Individual                                                       D. Otis
Internet-Draft                                                   D. Rand
Intended status: Informational                               Trend Micro
Expires: December 19, 2013                                 June 17, 2013


                      DKIM is Harmful as Specified
                       draft-otis-dkim-harmful-03

Abstract

   Currently, email lacks conventions ensuring SMTP clients can be
   identified by an authenticated domain.  Unfortunately many hope to
   use DKIM as an alternative, but it is independent of intended
   recipients and domains accountable for having sent the message.  This
   means DKIM is poorly suited at establishing abuse assessments of
   unsolicited commercial email otherwise known as SPAM, nor was this
   initially DKIM's intent.  DKIM lacks message context essential to
   ensure fair assessment and to ensure this assessment is not poisoned
   (Who initiated the transaction and to whom).

   DKIM was instead intended to establish increased levels of trust
   based upon valid DKIM signatures controlling acceptance and what a
   user sees within the FROM header field.  But DKIM failed to guard
   against pre-pended header fields where any acceptance based on valid
   DKIM signatures is sure to exclude header field spoofing, especially
   that of the FROM.  This weakness allows malefactors to exploit DKIM
   signature acceptance established by high-volume DKIM domains to spoof
   ANY other domain, even when prohibited within the Signer's network.

Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any



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   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 December 19, 2013.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 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
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.
































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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Safe Incremental Deployment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Exploiting Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   4.  Maintaining Trust  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   5.  Responding to Defects and Exploitation . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   6.  Conflating DKIM Fragments with Email Messages  . . . . . . . .  9
   7.  SMTP Can't . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   8.  DKIM Vulnerability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   9.  Barriers to an Authenticated Domain  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   10. Domains as a Basis for Managing Traffic  . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   11. XMPP Shows the Way Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   12. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   13. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   14. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   15. References - Informative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   Appendix A.  DKIM Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   Appendix B.  Stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20































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1.  Introduction

   Currently, IPv4 address reputation provides the primary basis for
   defending open SMTP services (acceptance without prior arrangement).
   Use of IP addresses in this role becomes impractical when dealing
   with IPv6 [RFC2460] due to data requirements and an inability to
   defend detection of subscription violations.  There are currently
   18,210,039,470,981,139 /64 equivalent IPv6 prefixes routed.
   [v6-BGP-Rpts].  In comparison, for IPv4 there are 2,625,737,440 IP
   addresses routed.  While IPv4 is reaching its maximum, IPv6 has about
   0.1% of the available /64 prefix routed and this continues to grow
   rapidly.  Unlike IPv4, there is no practical means to scan reverse
   DNS namespace within IPv6 since each /64 prefix may contain any
   number of PTR records ranging up to 184,000,000,000,000,000,000.

   A technique commonly employed to automate IPv4 address categorization
   of suitable hosts is to check whether reverse PTR records appear to
   represent valid hostnames.  Those that represent 4 decimal numbers
   are often considered unacceptable, for example.  Our processing of
   reverse DNS namespace in cooperation with network providers now
   excludes about 38%, or about 1,000,000,000 IPv4 addresses.  Comparing
   IPv6 /64 prefixes with the remainder of routable IPv4 addresses shows
   there are 11.3 million times more IPv6 /64 prefixes needing
   categorization.  In addition, there is no practical means to
   facilitate this effort.

   IP address reputation requires logging associated connections to
   permit review.  Whether describing reputations as only positive or
   only negative, errant exclusion or inclusion of either poses similar
   risk.  Tracking currently routed IPv6 /64 prefixes using a single bit
   requires 6 million billion bytes or 5,650 Terra-bytes just to track
   simple use.  Even feedback by IPv6 address prefix will expose
   mailboxes that detect subscription policy violations.

   Some also suggest there will not be a significant increase in the
   number of servers running over IPv6 and since their overall number
   should be comparable, email should still be dealing with a similar
   number of IP addresses.  Unlike IPv4, IPv6 does not constrain the
   number of IP addresses assigned to a network interface.  This feature
   allows each connection from a server to originate from a different IP
   address, perhaps one for each user.  The potential increase allowed
   by IPv6 may prove explosive, even those only from good actors.

   Members within organizations such as M3AAWG are suggesting SMTP error
   response schemes to establish DKIM or SPF as acceptance requirements
   to better ensure a domain offers a basis for acceptance to replace
   that of the IP address used by SMTP clients.  Due to the
   understandable IPv6 reputation services' inability to scale, domain



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   based alternatives are being sought.  Some at least understand DKIM
   is unable to support negative reputation schemes.  However, reliance
   on a mechanism unable to sustain close scrutiny of negative
   assertions makes sustained differentiation of positive and negative
   views less tenable.

   At this April's Rocky Mountain IPv6 Task Force summit in Denver, the
   second day government track sessions raised concerns about there
   being no means available to defend SMTP over IPv6.  There are
   proposals within the IETF aimed at establishing DKIM as a basis for
   reputation schemes in the Repute WG (i.e. section 3.2 of
   [I-D.ietf-repute-email-identifiers] which introduces DKIM domains
   being used along with SMTP client IP addresses and rfc5321.helo also
   identifying the SMTP client.  Identifying the SMTP client encompasses
   both "Who Initiated" and "To Whom" message elements to support fair
   negative assertions.  However, DKIM does not encompass this essential
   information.  In addition, DKIM's inability to detect invalid
   prefixed header fields also means any positive DKIM reputation
   assertion can prove highly harmful by increasing trust in possible
   deceptions.


