed | proposal | proposal |
14. Implications of Findings
14.1. Implications of Findings for IETF SEAT WG
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We believe post-handshake attestation alone, such as draft-fossati-seat-expat, can achieve level 3 binding.¶
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The research suggests that recent hybrid proposals (combination of intra-handshake attestation and post-handshake attestation) [I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation] and [I-D.ritz-seat-facts] may add unnecessary complexity of intra-handshake attestation without adding any security benefit compared to post-handshake attestation alone, such as draft-fossati-seat-expat. We are not aware of any security property that hybrid proposals can achieve that post-handshake attestation alone cannot achieve.¶
-
As demonstrated by our symbolic analysis using ProVerif, the protocol specifications [I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation] and [I-D.ritz-seat-facts] remain vulnerable to CVE-2026-33697. We have also proved that [I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation-04] and [I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation] violate the security theorems in the computational model.¶
14.3. Implications of Findings for IETF TLS WG
-
[I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-09] is vulnerable to [CVE-2026-33697]. Thankfully, the authors have withdrawn [I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-10].¶
-
Remote attestation within the handshake is very dangerous, since to our knowledge, it is one of the highest scored published vulnerabilities in confidential computing literature (see Section 7). For reference, Heartbleed was 7.5 CVSS.¶
Given the high- and critical-severity vulnerabilities, we recommend that the developers and maintainers of intra-handshake attestation MUST urgently move to post-handshake attestation.¶
14.4. Implications of Findings for Agent2Agent
The findings of published CVEs/GHSAs up to 10.0 (presented in Section 2) show that intra-handshake attestation can introduce significant security risks for AI agents when relied upon as a security mechanism.¶
Attestation can provide evidence about an agent’s technical state, but such evidence should not be equated with governability. For a relying party, governability also depends on whether the agent’s identity, authority and permissions remain aligned with the intended interaction, whether responsibility for its actions can be attributed, and whether meaningful intervention remains possible. The findings in this draft reinforce that distinction by showing that even the binding between attestation evidence and the intended session can fail. Successful attestation should therefore be treated as one input into governance, rather than as sufficient evidence that an AI agent remains under effective control.¶
15. Technical Details
15.1. Tool
We use state-of-the-art symbolic security analysis tool ProVerif for the specification of the protocols.¶
15.2. Modeling
The formal model uses the fixed version of diversion attacks in intra-handshake attestation from our previous work as the starting point to focus on relay attacks in intra-handshake attestation in this work. The rationale is that we consider it more useful to show the added value of this contribution to the community by using the fixed version of diversion attacks in intra-handshake attestation as the baseline, rather than showing the same diversion attacks from [ID-Crisis], and the discovered CVE ([CVE-2026-33697]) -- which the previous analysis could not find -- practically demonstrates the added value. This modeling choice makes it clear that even with the diversion attacks fixed, high-severity relay attacks would still remain in intra-handshake attestation.¶
Note: Similar to the fixed version of diversion attacks in intra-handshake attestation from our previous work, we model non-PSK-based handshake. From [ID-Crisis]:¶
-
For modeling TLS 1.3, we consider handshakes based on Diffie-Hellman over either finite fields or elliptic curves, represented as (EC)DHE. This is because we are unaware of any publicly available specification or implementation of attested TLS with PSK-based handshakes.¶
While it would be nice to model PSK-based handshake, the rationale is that the correlation properties studied in this work do not necessarily require it.¶
Note: The artifacts consider the case of server authentication only, as client authentication is optional in TLS 1.3. No claims are made about other configurations.¶
15.3. Properties
