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IETF RFC 5469
DES and IDEA Cipher Suites for Transport Layer Security (TLS)
Last modified on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
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Network Working Group P. Eronen, Ed.
Request for Comments: 5469 Nokia
Category: Informational February 2009
DES and IDEA Cipher Suites for Transport Layer Security (TLS)
 Status of This Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2009 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.
Abstract
Transport Layer Security (TLS) versions 1.0 (RFC 2246) and 1.1 (RFC
4346) include cipher suites based on DES (Data Encryption Standard)
and IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm) algorithms. DES
(when used in single-DES mode) and IDEA are no longer recommended for
general use in TLS, and have been removed from TLS version 1.2 (RFC
5246). This document specifies these cipher suites for completeness
and discusses reasons why their use is no longer recommended.
1. Introduction
TLS versions 1.0 [TLS10] and 1.1 [TLS11] include cipher suites based
on DES (Data Encryption Standard) and IDEA (International Data
Encryption Algorithm) algorithms. DES (when used in single-DES mode)
and IDEA are no longer recommended for general use in TLS, and have
been removed from TLS version 1.2 [TLS12].
This document specifies these cipher suites for completeness and
discusses reasons why their use is no longer recommended.
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 [REQ].
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RFC 5469 DES and IDEA Cipher Suites for TLS February 2009
2. DES Cipher Suites
DES (Data Encryption Standard) is a block cipher that was originally
approved as a US federal standard in 1976, and is specified in [DES].
For TLS key generation purposes, DES is treated as having a 64-bit
key, but it still provides only 56 bits of protection, as 8 of the 64
bits are not used by the algorithm. DES uses a 64-bit block size.
The following cipher suites have been defined for using DES in Cipher
Block Chaining (CBC) mode in TLS:
CipherSuite TLS_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA = { 0x00,0x09 };
CipherSuite TLS_DH_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA = { 0x00,0x0C };
CipherSuite TLS_DH_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA = { 0x00,0x0F };
CipherSuite TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA = { 0x00,0x12 };
CipherSuite TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA = { 0x00,0x15 };
CipherSuite TLS_DH_anon_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA = { 0x00,0x1A };
The key exchange algorithms (RSA, DH_DSS, DH_RSA, DHE_DSS, DHE_RSA,
and DH_anon) and the MAC (Message Authentication Code) algorithm
(SHA) are defined in the base TLS specification.
3. IDEA Cipher Suite
IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm) is a block cipher
designed by Xuejia Lai and James Massey [IDEA] [SCH]. IDEA uses a
128-bit key and operates on 64-bit blocks.
The following cipher suite has been defined for using IDEA in CBC
mode in TLS:
CipherSuite TLS_RSA_WITH_IDEA_CBC_SHA = { 0x00,0x07 };
The key exchange algorithm (RSA) and the MAC algorithm (SHA) are
defined in the base TLS specification.
4. Security Considerations
4.1. DES Cipher Suites
DES has an effective key strength of 56 bits, which has been known to
be vulnerable to practical brute force attacks for over 20 years
[DH]. A relatively recent 2006 paper by Kumar, et al. [COPA]
describes a system that performs an exhaustive key search in less
than nine days on average, and costs less than 10,000 USD to build.
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RFC 5469 DES and IDEA Cipher Suites for TLS February 2009
Given this, the single-DES cipher suites SHOULD NOT be implemented by
TLS libraries. If a TLS library implements these cipher suites, it
SHOULD NOT enable them by default. Experience has also shown that
rarely used code is a source of security and interoperability
problems, so existing implementations SHOULD consider removing these
cipher suites.
4.2. IDEA Cipher Suite
IDEA has a 128-bit key, and thus is not vulnerable to an exhaustive
key search. However, the IDEA cipher suite for TLS has not seen
widespread use: most implementations either do not support it, do not
enable it by default, or do not negotiate it when other algorithms
(such as AES, 3DES, or RC4) are available.
Experience has shown that rarely used code is a source of security
and interoperability problems; given this, the IDEA cipher suite
SHOULD NOT be implemented by TLS libraries and SHOULD be removed from
existing implementations.
5. IANA Considerations
IANA has already allocated values for the cipher suites described in
this document in the TLS Cipher Suite Registry, defined in [TLS11].
IANA has updated the references of these cipher suites to point to
this document:
Value Description Reference
----------- -------------------------------------- ---------
0x00,0x07 TLS_RSA_WITH_IDEA_CBC_SHA [RFC 5469]
0x00,0x09 TLS_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA [RFC 5469]
0x00,0x0C TLS_DH_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA [RFC 5469]
0x00,0x0F TLS_DH_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA [RFC 5469]
0x00,0x12 TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA [RFC 5469]
0x00,0x15 TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA [RFC 5469]
0x00,0x1A TLS_DH_anon_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA [RFC 5469]
This document does not create any new registries to be maintained by
IANA, and does not require any new assignments from existing
registries.
6. Acknowledgments
The editor would like to thank Steven Bellovin, Uri Blumenthal,
Michael D'Errico, Paul Hoffman, Simon Josefsson, Bodo Moeller, Tom
Petch, Martin Rex, and Len Sassaman for their contributions to
preparing this document.
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RFC 5469 DES and IDEA Cipher Suites for TLS February 2009
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[DES] National Institute of Standards and Technology, "Data
Encryption Standard (DES)", FIPS PUB 46-3, October 1999.
[IDEA] Lai, X., "On the Design and Security of Block Ciphers",
ETH Series in Information Processing, v. 1, Konstanz:
Hartung-Gorre Verlag, 1992.
[REQ] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[SCH] Schneier, B., "Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms,
and Source Code in C", 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
1996.
[TLS10] Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0",
RFC 2246, January 1999.
[TLS11] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.1", RFC 4346, April 2006.
[TLS12] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
7.2. Informative References
[COPA] Kumar, S., Paar, C., Pelzl, J., Pfeiffer, G., and M.
Schimmler, "Breaking Ciphers with COPACOBANA - A Cost-
Optimized Parallel Code Breaker", Workshop on Cryptographic
Hardware and Embedded Systems (CHES 2006), Yokohama, Japan,
October 2006.
[DH] Diffie, W. and M. Hellman, "Exhaustive Cryptanalysis of the
NBS Data Encryption Standard", IEEE Computer, Volume 10,
Issue 6, June 1977.
Author's Address
Pasi Eronen (editor)
Nokia Research Center
P.O. Box 407
FIN-00045 Nokia Group
Finland
EMail: pasi.eronen@nokia.com
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DES and IDEA Cipher Suites for Transport Layer Security (TLS)
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 8558 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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