2.  Safe Incremental Deployment?

   [RFC5863] DKIM Development, Deployment, and Operation introduction
   states: "DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) allows an organization to
   claim responsibility for transmitting a message, in a way that can be
   validated by a recipient."  Based on actual use of DKIM, Trendmicro
   published a blog [TM-Blog] "Possible Phishing with DKIM".  Dave
   Crocker dismissed DKIM's phishing role in [Crocker-Blog] by stating:
   "DKIM's sole job is to attach an identifier that can be believed,
   specifically a domain name that can be unrelated to any other
   identifier in the message.  That domain name is used for associating
   the reputation of the domain owner with the message."..."The DKIM
   specification mandates that input to DKIM must be valid according to
   RFC5322.  In requiring this, it is placing a burden on the containing
   system to ensure that a message is well-formed.  It is not DKIM's job
   to do the basic message validation; it's the job of the requesting
   software."

   Refuting this, [RFC6376] section 3.8 use of SHOULD does not mandate
   compliance with [RFC5322] nor will non-compliance affect the validity
   of a DKIM signature as it is currently defined.  His response also
   misconstrues the statement "DKIM was intended to authenticate domain
   relationships with an email message bound at a minimum to that of the
   From header field." as meaning "DKIM verifies the From header field."
   This is wrong, as is the assertion of the signature associating the
   reputation of the domain owner with the message instead of just a



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   signed message fragment.  Most will assume a reference to "message"
   implies the entire email message.  This conflation appears in several
   documents, including section 5.4 in [RFC5863].

   In essence, dismissing the phishing concern overlooks operational
   strategies suggested in deployment documents where DKIM supplants
   often problematic message filtering.  Such likely use makes it
   essential for DKIM validation to exclude messages containing
   invalidly repeated header fields.  This generalization is also used
   in [RFC5863] which suggests messages having valid signatures from
   trusted sources can be white-listed to avoid additional content
   processing.  Here again there is no mention of concerns related to
   inclusion of pre-fixed header fields.  Pre-fixed header field
   concerns were not mentioned until section 8.15 in [RFC6376] was
   added, but even then this section offers no mitigation strategy when
   DKIM signatures ensure delivery by bypassing additional filtering.
   Several email providers, including Yahoo, have implemented exactly
   this strategy, delivering content straight to the in-box when a valid
   and trusted DKIM signature is present in a message.

   Barry Leiba's response [Leiba-Blog] to the assertion DKIM enables
   phishing suggests the attack is overstated because: "1) It relies on
   the sender's ability to get a DKIM signature on a phishing message,
   and assumes the message will be treated as credible by the delivery
   system. 2) It ignores the facts that delivery systems use other
   factors in deciding how to handle incoming messages and that they
   will downgrade the reputation score of a domain that's seen to sign
   these sorts of things. 3) It ignores the fact that high-value
   domains, with strong reputations, will not allow the attackers to use
   them for signing. 4) The attack creates a message with two "from"
   lines, and such messages are not valid.  It ignores the fact that
   delivery systems will take that into account as they score the
   message and make their decisions."

   Assertions about the phishing concern being overstated are wrong and
   item 3 is irrelevant.  As for item 1, sending yourself a message from
   a high volume DKIM provider and then pre-fixing some header field and
   relaying the modified message to any number of recipients is simple
   and has a high probability of being accepted.  As for item 2 and 4,
   it is common for trust in a DKIM signature to cause message filtering
   to be bypassed as suggested in [RFC5863].  As such, this assumes DKIM
   validation checks for invalid header fields.  Although such
   validation is possible, seldom is the double listing of singleton
   header fields ever used which also suggest this will not affect a
   domain's signature rating.  Having detection of invalidly repeated
   header fields being optional places all other domains at risk.

   Barry's response goes on to say: "Validity checking is an important



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   part of the analysis of incoming email, but it is a separate function
   that's not a part of DKIM.  All messages, whether DKIM is in use or
   not, should be checked for being well-formed, and deviations from
   'correct' form should increase the spam score of a message.  That has
   nothing to do with DKIM."

   Barry's response is also logically incorrect.  Undetected
   introduction of pre-fixed header fields is not likely included in a
   signature by a trusted domain.  However, this trusted domain
   signature is still likely to enable a message with pre-fixed header
   fields to bypass content filtering as described by [RFC5863].  Since
   DKIM MUST process the entire header field stack from top to bottom
   and then bottom to top, failure to note when this stack does not meet
   DKIM's input requirements and to then declare associated signatures
   valid represents evidence of a negligent protocol that failed to
   trivially validate its input.

   Network architecture often assumes communication functions are
   organized into nested levels of abstraction called protocol layers
   with related meta-data organized in the same fashion.  Rigid layering
   is considered a desirable means to force compliance with existing
   standards.  In practice this requires careful review of overall
   protocol operation.  Suggesting that layering is inadequate may call
   for an alternative organizational principle for protocol
   functionality, especially with respect to a store-and-forward
   transport.  Meta-data being passed should not require resource
   intensive operations to be needlessly repeated, as is the case with
   the current DKIM specification.