Properties in [Intra-handshake.fail] are complemetary to properties in [ID-Crisis]. Sec. 8 of [ID-Crisis] mentions:¶
-
We emphasize that both diversion and relay attacks are orthogonal and thus the two works are complementary.¶
15.4. Technical Vulnerability Report
Technical vulnerability report is available at [Intra-handshake.fail]. It is accepted for publication at ESORICS 2026.¶
15.4.1. Vulnerabilities
Sec. 7.1 of [Intra-handshake.fail] presents the technical details with abstract attack traces of the vulnerabilities.¶
15.4.2. Mitigation
Sec. 7.2 of [Intra-handshake.fail] presents the technical details of the proposed mitigation.¶
15.5. Artifacts
Artifacts are available at [Intra-handshake.fail-repo] under Apache-2.0 License.¶
16. Media Coverage
Several cybersecurity and media professionals and bloggers have covered the vulnerabilities to protect the community from the harm of early attestation.¶
If you have written an article on this and would like to be added here, please send us a PR at https://github.com/muhammad-usama-sardar/intra-handshake-fail or an email with the subject "Media coverage of CVE-2026-100835/EarlyAttestationBleed/Intra-handshake.fail."¶
16.2. EarlyAttestationBleed
-
(German) Cybersecurity news (CVE-2026-92701)¶
-
(German) Cybersecurity news (CVE-2026-92702)¶
-
(Chinese) Security 114¶
-
(Chinese) KK says security¶
-
(Chinese) Safe Meow Station¶
-
(Chinese) Digital World Information¶
-
(Chinese) Shusei Consulting¶
-
(Japanese) Rich & Wise with Socrates and Plato¶
-
GCVE's db.gcve.eu (CVE-2026-92701)¶
-
GCVE's db.gcve.eu (CVE-2026-92702)¶
16.3. Intra-handshake.fail
-
(Japanese) BlackHatNewsTokyo¶
-
(Several languages) Hackernoon¶
-
(Russian) Security Lab¶
-
(Persian) news.ditty¶
-
(Turkish) hardwaremania¶
16.3.1. Germany's BSI
Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) has attested to it. Carina Hilt, deputy press spokesperson at BSI, told The Register:¶
CC alone cannot satisfy the requirements for digital sovereignty.¶
dependencies on other services, such as identity and key management etc., are also not mitigated by CC.¶
CC refers to Confidential Computing, and attested TLS is the core trust mechanism of CC.¶
17. Reviews
17.1. Conference Reviews
[Intra-handshake.fail] has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication at ESORICS 2026.¶
17.2. IETF/IRTF
Several participants of the IETF/IRTF have attested to the results by independently reproducing the results and reviewing the code. Some of the participants have independently reproduced the results by developing their own formal models and a proof-of-concept implementation of the vulnerabilities. Some of the messages are mentioned below (excluding the messages of authors of [Intra-handshake.fail]):¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/B7F1Dj_rjs8I0Kg3yCp3Rap0XeE/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/aEV9dUFotAQzHndk23qBcwBT3as/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/3Hv0E1sfXsvyBtl6AgY8j-SHHiw/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/5LJ6i9svomnhpyPHWPejM7fMmXQ/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/V_YqGUY3fEwaFwwyfA9DshpHet0/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/JF_cwmHHEbrJ_W5V6yEetWWnii4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/P_CYTycg0KG7cbKauFA-kVgX2jo/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/ZJjJXpYwZ5nCVmz_W4FK6XiFEY4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/4so3LxHOOXHS1wnvhuoeWWgeCHk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/Q6Jmc58v0c1lDV3ujIY0AX_ofGA/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/n4Me5QPCvwhxcEJndWePyishcoo/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/beRzNNvwMifkRfJPfxecGoHpTDs/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cfrg/U5YHd91lYjiqCTt9BZyVDNFeUpM/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/aFCo4BMRDSUynvN9AQJatPjnXag/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/wb_Ys9MZd9u9oM2Bk-8tv7fvXGg/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/ov8f-7cZKK5RZ-Mmjc6IhVSB-Fk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/2uUuaD1DygjNDM4GT_-rYbwTiJk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/pB39abN1QrH4_ATM_E78vxPTuxk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/PxKCxMHe-SAiR9uhOOllrK4mUA4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/T1xupUBwqYEBSHCTXgSHXZtdqz8/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/hRw46FwgmVdi9fqZm2fjKbln_IA/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/UG7yE_klmRSxNy2HX6fzuFonDjM/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/2hpeIldeFfE6o9q6L9Vkt00ACKA/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/gc2ij0vboehS_-v10-SNslxaZC0/