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IETF RFC 8422
Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Cipher Suites for Transport Layer Security (TLS) Versions 1.2 and Earlier
Last modified on Tuesday, August 7th, 2018
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Y. Nir
Request for Comments: 8422 Check Point
Obsoletes: 4492 S. Josefsson
Category: Standards Track SJD AB
ISSN: 2070-1721 M. Pegourie-Gonnard
ARM
August 2018
Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Cipher Suites
for Transport Layer Security (TLS) Versions 1.2 and Earlier
 Abstract
This document describes key exchange algorithms based on Elliptic
Curve Cryptography (ECC) for the Transport Layer Security (TLS)
protocol. In particular, it specifies the use of Ephemeral Elliptic
Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) key agreement in a TLS handshake and the
use of the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) and
Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA) as authentication
mechanisms.
This document obsoletes RFC 4492.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
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). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8422.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 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 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.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 2
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Key Exchange Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. ECDHE_ECDSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2. ECDHE_RSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3. ECDH_anon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4. Algorithms in Certificate Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Client Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1. ECDSA_sign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. TLS Extensions for ECC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Data Structures and Computations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. Client Hello Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1.1. Supported Elliptic Curves Extension . . . . . . . . . 11
5.1.2. Supported Point Formats Extension . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1.3. The signature_algorithms Extension and EdDSA . . . . 13
5.2. Server Hello Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3. Server Certificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.4. Server Key Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4.1. Uncompressed Point Format for NIST Curves . . . . . . 19
5.5. Certificate Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.6. Client Certificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.7. Client Key Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.8. Certificate Verify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.9. Elliptic Curve Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.10. ECDH, ECDSA, and RSA Computations . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.11. Public Key Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6. Cipher Suites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7. Implementation Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Appendix A. Equivalent Curves (Informative) . . . . . . . . . . 32
Appendix B. Differences from RFC 4492 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 3
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
1. Introduction
This document describes additions to TLS to support ECC that are
applicable to TLS versions 1.0 [RFC 2246], 1.1 [RFC 4346], and 1.2
[RFC 5246]. The use of ECC in TLS 1.3 is defined in [TLS1.3] and is
explicitly out of scope for this document. In particular, this
document defines:
o the use of the ECDHE key agreement scheme with ephemeral keys to
establish the TLS premaster secret, and
o the use of ECDSA and EdDSA signatures for authentication of TLS
peers.
The remainder of this document is organized as follows. Section 2
provides an overview of ECC-based key exchange algorithms for TLS.
Section 3 describes the use of ECC certificates for client
authentication. TLS extensions that allow a client to negotiate the
use of specific curves and point formats are presented in Section 4.
Section 5 specifies various data structures needed for an ECC-based
handshake, their encoding in TLS messages, and the processing of
those messages. Section 6 defines ECC-based cipher suites and
identifies a small subset of these as recommended for all
implementations of this specification. Section 8 discusses security
considerations. Section 9 describes IANA considerations for the name
spaces created by this document's predecessor. Appendix B provides
differences from [RFC 4492], the document that this one replaces.
Implementation of this specification requires familiarity with TLS,
TLS extensions [RFC 4366], and ECC.
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC 2119] [RFC 8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. Key Exchange Algorithm
This document defines three new ECC-based key exchange algorithms for
TLS. All of them use Ephemeral ECDH (ECDHE) to compute the TLS
premaster secret, and they differ only in the mechanism (if any) used
to authenticate them. The derivation of the TLS master secret from
the premaster secret and the subsequent generation of bulk
encryption/MAC keys and initialization vectors is independent of the
key exchange algorithm and not impacted by the introduction of ECC.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 4
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Table 1 summarizes the new key exchange algorithms. All of these key
exchange algorithms provide forward secrecy if and only if fresh
ephemeral keys are generated and used, and also destroyed after use.
+-------------+------------------------------------------------+
| Algorithm | Description |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------+
| ECDHE_ECDSA | Ephemeral ECDH with ECDSA or EdDSA signatures. |
| ECDHE_RSA | Ephemeral ECDH with RSA signatures. |
| ECDH_anon | Anonymous ephemeral ECDH, no signatures. |
+-------------+------------------------------------------------+
Table 1: ECC Key Exchange Algorithms
These key exchanges are analogous to DHE_DSS, DHE_RSA, and DH_anon,
respectively.
With ECDHE_RSA, a server can reuse its existing RSA certificate and
easily comply with a constrained client's elliptic curve preferences
(see Section 4). However, the computational cost incurred by a
server is higher for ECDHE_RSA than for the traditional RSA key
exchange, which does not provide forward secrecy.