   Enforcing message structure compliance by a store-and-forward
   transport is impractical.  DKIM's aim is to achieve more
   deterministic message acceptance through trust and less on Bayesian
   processes.  Not all errant structures are malicious, but use of DKIM
   makes it imperative to ensure invalidly repeated header fields do not
   produce valid signatures.  This additional requirement imposed by
   DKIM is necessary to prevent abuse of the alternative processing
   enabled by DKIM.  Optional double listing of these header fields will
   not ensure some other domain permits inclusion of deceptive pre-fixed
   header fields.  It is also unreasonable to assume some other email
   protocol layer will ensure message structure compliance just to
   mitigate DKIM related abuse.  This is a problem created by DKIM, that
   DKIM itself should be prepared to handle to support its safe
   incremental deployment.


3.  Exploiting Trust

   Trust established by a signing domain is being exploited to mislead



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   recipients about who authored messages.  DKIM's trust related
   function may be generalized as better ensuring delivery to in-boxes
   as opposed to junk folder placement or silent discard.  It is also
   apparent receivers expect DKIM signature validation ensures invalid
   header fields have not been pre-fixed.  While it is possible for
   signing domains to support this expectation by including non-existent
   header fields in a list of header fields added to the signature's
   hash, few implement this feature which offers a poor alternative for
   the overlooked exclusion of invalidly repeated header fields.

   Perhaps signers consider this double listing wasteful of storage
   resources or they assume the validation process makes these checks
   without this non-intuitive double listing of header fields that are
   not permitted to repeat anyway.  When a domain is very large, errant
   filtering is likely to entail costly customer support which affords
   this domain greater latitude and who are also likely sensitive to
   wasting their storage resources.

   Regardless of possible underlying motivations, it is clear checks for
   valid header field message structure remains a general expectation of
   DKIM's validation process.  Although a valid header field check is
   essential for ensuring a safe result, it simply does not occur in
   most cases.  Not every domain is seeking to establish the same level
   of trust, where those not checking for pre-fixed header fields and
   who have greater latitude place all other domains at risk.  Checking
   message structure is explicitly not to be handled by the transport.
   Modification to SMTP implementations such as Sendmail, Exim, or
   Postfix and the like are neither appropriate, nor likely beneficial
   within a relevant time frame.

   Larger domains often obtain their size by offering relatively easy
   access.  These domains afford malefactors a simple method to have
   their deceptive messages reach their victim's in-box due to common
   use exposing DKIM's vulnerability.  DKIM's validation process does
   not explicitly ensure against invalidly repeated header fields due to
   the optional hash inclusion.  This hashing allowance permits the
   spoofing of other domains with pre-fixed header fields making DKIM
   harmful by misleading recipients about who authored a message based
   on acceptance established by a DKIM signature.  DKIM validation MUST
   be modified to ensure against invalidly repeated header fields to
   ensure trust established by a signing domain is not exploited to
   mislead recipients.


4.  Maintaining Trust

   Not every subsystem or protocol layer should be expected to repeat
   previous security checks to establish proper layering, however



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   critical checks important for enforcing new relationships within a
   message should not be assumed, especially those involving a trivial
   effort.  With high levels of abuse resulting from email's open
   nature, delegating checks in a structured manner better conserves
   essential resources.  However, email's highly distributed store and
   forward protocol could not function if rigid message structures were
   enforced by the transport.  Such enforcement does not scale and will
   impede necessary change when new authentication or presentation
   requirements involve small structural adjustments.  For example,
   internationalization introduced a format negotiation not assured to
   survive beyond the next hop.


5.  Responding to Defects and Exploitation

   As with aviation, the success of email has risen to great heights.
   As within the world of aviation, faults threatening security, that
   when discovered, demand our attention and diligence to effect repair.
   Email has become an integral component in general commerce and the
   maintenance of security such as reporting system failures, break-in
   attempts, and facilitating account access recovery.

   Reporting or predicting failure should not be viewed as exhibiting a
   lack of respect for achieved accomplishments.  Noting and repairing
   faults only signify the importance of email's prominent role.  As
   with most security related protocols, responding to noted defects is
   fairly common.  Not responding to discovered defects in a security
   related protocol would be shocking.  Simply publishing this draft
   appears to have already increase the level of multiple FROM header
   field abuse seen where it is now at 21% of signed DKIM messages.


6.  Conflating DKIM Fragments with Email Messages

   DKIM signs only fragments of an email message, so it is more proper
   to refer to "DKIM Signed Fragments", and not "DKIM Signed Messages".
   Normal DKIM signature validation offers a simple PASS/FAIL
   associating it with a specific domain.  When a recipient receives a
   PASS status, only the last FROM header field message fragment is
   ensured to have been included in the DKIM signature process.  Other
   message fragments, including the message body, are optional and may
   not have been included.  The FROM header field is normally visible
   UNLESS there are multiple FROM header fields.  In which case, the
   signed FROM header field fragment is likely invisible, as is the DKIM
   signature fragments that hide which other message fragments had been
   encompassed by the DKIM signature process.

   DKIM's trust related role is to better ensure message delivery to a



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   user's in-box.  Unless DKIM ensures this trust is not used to
   perpetrate deception, no positive assertions regarding a DKIM domain
   is safe.  As a result, DKIM can not be used with either positive or
   negative reputation assertions in its current form.