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/oO4mAfq5HJZptDDNrSnd7zDdX18/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/XuJc_yEJPCMIuYcv2OM7XDogRCU/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/nVHlnbFIEh-cPQeMuDVOqx5YvWQ/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/xVU3C7qUOngcip7B4ZO5MJUT9Xg/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/1gCcPw-7NopDRzzBzA3dFIgo3Rs/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/t8aobzB374lWiLzrVrORY7kGYyQ/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/m3UyB6XLQzxaucejE_o8Pn41uSI/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/gqHqcbbKva_oGE-jEDZu243gf-4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/QD8QB1WVL-toNovGQ2Tk6DmmeEM/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/vXN2pifZ5GXcC1xLwSfLCnUcFUE/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/MGFXinb85XSaLkqjBEhmBZC7PcI/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/js9VI4PB8yYmhg2ObaZB1a22fL4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/0RzORzX_VdlY5UQ_MWMmxZlnrjs/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/W3MH1BDSUbm1WUPxGQihaIc1zTk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/2_aGylmFHoLmqN7BBcYVoH-rNJk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/7SYSuB83Kmr9qCb1V1F94n9W33U/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/0SWfg2YNEAOtJQ7Zsf1xl4O-AOo/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/1mfNw-bw8KsdJbl4saL99Fz4iec/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/VyifG8zP5aworb_S1NR9FEUEXW0/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/CYwvM75z6rTId2A3ZZvZJmHxOig/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ufmrg/29xFZX5C4oSGkpZAvXT_7YLW2Vc/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/u1HxYW9cJfVpi3Cf9q06ehwpYGE/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/SG_A0016a-KMnXAkGtMUxokZmjc/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/3w7-OW2CAVr0-QBz97eAMxB_nMI/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/UnybcafvQ2D-IhUfTV228WQFNhA/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/rmVNeFbjax26l31n5pitHIxOQkk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/DghJdG3ysbPFKMQe8czz-tcIMq0/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/rZLacid2wnEtaJwSbiIIft3T0FI/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/_kEBODNsTWjgadb5xnlj86dvhcs/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/qP3XC0MarFFA3SMbBpWWJtxACNA/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/kkjQhi4yvJ_iAwYrPw1crFh-m-0/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/vBkdKtKzTt4F91VprfKIndgmT2o/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/Huu_AFu11BTrdxK3I8hmw2jjp8Q/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/oOnioxkB__QZIvhFn5naW6jIXzg/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/iWsCCAl8YZ-pOTA7siNUGsfliHQ/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/-HGPUR5CvuVWcOAg37cSxwoATm0/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/LnLYE7bGQOmCxVXq6stiOtKwc1s/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/o_bIJhOdB4j1g0nczxPZwFXtCo8/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/hy4qVQJQGR82-bskQ_UGI6iel1Y/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/3J3s_YFnf9IQ87Tv2c1q4f36xKQ/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/JWKMYY1YG1E2iS_HyQ4rDmOsDGw/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/rK1nDSewAbVL_weOp98knYZcg6s/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/Wjuz0fIj8tjYocUmiZZXcSwwFHw/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/SYiV4KZNr20re6QkGmyWS3pPteA/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/ZYgxm1ibt6p4dL7xF1YNdl0XSpc/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/6LKgOp22YRxGTYb-i-BxiMGzMW4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/3oHcKPtXLfBUYCZoN1nnO6e1F-s/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/aSybH9ihnNjN7SjdhhY_XtxhMtc/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/d_G8r7LMGjA45BPexZwsfmmAtJY/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/u-za86_YJ0spwBXBwTVQzwiOCrU/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/P4IMdvCx8lSEKrCiJIjbpBCRr4g/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/-AO9yFJoflV1wDwwch45dmqkmyo/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/H0LqHfBasQml69Y-9Zl_njfsE8s/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/3hOGlYyc_yntmvT0tjYxldlwaxM/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/JbwL9cdl6fiP0vBGgASUUDmaPy8/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/TtewHbMGKBQOKD2sqrgTrnpCOkI/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/UsIj6o7wf4hX_uCL51TCTv-wFxU/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/a6c8D6PBDRe0x4DAqXM3t4EPc4c/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/prB537Jht2kELVCSrTRktjbp7Y4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/RPnKYfUCD_MRw3hnA00zg684yGM/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/nMH_0sLLU5MekoEnzWKJnIJmaSk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/GJCA31mgAehlgFPRu_yHA10lKPI/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/9f-21JMK6s1Pdcob6mPo06rNwmQ/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/8qq_GFT391IEbGZZQUtYMONX9U0/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/xzu2UlClYMkG8gNSOClxGJgwnOI/¶
