Suite B Profile for Transport Layer Security (TLS)
RFC 6460

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         M. Salter
Request for Comments: 6460                      National Security Agency
Obsoletes: 5430                                               R. Housley
Category: Informational                                   Vigil Security
ISSN: 2070-1721                                             January 2012

           Suite B Profile for Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Abstract

   The United States government has published guidelines for "NSA Suite
   B Cryptography" that define cryptographic algorithm policy for
   national security applications.  This document defines a profile of
   Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.2 that is fully compliant
   with Suite B.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6460.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 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.

Salter & Housley              Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 6460                     Suite B for TLS                January 2012

   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
   Contributions published or made publicly available before November
   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
   material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
   modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
   the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
   outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
   not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Conventions Used in This Document ...............................3
   3. Suite B Requirements ............................................3
      3.1. Minimum Levels of Security (minLOS) for Suite B TLS ........4
      3.2. Suite B TLS Authentication .................................5
   4. Suite B Compliance and Interoperability Requirements ............5
      4.1. Acceptable Curves ..........................................6
      4.2. Certificates ...............................................7
      4.3. signature_algorithms Extension .............................7
      4.4. CertificateRequest Message .................................8
      4.5. CertificateVerify Message ..................................8
      4.6. ServerKeyExchange Message Signature ........................8
   5. Security Considerations .........................................8
   6. Acknowledgments .................................................9
   7. References ......................................................9
      7.1. Normative References .......................................9
      7.2. Informative References ....................................10
   Annex A. A Transitional Suite B Profile for TLS 1.1 and 1.0 .......11
   Annex B. Changes since RFC 5430 ...................................13

1.  Introduction

   This document specifies the conventions for using National Security
   Agency (NSA) Suite B Cryptography [SuiteB] with the Transport Layer
   Security (TLS) protocol, and the Datagram Transport Layer Security
   (DTLS) protocol.

   This document does not define any new cipher suites; instead, it
   defines a Suite B compliant profile for use with TLS version 1.2
   [RFC5246], DTLS version 1.2 [RFC6347], and the cipher suites defined
   in [RFC5289].  This profile uses only Suite B algorithms.

Salter & Housley              Informational                     [Page 2]