   The FROM header field is the Author identifier in section 11.1 of
   [I-D.kucherawy-dmarc-base].  The DMARC specification offers normative
   language that a message SHOULD be rejected when multiple FROM header
   fields are detected.  This requirement would not be necessary or
   impose protocol layer violations if DKIM did not offer valid
   signature results when repeated header fields violate [RFC5322].
   [RFC5322] declaring a message structure invalid will not preclude the
   occurrence of invalid messages, and [RFC5321] clearly states it will
   not enforce [RFC5322] message structure due to practical constraints.
   Instead of relying on optional policies such as DMARC making partial
   guesses that ignore DATE or SUBJECT spoofing for example, critical
   violations of the message header field structure that pertain to
   enhanced trust can be protected by DKIM simply defining any
   associated signatures invalid.  Unlike DMARC, proper signature
   definition does not cross protocol layers, especially since no other
   layer enforces [RFC5322] and no other layer determines the validity
   of a DKIM signature.

   Since multiple DKIM signatures can occur, simple annotation of which
   fragments and domains associate with a valid signature is precluded.
   The ONLY message fragment ensured by a DKIM signature is the FROM
   header field.  Just as DMARC concluded only the FROM header field is
   closely observed by recipients, DKIM initially reached this
   conclusion as well.  While no absolute assurance of header field
   validity is asserted, the domain together with it's reputation
   permits recipients to increase their trust in what is observed in the
   FROM header field.  This trust further increases when the DKIM domain
   is authoritative for the FROM header field domain.

   When acceptance is predicated on the DKIM signature, as occurs with
   DMARC, preserving trust associated with the FROM header field in
   conjunction with the DKIM domain is destroyed whenever multiple FROM
   header fields are permitted by not invalidating these DKIM
   signatures.  DMARC over reaches when rejecting email based upon
   message format as with [RFC6854] group syntax in the FROM header
   field.  DMARC should not be required to second guess whether a DKIM
   signature can be safely considered valid.


7.  SMTP Can't

   SMTP [RFC5321] recommends against rejecting messages based upon
   perceived defects in the message structure.  This liberal acceptance



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   permits evolutionary change in message specifications starting at
   [RFC0822] that was based on [RFC0733] replaced by [RFC2822] and again
   by [RFC5322], [RFC6152], [RFC6532], and [RFC6854]; the second to last
   paragraph in section 3 of [RFC5321] provides a definitive statement
   messages should not be rejected due to perceived defects in the
   [RFC0822] message structure.  The initial reference to [RFC0822] in
   this paragraph offers two foot notes with the second referencing the
   latest version of [RFC0822] which is [RFC5322] which itself has
   recently been updated.  The impact of initially removing text
   specifically indicating which header fields are not to repeat is
   unknown.  This information was implied within the then-new ABNF
   notation.  Clarifying text for this requirement did not return until
   the [RFC0822] revision 19 years later which also indicates this
   specification's success at providing a foundation that allowed email
   to flourish.

   There are many SMTP servers that have been in operation for decades
   with years passing between security patches.  Such an accomplishment
   is most remarkable considering the volume of traffic being handled,
   often from highly malicious sources.  This amazing stability and
   scalability with high levels of security would not have been possible
   if SMTP had been expected to validate message formats.

   Expecting SMTP to validate message formats to protect against
   vulnerabilities pertaining to protocols such as DKIM does not scale.
   The general use of DKIM permits signature checks subsequent to
   acceptance where only the status of signatures determines internal
   placement.  As such, it becomes critical to ensure a DKIM signature
   is never declared valid having malformed header field stacks.  To
   accomplish this, the DKIM specification must change.


8.  DKIM Vulnerability

   DKIM permits a vulnerability by not checking the message header field
   stack for invalid repeats when signing or verifying a signature.  The
   DKIM signature process must walk both down and then up the header
   field stack while selecting the header fields to be included in the
   hash process of the signature.  The DKIM process will even ignore
   prefixed FROM header fields which is the only header field always
   included.

   The WG concluded that "listing non-existent header fields as signed"
   hack added in non-normative language together with opinions that
   checking for invalidly repeated header fields is not to be considered
   DKIM's problem.  See section 8.15 of [RFC6376] where this issue was
   expressed as not an attack against the trust DKIM intends to convey,
   and thus not a concern for DKIM.  Nevertheless, improperly formed



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   messages may display only the first of multiple header fields that,
   as a result of erroneous assumptions of there being no invalidly
   repeated header fields, the prefixed header fields are likely to be
   displayed in lieu of those signed while not impacting DKIM's
   signature validity.

   DKIM incorrectly assumed the header field stack's starting condition,
   which DKIM itself is best able to determine, and is an option in the
   OpenDKIM implementation.  This is likely to astonish most recipients
   that DKIM failed to make a robust effort to maintain the trust it is
   attempting to convey.  Three members of the WG authored proposed
   changes aimed specifically at addressing this issue [DKIM-MH-Attack].
   At the time, some expressed concerns about whether this might set
   back DKIM's standardization process.  As such, DKIM Signers may sign
   malformed messages (e.g., violate [RFC5322]) and be in compliance
   with DKIM specifications.  In addition, receivers may verify these
   messages as having valid signatures despite multiple instances of a
   header field only permitted to occur once and also be in compliance
   with DKIM specifications.  See addendum for examples of the possible
   abuse this permits.