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Exploit: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/MfxWpRtlTqPElX8vX4v8uiN65TU/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/PkU0jW_xHAF18rZmtZJ2A2p_wHs/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/jZmdYKQlfherbhowIEmZRw2HF1c/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/-0j6UpsD_CebqPPMNkDJCjySqEI/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/ssDrZRFW4s6CSaYeA9ImH0PPQ10/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/OPBI_Wd-RoTzzdh5D0JZoWlNGI8/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/nfrdr1T9Pdp6D_kj2Et3XZk-hOY/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/gMMvtP1IXsXFfb0X5nMhRTaLLok/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/yaGG4sVf4pCfJ0HNPPRv3Xg0cG8/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/DaA1jDQNF-bdO5x-dkVbSzlHcD4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/ptkHZUDzSoYnD6R5zln6HcE1cv4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/n1-mBLW1m4TKiGsQqOhOIkbNxVs/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/mBHcB8YRR0HVcyihhjm11XqRhWE/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/zY3vdP_TZKZIdK_kpcrwWQuYf8s/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/QcXGunfoT1OKrBI_FRsgpNsXvn4/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/FSh0tTa7h1NcaeVZENqz6wg45C8/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/5uos1xo5lkLisK-9RGJWLJaAnmk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/2Vyb3hcqRoJF4tLkJOxs2CueNuw/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/9mDNq-Fv3-9726qe_te0nfYKMaM/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/KwtGScLIYvUCW2A0HxAS5s9XMMo/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/SpLBEi5_nMr51gSng5oqS1uTlxU/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/b2laJbuyFQQr6Q1nUCbpKa_PNz8/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/V-3QA8_dX1A5mdKxoVy-1z_8RlA/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/vjIo3JCMjHglRNaSSHNOqjKgDxs/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/pE1j3aP-qvaUgT-Q88JextCIlcc/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/uojEp8S21Ftf2osLCJNoR8xPzKA/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/xP6PxDJhAH9bnefUjlKc0f96ak8/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/krTrXMiNIPyYzVDvlXlJB0UvaSk/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/5dHBv3DyUy4Fprh71i90x6pHPCY/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/HErXLOWPTDmOK6RMVO8J0lEGCyU/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/QqstD1bsKrZrfQ_VQU-Z9KhYnxM/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/Oh4lBsX5wtnqPJM1cPOkt1mPOAQ/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/dMAZ-uAbZIlUxiDbO_0ZBVh4q90/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/FRdzVOJ5OBs4M1yuFk_ntxYl1yI/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/qr4w7FinCkG1qt27aCCjJKruP5E/¶
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https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ufmrg/mf_CtbtSDHPz3uMHRXele2vwYr8/¶
17.2.1. Main Questions
In short, five main questions have been raised by WG participants in support of our work:¶
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What security property hybrid (intra- + post-handshake attestation) provides that post-handshake attestation alone cannot provide?¶
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Since continuous attestation is required in most use cases [CSA-eBPF] [MITRE-Continuous-Attestation], how is additional complexity of intra-handshake attestation justified? Use cases with one-time attestation can be covered by doing attestation round immediately after Connection Establishment Time: see reference.¶
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What is the benefit of doing signatures of remote attestation within the handshake (as this latency can be exploited)? We add that verification of signatures is also time consuming, which can be exploited too. See reference.¶