   Use of DKIM on such messages exposes a vulnerability in the
   evaluation process.  Rather than ensuring essential checks are made
   prior to producing a result, a wasteful hack was later suggested
   where extra non-existent header fields could be included in the list
   of signed header fields.  Any pre-pended header field added after
   signing would thereby change resulting hashes and invalidate the
   signature.  Not all domains are attempting to achieve the same level
   of trust and may be more sensitive to incurring incremental storage
   requirements.  Some domains may even inadvertently sign invalidly
   repeated header fields because this check had not been required in
   the DKIM process.  These same DKIM domains are also likely to
   establish themselves as being Too Big To Block.  These TBTB domains
   can then be used to spoof other domains that may have otherwise
   established a high level of trust by implementing the hack where, due
   to this defect in DKIM, can still do nothing in their defense from
   the perspective of now deceived recipients.

   This vulnerability in DKIM represents an exploit allowing serious
   attacks caused by erroneous assumptions made in DKIM's signature
   process.  There is also a header field, which because of its label,
   may potentially mislead recipients into believing it contains valid
   "Authentication-Results" [RFC5451].  Common phrases such as
   "Authentication-Results", "pass", and "fail", rather than use of
   result codes belies introductory claims this header is not intended
   for direct human consumption.





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9.  Barriers to an Authenticated Domain

   Some advocate use of DKIM as a means to obtain domain references
   based on the increased prevalence of this protocol.  DKIM is
   independent of the domain actually sending the message and the
   recipient by design.  Unfortunately, DKIM also does not attempt to
   protect against likely abuses that are also beyond the control of the
   signing domain in which DKIM signature validity conveys no assurance
   pre-fixed header fields have not changed what recipients see.  As
   such, DKIM signing domains can not be held accountable for incidents
   of abuse appearing to violate subscription policies or that spoof
   other domains.

   Because of DKIM's vulnerability to header field spoofing, it would
   not be safe to express positive reputations either.  Any such
   assurance could be exploited by malefactors to deceive those trusting
   DKIM results.  In short, a DKIM signed domain as currently defined,
   can not be safely used in any context, other than the most rigid
   exclusion of any unsigned content which is well beyond any existing
   implementation.  DKIM can not be safely used for email reputation as
   currently defined.


10.  Domains as a Basis for Managing Traffic

   A manageable basis for assessments can leverage a smaller number of
   related domains, compared to IPv6 or even IPv4 addresses.  Although
   technically the domain name space can be larger than the massively
   large IPv6 address space, in practice it is not.  One hundred
   thousand domains control 90% of Internet traffic out of approximately
   100 million domains active each month.  The top 150 domains control
   50% of the traffic, and the top 2,500 domains control 75%.  This
   level of domain consolidation permits effective fast-path white-
   listing.  Improvements achieved using domains to consolidate the
   threat landscape can easily justify added cryptographic
   authentication burdens.  Even APL resource records [RFC3123] can
   authenticate EHLO using a single DNS transaction, but this would not
   allow IPv6 email to be more easily managed when facing extensive use
   of transitional technologies such as ISATAP, Teredo, 6to4, NAT64, and
   DNS64, as well as the solutions offered by cryptographic technology.


11.  XMPP Shows the Way Forward

   In addition to SMTP [RFC5321] using StartTLS [RFC3207], XMPP
   [RFC6122] uses StartTLS [RFC6120] over a different port with many of
   the features used by web servers such as [RFC2560] as one means to
   increase scalability.  It seems plausible that by defining SMTP



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   access over a different port is where a new authentication and
   international requirements can be resolved together.  Of course, port
   25 can be used where it might require StartTLS in the case of IPv6
   connections.

   Many administrators overlook a serious problem made much worse by
   chatty protocols that impose processing delays.  Examining server
   logs will not reveal any problem either, because the limited resource
   being consumed is the number of outstanding connections TCP is able
   to support.  Reaching this limit will prevent new connections from
   being instantiated but this is not logged as an event.  Over time
   administrators may hear complaints email is not being delivered or
   just see an ever growing percentage of spam.


12.  IANA Considerations

   This document requires no IANA consideration.


13.  Security Considerations

   This draft intends to describe serious security concerns raised with
   use of DKIM that is exacerbated with IPv6 email.  The contained
   recommendations are expected to reduce these security concerns.  To
   better ensure security, the DKIM specification must change.

   Recommendations [DKIM-MH-Attack] rejected by the DKIM WG were aimed
   at repairing this defect by simply requiring the definition for a
   valid DKIM signature to ensure no invalidly repeated header fields
   are present.  It is also clear that the non-normative language
   describing the non-intuitive approach of listing non-existent header
   fields has not been widely embraced, especially by domains sensitive
   to storage requirements.  The overall storage requirement was one of
   the weighing factors in selecting between IIM and DKIM.  IIM's
   inclusion of the public key within the message was considered an
   unnecessary waste of storage.  It seems many also consider the
   prophylactic listing of non-existent header fields an unnecessary
   waste as well.  Based upon the current data, the present DKIM
   specification did not result in something that can retain trust, and
   that leads to protocol layer violations as seen with DMARC.

   Section 8.15 of [RFC6376] states: "It is up to the Identity Assessor
   or some other subsequent agent to act on such messages as needed,
   such as degrading the trust of the message (or, indeed, of the
   Signer), warning the recipient, or even refusing delivery."  Despite
   DKIM ignoring critical aspects essential for retaining trust, DKIM
   now suggests this is to be fixed by some undefined process.  Since



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   virtually all DKIM domains will not employ prophylactic double
   listing of signed header fields, an Identity Assessor is neither a
   timely nor reasonable remedy either.  To be absolutely clear, the
   DKIM specification must change to ensure valid signatures do not
   include invalidly repeated header fields.


14.  Acknowledgements

   The authors wish to acknowledge valuable contributions from the
   following: Dave Crocker, and Barry Leiba.







15.  References - Informative

   [Crocker-Blog]
              http://www.circleid.com/posts/
              searching_under_lampposts_with_dkim/, "Searching under
              lampposts with DKIM", June 2011.

   [DKIM-MH-Attack]
              http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/dkim/trac/ticket/24,
              "Multiple-header-attack alternative proposal", April 2011.

   [I-D.ietf-repute-email-identifiers]
              Borenstein, N. and M. Kucherawy, "A Reputation Response
              Set for Email Identifiers",
              draft-ietf-repute-email-identifiers-08 (work in progress),
              June 2013.

   [I-D.kucherawy-dmarc-base]
              Kucherawy, M., "Domain-based Message Authentication,
              Reporting and Conformance (DMARC)",
              draft-kucherawy-dmarc-base-00 (work in progress),
              March 2013.

   [Leiba-Blog]
              http://staringatemptypages.blogspot.com/2011/06/
              misconceptions-about-dkim.html, "Misconceptions about
              DKIM", June 2011.

   [RFC0733]  Crocker, D., Vittal, J., Pogran, K., and D. Henderson,
              "Standard for the format of ARPA network text messages",



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              RFC 733, November 1977.

   [RFC0822]  Crocker, D., "Standard for the format of ARPA Internet
              text messages", STD 11, RFC 822, August 1982.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2460]  Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.

   [RFC2560]  Myers, M., Ankney, R., Malpani, A., Galperin, S., and C.
              Adams, "X.509 Internet Public Key Infrastructure Online
              Certificate Status Protocol - OCSP", RFC 2560, June 1999.

   [RFC2822]  Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822,
              April 2001.

   [RFC3123]  Koch, P., "A DNS RR Type for Lists of Address Prefixes
              (APL RR)", RFC 3123, June 2001.

   [RFC3207]  Hoffman, P., "SMTP Service Extension for Secure SMTP over
              Transport Layer Security", RFC 3207, February 2002.

   [RFC4291]  Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
              Architecture", RFC 4291, February 2006.

   [RFC4408]  Wong, M. and W. Schlitt, "Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
              for Authorizing Use of Domains in E-Mail, Version 1",
              RFC 4408, April 2006.

   [RFC4941]  Narten, T., Draves, R., and S. Krishnan, "Privacy
              Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in
              IPv6", RFC 4941, September 2007.

   [RFC4954]  Siemborski, R. and A. Melnikov, "SMTP Service Extension
              for Authentication", RFC 4954, July 2007.

   [RFC5321]  Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321,
              October 2008.

   [RFC5322]  Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message Format", RFC 5322,
              October 2008.

   [RFC5451]  Kucherawy, M., "Message Header Field for Indicating
              Message Authentication Status", RFC 5451, April 2009.

   [RFC5863]  Hansen, T., Siegel, E., Hallam-Baker, P., and D. Crocker,



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              "DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) Development,
              Deployment, and Operations", RFC 5863, May 2010.

   [RFC6120]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
              Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 6120, March 2011.

   [RFC6122]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
              Protocol (XMPP): Address Format", RFC 6122, March 2011.

   [RFC6152]  Klensin, J., Freed, N., Rose, M., and D. Crocker, "SMTP
              Service Extension for 8-bit MIME Transport", STD 71,
              RFC 6152, March 2011.

   [RFC6376]  Crocker, D., Hansen, T., and M. Kucherawy, "DomainKeys
              Identified Mail (DKIM) Signatures", RFC 6376,
              September 2011.

   [RFC6532]  Yang, A., Steele, S., and N. Freed, "Internationalized
              Email Headers", RFC 6532, February 2012.

   [RFC6854]  Leiba, B., "Update to Internet Message Format to Allow
              Group Syntax in the "From:" and "Sender:" Header Fields",
              RFC 6854, March 2013.

   [TM-Blog]  http://blog.trendmicro.com/
              trendlabs-security-intelligence/
              possible-phishing-with-dkim/, "Possible Phishing with
              DKIM", June 2011.

   [v6-BGP-Rpts]
              http://bgp.potaroo.net/v6/as6447/, "BGP Routing Table
              Analysis Reports/IPv6/AS6447 views", May 2013.


Appendix A.  DKIM Examples

From Random User Tue Mar 12 12:07:37 2013
X-Apparently-To: just4spamdlr@yahoo.com via 72.30.237.8; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:08:37 -0700
Return-Path: <Fake.user@gmail.com>
Received-SPF: neutral (192.83.249.65 is neither permitted nor denied by domain of gmail.com)
 A3RleHQvcGxhaW4DAzACA3RleHQvaHRtbAMDMQ--
X-YMailISG: Po8J_9cWLDuz5QIo_tChc7OagZYPBIscsK7APx8FMj835hEX
 clyJxoQr6Ojy40ccEugqmkym_ayJu65fKm.KJY73k6aprxb9s7Bj6P32lpml
 6yGzxWFYdNXCwcxHtFGdhKe3v7Tjh8x051jkxjIqfuS0vo8J5rZOr.Z__6vD
 4wiGFDUwFHNUWAwuz_pwp7pZ5HCivuuuyszYVvH0eIFsrQ9crR.rrk_3EQU2
 Xkv_fInlGDFR8fafFPMOgQ7QOrHhy0zQUbptDEFGdh1QVOyLwIpjwEC7264k
 4MqxUH7zz_M5JOQzj6dJslH0.iz5y9Sgp6y6kTUHAVP2f_t1hMeRvf3F7WJ6
 1yY2rZJALIME1CtiNKQJoDctzgGFRnh_5mo415MvUcEIH7qqS5RFgWtXEQpd