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How evidence is bound to the secure channel without involving any shared secret? See [TLS-RA].¶
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How does a verifying relying party get the legitimate PIIDs and CHIP_IDs?¶
17.2.2. Guidance Text
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Evidence MUST be bound to the secure channel. Failure to do so results in relay attacks [CVE-2026-33697], [EUVD-2026-16488], [GHSA-Cocos-AI].¶
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Verifier MUST have access to legitimate hardware identifiers of the Attester. Failure to do so results in relay attacks [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems].¶
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Verifier MUST carefully check the binding. Failure to do so results in relay attacks [GHSA-Cocos-AI2], [GHSA-Cocos-AI3].¶
-
Binder MUST contain shared secrets. Failure to do so results in relay attacks [GHSA-Privasys-rustls], [GHSA-Privasys-go], [GHSA-Privasys-eov], [GHSA-Privasys-eom], [GHSA-Privasys-rtc], [GHSA-Privasys-rtc-da], [GHSA-Privasys-rtc-tcu].¶
17.3. Researchers outside of IETF/IRTF
Some researchers have approached us confirming the proof-of-concept of the vulnerabilities in intra-handshake attestation. More information will be added once their pre-prints/papers are public.¶
18. Security Considerations
All of this document is about the insecurity of intra-handshake (aka early) attestation.¶
By no means should the vendors mentioned in this draft be considered less secure than any other vendors implementing intra-handshake attestation solutions. In particular, those who have closed-source implementations are most likely more vulnerable than the open-source ones, since the former cannot easily be reviewed by the security community. Even extensive security reviews -- of closed-source implementations -- by cybersecurity firms often do not perform formal analysis, and thus such reviews may miss corner cases and subtle vulnerabilities.¶
19. Ethical Considerations
We (i.e., the super set of all authors involved in this research, including but not limited to Muhammad Usama Sardar, Mariam Moustafa, Tuomas Aura, Viacheslav Dubeyko, Jean-Marie Jacquet, Songbo Bu, Chengxin Huang, Haowen Song, Kaya Ercihan, Dr. Kubilay Ahmet Küçük, Sylvain Bellemare, Eva C. M. Willems, Justin DESSENNES SAINTEN, Massimiliano Brighindi, Mikerah Quintyne-Collins, and Iman Schrock) are ethical researchers aiming to protect the community from the potential harm caused by the exploitability of the vulnerabilities in early attestation. We have responsibly disclosed the vulnerabilities to the respective developers and maintainers following their respective disclosure processes and provided them our proposed mitigations and requested them to take rapid action.¶
We have released only the formal analysis for published CVE-2026-33697. To minimize exploit in the wild, we have not publicly released the proof-of-concept exploit code.¶
We have not retrieved any real data from any real system. We have not released any key to any public forum or to any person.¶
20. Contributions
Contributions to the draft are welcome at https://github.com/muhammad-usama-sardar/intra-handshake-fail.¶
Wenn Sie nur Deutsch sprechen, können Sie sich gerne per E-Mail an den Erstautor wenden. Wir haben Mitglieder, die Ihnen bei der Übersetzung Ihres Beitrags helfen können.¶
如果您只会说中文,非常欢迎您通过电子邮件联系第四位作者。我们有成员可以协助翻译您的投稿。¶
21. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.¶
22. References
22.1. Normative References
- [CSA-eBPF]
- Cloud Security Alliance, "MITRE's New Framework: Securing the eBPF Layer Your AI Depends On", , <https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/blog/2026/09/09/mitre-s-new-framework-securing-the-ebpf-layer-your-ai-depends-on>.
- [CVE-2026-33697]
- CVE, "CoCoS attested TLS is vulnerable to relay attacks via extracted ephemeral TLS keys", , <https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-33697>.
- [CVE-2026-92701]
- CVE, "Cocos AI Intra-handshake attested TLS implementation is vulnerable to session-misbinding attacks for Intel TDX verifier path", , <https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-92701>.
- [CVE-2026-92702]
- CVE, "Cocos AI Intra-handshake attested TLS implementation can accept Evidence with nil, empty, or omitted reportData in the AMD SEV-SNP path", , <https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-92702>.
- [CVE-2026-100835]
- CVE, "Contrast before 1.16.0 Remote Attestation Relay Attack", , <https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-100835>.