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 JIpyYlECDXVUcuASoLmzbuGSiCEVLq7f4EiBTAsaMwXJ07OgXBR.QYDw3VfA
 Z0AcfnFrUVHNLZtLaFukQKzdk9c6SpHFHSuCAsvLPuZeRy4Ij5ndXd7viyCS
 IkAHsnhG_u3.nZr3zUDFOrqw8sEKphobj6ZJ8KEXtuhr_tx.94abE1JRJYi5
 fukj2h8y9s.K10ZxoTClaw41_DD8fxESbyfyTRPytiEXUdK1WEjgS3rAZ0TA
 WPJPDr063xLYk20UY0V.N5J15lBCtqZcde_9pdXwxVySyXo1KEQOaH3TNRBZ
 AKMFuCC7NF56aklkiUgk2EWm8iYoHsFez5_HtOz1zmc1dv4mNFOPTaNrXF2X
 qjFiwfdUipupIlAEc6pIdv0_le.xvz1jnaewEOyxo4dKd2XLVvybLfsLY16U
 FzLS9MJJ1wC0Cmf3G2SbOmT4ZiAvPjyv8QnHzbSDDDy3hqg8F0uEE03sJ5dm
 on5FxOHZZ1wCH7DL1QAXpZYxYWKV.h3q69dKQMl6HbnmfT_WZQY4X8uKXqkZ
 o34v.YmvJxHSRCSmhFpug1EstpJ4gHVitl_eJzT_n6xYQwhNAuMZ9uRjN2xE
 1Lf7NpgzRf9bFvOpJAlyLoK5Xvxbx711cMgEUfGIha_JtL1P7hyfncRszHDv
 txgUYzcsVvRyAyVvwDAM.TEBsFhAtqqwOibqo2l5xCBj2yXRbKJ0EOC1JDMs
HA--
X-Originating-IP: [192.83.249.65]
Authentication-Results: mta1225.mail.bf1.yahoo.com from=gmail.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig);
from=gmail.com; dkim=pass (ok)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO rdaver.bungi.com) (192.83.249.65)
by mta1225.mail.bf1.yahoo.com with SMTP; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:08:36 -0700
Received: by rdaver.bungi.com
        via smail with stdio
        id <m1UFUYr-00KeXPC@rdaver.bungi.com>
        for Just4spamdlr@yahoo.com; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:08:33 -0700 (PDT)
        (Smail-3.2.0.94 1997-Apr-22 #591 built 2011-Feb-5)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
        d=gmail.com; s=20120113;
        h=mime-version:x-received:date:message-id:subject:from:to
        :content-type;
        bh=PS9xMxYwwTGwWXbCd8bjBBm2rwb79wVOSDLhmp+k4b4=;
        b=qnYVUccLSAi2DGJdUgDDIP9A3uPk3PaxgqhYLBn6xU382MsCi/ICFgKAoFPuwM7BvL
        AuSuqL6P54cIJ3Pn36h2xmXy+ucNr5r5OqIY63rtvj6Apjr4uW1PzG47J7BGEiP9iwDZ
        PLTzl9ZLpZXvZZpTCJOXUQP2HF8q6aivCblYZIQcCdVRCftG+A4z0+dEyTHbxoAMx9U3
        GFISRRHcZ7k7GAyYmLrSr3fUTjvpa1YWoNK+IcSALC2tKVSW5FP1IQAT07f1e8+bOgHh
        JleaQIw8b1Vjlzhs4hFKLdedmjQqjDJXVP/K3J+t/ggfYn4H547fu6Pb5syKZIiuPf1e
        yJqA==

MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Received: by 10.220.221.143 with SMTP id ic15mr6773333vcb.32.1363115257152;
 Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:07:37 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.52.70.169 with HTTP; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:07:37 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 09:07:37 -1000
Message-ID: <CA+VnpPKv0s-p2nKkAkNHS4V2SxZehw_6S9QF5p1p2ji+FMof=Q@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: An example signed message
From: Random User <random.j.user.994@gmail.com>
To: just4spamdlr@yahoo.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=14dae9cdc33bb0ff5204d7bf00ff
Content-Length: 280