- [EarlyAttestationBleed]
- Sardar, M. U. and Songbo Bu, "EarlyAttestationBleed: Three Critical-severity Vulnerabilities of CVSS ≥ 9.0 in Confidential Computing", , <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/414529199_EarlyAttestationBleed_Three_Critical-severity_Vulnerabilities_of_CVSS_90_in_Confidential_Computing>.
- [EUVD-2026-16488]
- ENISA, "CoCoS attested TLS is vulnerable to relay attacks via extracted ephemeral TLS keys", , <https://euvd.enisa.europa.eu/enisa/EUVD-2026-16488>.
- [EUVD-2026-83192]
- ENISA, "EUVD-2026-83192", , <https://euvd.enisa.europa.eu/enisa/EUVD-2026-83192>.
- [EUVD-2026-83194]
- ENISA, "EUVD-2026-83194", , <https://euvd.enisa.europa.eu/enisa/EUVD-2026-83194>.
- [EUVD-2026-87851]
- ENISA, "EUVD-2026-87851", , <https://euvd.enisa.europa.eu/enisa/EUVD-2026-87851>.
- [GHSA-Cocos-AI]
- Ultraviolet Cocos AI, "CoCoS attested TLS is vulnerable to relay attacks via extracted ephemeral TLS keys", , <https://github.com/ultravioletrs/cocos/security/advisories/GHSA-vfgg-mvxx-mgg7>.
- [GHSA-Cocos-AI2]
- Ultraviolet Cocos AI, "Cocos AI intra-handshake attested TLS implementation is vulnerable to session-misbinding attacks for Intel TDX verifier path", , <https://github.com/ultravioletrs/cocos/security/advisories/GHSA-4px3-wj2x-xx47>.
- [GHSA-Cocos-AI3]
- Ultraviolet Cocos AI, "Cocos AI intra-handshake attested TLS implementation can accept Evidence with nil, empty, or omitted reportData in the AMD SEV-SNP path", , <https://github.com/ultravioletrs/cocos/security/advisories/GHSA-4r6g-mp48-j2rw>.
- [GHSA-Cocos-AI4]
- Ultraviolet Cocos AI, "Cocos Intra-handshake attested TLS implementation is vulnerable to Diversion Attacks", , <https://github.com/ultravioletrs/cocos/security/advisories/GHSA-v5m8-5wxc-vjgp>.
- [GHSA-Cocos-AI5]
- Ultraviolet Cocos AI, "Cocos AI Intra-handshake attested TLS implementation is vulnerable to TOCTOU Attacks", , <https://github.com/ultravioletrs/cocos/security/advisories/GHSA-ghwv-vrp2-2975>.
- [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems]
- Edgeless Systems, "Remote attestation is susceptible to relay attacks", , <https://github.com/edgelesssys/contrast/security/advisories/GHSA-hjgc-jc5v-fw7h>.
- [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems2]
- Edgeless Systems, "Generated policies don't detect all image substitutions", , <https://github.com/edgelesssys/contrast/security/advisories/GHSA-m2qg-wrxv-h898>.
- [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems3]
- Edgeless Systems, "Existing Mesh CA key can cross manifest boundaries during Contrast peer recovery", , <https://github.com/edgelesssys/contrast/security/advisories/GHSA-rxcv-p3px-m3c3>.
- [GHSA-Edgeless-Systems4]
- Edgeless Systems, "Node installer leaves the host containerd configuration world-writable (0666), allowing local privilege escalation", , <https://github.com/edgelesssys/contrast/security/advisories/GHSA-376m-h37w-4rvq>.
- [GHSA-Privasys-eom]
- Privasys, "enclave-os-mini: RA-TLS challenge certificates were not bound to the TLS session", , <https://github.com/Privasys/enclave-os-mini/security/advisories/GHSA-49qm-4pj3-w2c6>.
- [GHSA-Privasys-eov]
- Privasys, "enclave-os-virtual: RA-TLS challenge certificates were not bound to the TLS session", , <https://github.com/Privasys/enclave-os-virtual/security/advisories/GHSA-p5fp-g94g-g9m9>.
- [GHSA-Privasys-go]
- Privasys, "Privasys Go fork: RA-TLS challenge mode did not bind attestation evidence to the TLS session", , <https://github.com/Privasys/go/security/advisories/GHSA-7jfw-53rm-phh2>.
- [GHSA-Privasys-rtc]
- Privasys, "ra-tls-clients: RA-TLS challenge verifier accepted quotes not bound to the TLS session", , <https://github.com/Privasys/ra-tls-clients/security/advisories/GHSA-5qrc-v874-mxvx>.
- [GHSA-Privasys-rtc-da]
- Privasys, "Privasys Intra-handshake attested TLS implementation is vulnerable to Diversion Attacks", , <https://github.com/Privasys/ra-tls-clients/security/advisories/GHSA-pj2x-5wqv-fh57>.
- [GHSA-Privasys-rtc-tcu]
- Privasys, "Privasys Intra-handshake attested TLS implementation is vulnerable to TOCTOU Attacks", , <https://github.com/Privasys/ra-tls-clients/security/advisories/GHSA-gg8q-mfhh-wrrc>.
- [GHSA-Privasys-rustls]
- Privasys, "Privasys RA-TLS challenge mode did not bind attestation evidence to the TLS session", , <https://github.com/Privasys/rustls/security/advisories/GHSA-j6qv-435v-r492>.
- [ID-Crisis]
- Sardar, M., Moustafa, M., and T. Aura, "Identity Crisis in Confidential Computing: Formal Analysis of Attested TLS", ACM, Proceedings of the ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security pp. 547-560, DOI 10.1145/3779208.3785387, , <https://doi.org/10.1145/3779208.3785387>.
- [ID-Crisis-repo]
- Sardar, M. U., Moustafa, M., and T. Aura, "Identity Crisis in Confidential Computing: Formal Analysis of Attested TLS", , <https://github.com/CCC-Attestation/formal-spec-id-crisis>.
- [Intra-handshake.fail]
- Sardar, M. U., Dubeyko, V., and J.-M. Jacquet, "Intra-handshake.fail (CVE-2026-33697): High-severity CVE in Attested TLS", , <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/408219182_Intra-handshakefail_CVE-2026-33697_High-severity_CVE_in_Attested_TLS>.
- [Intra-handshake.fail-repo]
- Sardar, M. U., Dubeyko, V., and J.-M. Jacquet, "Intra-handshake.fail (CVE-2026-33697): High-severity CVE in Attested TLS", , <https://github.com/muhammad-usama-sardar/intra-handshake.fail>.
- [MITRE-Continuous-Attestation]
- MITRE's Confidential Computing Layered Attestation Working Group, "Framework for Continuous Remote Attestation", , <https://www.mitre.org/news-insights/publication/framework-continuous-remote-attestation>.
- [refTLS]
- Bhargavan, K., Blanchet, B., and N. Kobeissi, "Verified Models and Reference Implementations for the TLS 1.3 Standard Candidate", IEEE, 2017 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP) pp. 483-502, DOI 10.1109/sp.2017.26, , <https://doi.org/10.1109/sp.2017.26>.
- [SEAT-vulnerability-report]
- Sardar, M. U., "Relay Attacks in Intra-handshake Attestation for Confidential Agentic AI Systems", , <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/seat/x3eQxFjQFJLceae6l4_NgXnmsDY/>.
- [TLS-RA]
- Carsten Weinhold, Sardar, M. U., Ionuț Mihalcea, Yogesh Deshpande, Hannes Tschofenig, Yaron Sheffer, Thomas Fossati, and Michael Roitzsch, "Separate but together: integrating remote attestation into TLS", , <https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc25/presentation/weinhold>.
22.2. Informative References
- [I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation]
- Sheffer, Y., Mihalcea, I., Deshpande, Y., Fossati, T., and T. Reddy.K, "Using Attestation in Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-fossati-seat-early-attestation-07, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-fossati-seat-early-attestation-07>.
- [I-D.fossati-seat-early-attestation-04]
- Sheffer, Y., Mihalcea, I., Deshpande, Y., Fossati, T., and T. Reddy.K, "Using Attestation in Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-fossati-seat-early-attestation-04, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-fossati-seat-early-attestation-04>.