                         reporting valid signature



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From Fake User Tue Mar 12 12:07:37 2013
X-Apparently-To: just4spamdlr@yahoo.com via 72.30.237.8; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:09:01 -0700
Return-Path: <Fake.user@gmail.com>
Received-SPF: neutral (192.83.249.65 is neither permitted nor denied by domain of gmail.com)
 A3RleHQvcGxhaW4DAzACA3RleHQvaHRtbAMDMQ--
X-YMailISG: gFqc.ysWLDtqkdjDpSCH39uGWhgFfnsGdWobzNb5os6sP0We
_L38eAdX.VKZWQ2F75gFwoipcPyj4g0uKMm_vSayLjrnps9lBxMGLvtTE8kT
XYxIw6vZb4aFZ_jEcpoRntvJDkZQl4XSGWGakfmJ5G2blTWZ_i1BVkBvj0Sv
jEymvhoIXZTb_l8C0Jh69ot3MgrNBvjhrBmhCK3sziUtDPpKQPJb_lxCnYKN
O0SiArQ_TUXrCRFRNsyEiJxzVfSgJWIdsCV5BN3cp..NZ17X8fguB.YxNQjt
qjVcGMd4IjQioY.a4f1luQxuiCN1yWvYqiLpP6eOCQhMrHt9XOdk32HAXNuJ
GBraVtjrySTl9Db7PpRC46wlMs3iIUHl3z0d4o6293sMA5qFmnbczGoLRGFs
RUVlBJuRoJCSYZh5LOwbj0RPQNX2Nmw.LHwF7SY3XcZWFUjvUQQ2sdx63m_J
Mgy7JHAwBTVH6ytULsbXvu38a5GIYHccfNnDKVjtsrIg9qBDpVASHrRkncL0
MFLy5FHLb_XBW1TPztCFtlRViKr_HFxMob6aZIte6T57AMqlV2YAHwVNObwx
WE8ZWTkKNWbXqJYytd3vyuyAHfuseBFP_Jfmj0zVtg52EXpIlDiTANEOTamP
zeu23QbeRWJd_Gpz9bbGw_OorPdcV.WJOQ29DHpiYAQRgWjJNLjkd8dI.vuM
vs1Fr7LOiE3wRpSU5AW_hrR4anvGrnwSPOQaFmpNE0pl8n.Vomrp.5NU8cgU
QYI1UCSPoE_HK5Som2HMPYZFQv0pJSu1NeitXlRM3DHkIMvW4aVYqrHSNVjl
gGCFFx77c25QW.XAGtySBYWcTzcUlHP4fMa7Wli4u06C4N3pDPiQoXKOC10U
koXUMKFYmedaZYvEeQRPO3_8xHwKyZ.QInDsnQRwPFWYKvcWCJu4c5zxDMG4
h1AsyT3CM80nZXk8.ZGhzfTgo810Xjn_OJVgUfkG1z3..ReN990deaWJY8F5
_j6lRWLZZRzCMwOGpJ6I.jgaN5mNk38Kj6.NYLFCpMTEIt28jIRHD85cfpa3
iOL3drg1TIKQWrEhS9u3H29niQ_hjHbk7ys6uSJvowilRwO8eB2s.Wz0
X-Originating-IP: [192.83.249.65]
Authentication-Results: mta1266.mail.bf1.yahoo.com
from=gmail.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig);
from=gmail.com; dkim=pass (ok)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO rdaver.bungi.com) (192.83.249.65)
 by mta1266.mail.bf1.yahoo.com with SMTP; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:09:00 -0700
 Received: by rdaver.bungi.com
        via smail with stdio
        id <m1UFUZI-00KeXRC@rdaver.bungi.com>
        for Just4spamdlr@yahoo.com; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:09:00 -0700 (PDT)
        (Smail-3.2.0.94 1997-Apr-22 #591 built 2011-Feb-5)
From: Fake User <fake.user@gmail.com>
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
     d=gmail.com; s=20120113;
     h=mime-version:x-received:date:message-id:subject:from:to
     :content-type;
     bh=PS9xMxYwwTGwWXbCd8bjBBm2rwb79wVOSDLhmp+k4b4=;
     b=qnYVUccLSAi2DGJdUgDDIP9A3uPk3PaxgqhYLBn6xU382MsCi/ICFgKAoFPuwM7BvL
      AuSuqL6P54cIJ3Pn36h2xmXy+ucNr5r5OqIY63rtvj6Apjr4uW1PzG47J7BGEiP9iwDZ
      PLTzl9ZLpZXvZZpTCJOXUQP2HF8q6aivCblYZIQcCdVRCftG+A4z0+dEyTHbxoAMx9U3
      GFISRRHcZ7k7GAyYmLrSr3fUTjvpa1YWoNK+IcSALC2tKVSW5FP1IQAT07f1e8+bOgHh
      JleaQIw8b1Vjlzhs4hFKLdedmjQqjDJXVP/K3J+t/ggfYn4H547fu6Pb5syKZIiuPf1e
      yJqA==
MIME-Version: 1.0



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X-Received: by 10.220.221.143 with SMTP id ic15mr6773333vcb.32.1363115257152;
 Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:07:37 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.52.70.169 with HTTP; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:07:37 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 09:07:37 -1000
Message-ID: <CA+VnpPKv0s-p2nKkAkNHS4V2SxZehw_6S9QF5p1p2ji+FMof=Q@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: An example signed message
From: Random User <random.j.user.994@gmail.com>
To: just4spamdlr@yahoo.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=14dae9cdc33bb0ff5204d7bf00ff
Content-Length: 280

                     spoofed DKIM with valid signature


Appendix B.  Stats

    DKIM total:                5063
    DKIM pass:                 4354
    DKIM fail:                  709
    DKIM pass w/multiple from:  916 (about 21% on average)
      An increase appears concurrent with the publication of this draft.
      More data will be made available subsequently.

                  Looking at roughly a few hours of spam


Authors' Addresses

   Douglas Otis
   Trend Micro
   10101 N. De Anza Blvd
   Cupertino, CA  95014
   USA

   Phone: +1.408.257-1500
   Email: doug_otis@trendmicro.com


   Dave Rand
   Trend Micro
   10101 N. De Anza Blvd
   Cupertino, CA  95014
   USA

   Phone: +1.408.257-1500
   Email: dave_rand@trendmicro.com





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