- [I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-06]
- Tschofenig, H., Sheffer, Y., Howard, P., Mihalcea, I., Deshpande, Y., Niemi, A., and T. Fossati, "Using Attestation in Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-fossati-tls-attestation-06, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-fossati-tls-attestation-06>.
- [I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-09]
- Tschofenig, H., Sheffer, Y., Howard, P., Mihalcea, I., Deshpande, Y., Niemi, A., and T. Fossati, "Using Attestation in Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-fossati-tls-attestation-09, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-fossati-tls-attestation-09>.
- [I-D.fossati-tls-attestation-10]
- Tschofenig, H., Sheffer, Y., Howard, P., Mihalcea, I., Deshpande, Y., Niemi, A., and T. Fossati, "Using Attestation in Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-fossati-tls-attestation-10, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-fossati-tls-attestation-10>.
- [I-D.ritz-seat-facts]
- Ritz, N., "Factor-based Attestation and Credential Transport Scheme (FACTS) over TLS 1.3", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ritz-seat-facts-00, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ritz-seat-facts-00>.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgment does not necessarily imply attestation. It implies that the authors found the feedback and discussion useful in improving the formal analysis, the corresponding paper, or this draft.¶
This draft benefits from several years of research on attested TLS, in particular some of the recent works mentioned below:¶
EarlyAttestationBleed [EarlyAttestationBleed]¶
We wish to express our sincere appreciation to the following for their review:¶
-
Sammy Kerata Oina¶
-
Drasko Draskovic¶
-
Markus Rudy¶
-
Kaya Ercihan¶
-
Jan Kahmen¶
-
Peg Jones¶
-
Bertrand Foing¶
-
Rebekah Overdorf¶
-
Tobias Pulls¶
Intra-handshake.fail [Intra-handshake.fail]¶
We gratefully acknowledge the following for insightful discussions and helpful reviews on [Intra-handshake.fail]:¶
-
Eric Rescorla¶
-
Juho Forsén¶
-
Markus Rudy¶
-
Mariam Moustafa¶
-
Bruno Blanchet¶
-
Steve Kremer¶
-
Tjaden Hess¶
-
Martin Thomson¶
-
Yuning Jiang¶
-
Pavel Nikonorov¶
-
Casey Wilson¶
-
Anonymous ESORICS 2026 reviewers¶
-
Marco Anisetti (ESORICS 2026 shepherd)¶
-
Danko Miladinovic¶
-
Rongkuan He¶
-
Peeter Laud¶
-
Stephen Holmes¶
-
Ammara Gul¶
-
Atul Prakash¶
-
Paul Syverson¶
-
Jan Tobias Muehlberg¶
-
John Preuß Mattsson¶
-
Britta Hale¶
-
Werner Staub¶
-
Songbo Bu¶
-
Haowen Song¶
-
Chengxin Huang¶
-
Steve Luo¶
-
Andrew Miller¶
-
Kubilay Ahmet Küçük¶
-
Iman Schrock¶
-
Sophie Schmieg¶
-
Davyd Okaianchenko¶
-
Alistair Woodman¶
-
Göran Selander¶
-
Tom Sato¶
-
Jakub Maria Plutowski¶
-
Martin Friedrich¶
-
Patrick Duggan¶
-
Serhii Nikolaichuk¶
-
Deb Cooley¶
We would like to thank our co-authors of paper [ID-Crisis] for their valuable contributions:¶
We also gratefully acknowledge the following for insightful discussions and helpful feedback:¶
-
Ionut Mihalcea¶
-
Jean-Marie Jacquet¶
-
Thomas Fossati¶
-
Eric Rescorla¶
-
Hannes Tschofenig¶
-
Yaron Sheffer¶
-
Laurence Lundblade¶
-
Giridhar Mandyam¶
-
Christopher Patton¶
-
Jonathan Hoyland¶
-
Richard Barnes¶
We sincerely thank the following for the foundational formal model of draft 20 of TLS 1.3 in their work [refTLS] that we have used as the foundation of all of this work:¶
General¶
Several others at the IETF, IRTF, CCC, and GA4GH have contributed by providing feedback over the years. A non-exhaustive list of contributors is here.¶
Muhammad Usama Sardar is funded by German Research Foundation ("Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.")¶