The anonymous key exchange algorithm does not provide authentication
of the server or the client. Like other anonymous TLS key exchanges,
it is subject to man-in-the-middle attacks. Applications using TLS
with this algorithm SHOULD provide authentication by other means.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 5
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello -------->
ServerHello
Certificate*
ServerKeyExchange*
CertificateRequest*+
<-------- ServerHelloDone
Certificate*+
ClientKeyExchange
CertificateVerify*+
[ChangeCipherSpec]
Finished -------->
[ChangeCipherSpec]
<-------- Finished
Application Data <-------> Application Data
* message is not sent under some conditions
+ message is not sent unless client authentication
is desired
Figure 1: Message Flow in a Full TLS 1.2 Handshake
Figure 1 shows all messages involved in the TLS key establishment
protocol (aka full handshake). The addition of ECC has direct impact
only on the ClientHello, the ServerHello, the server's Certificate
message, the ServerKeyExchange, the ClientKeyExchange, the
CertificateRequest, the client's Certificate message, and the
CertificateVerify. Next, we describe the ECC key exchange algorithm
in greater detail in terms of the content and processing of these
messages. For ease of exposition, we defer discussion of client
authentication and associated messages (identified with a '+' in
Figure 1) until Section 3 and of the optional ECC-specific extensions
(which impact the Hello messages) until Section 4.
2.1. ECDHE_ECDSA
In ECDHE_ECDSA, the server's certificate MUST contain an ECDSA- or
EdDSA-capable public key.
The server sends its ephemeral ECDH public key and a specification of
the corresponding curve in the ServerKeyExchange message. These
parameters MUST be signed with ECDSA or EdDSA using the private key
corresponding to the public key in the server's Certificate.
The client generates an ECDH key pair on the same curve as the
server's ephemeral ECDH key and sends its public key in the
ClientKeyExchange message.
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RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Both client and server perform an ECDH operation (see Section 5.10)
and use the resultant shared secret as the premaster secret.
2.2. ECDHE_RSA
This key exchange algorithm is the same as ECDHE_ECDSA except that
the server's certificate MUST contain an RSA public key authorized
for signing and the signature in the ServerKeyExchange message must
be computed with the corresponding RSA private key.
2.3. ECDH_anon
NOTE: Despite the name beginning with "ECDH_" (no E), the key used in
ECDH_anon is ephemeral just like the key in ECDHE_RSA and
ECDHE_ECDSA. The naming follows the example of DH_anon, where the
key is also ephemeral but the name does not reflect it.
In ECDH_anon, the server's Certificate, the CertificateRequest, the
client's Certificate, and the CertificateVerify messages MUST NOT be
sent.
The server MUST send an ephemeral ECDH public key and a specification
of the corresponding curve in the ServerKeyExchange message. These
parameters MUST NOT be signed.
The client generates an ECDH key pair on the same curve as the
server's ephemeral ECDH key and sends its public key in the
ClientKeyExchange message.
Both client and server perform an ECDH operation and use the
resultant shared secret as the premaster secret. All ECDH
calculations are performed as specified in Section 5.10.
2.4. Algorithms in Certificate Chains
This specification does not impose restrictions on signature schemes
used anywhere in the certificate chain. The previous version of this
document required the signatures to match, but this restriction,
originating in previous TLS versions, is lifted here as it had been
in RFC 5246.
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RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
3. Client Authentication
This document defines a client authentication mechanism named after
the type of client certificate involved: ECDSA_sign. The ECDSA_sign
mechanism is usable with any of the non-anonymous ECC key exchange
algorithms described in Section 2 as well as other non-anonymous
(non-ECC) key exchange algorithms defined in TLS.
Note that client certificates with EdDSA public keys also use this
mechanism.
The server can request ECC-based client authentication by including
this certificate type in its CertificateRequest message. The client
must check if it possesses a certificate appropriate for the method
suggested by the server and is willing to use it for authentication.
If these conditions are not met, the client SHOULD send a client
Certificate message containing no certificates. In this case, the
ClientKeyExchange MUST be sent as described in Section 2, and the
CertificateVerify MUST NOT be sent. If the server requires client
authentication, it may respond with a fatal handshake failure alert.
If the client has an appropriate certificate and is willing to use it
for authentication, it must send that certificate in the client's
Certificate message (as per Section 5.6) and prove possession of the
private key corresponding to the certified key. The process of
determining an appropriate certificate and proving possession is
different for each authentication mechanism and is described below.
NOTE: It is permissible for a server to request (and the client to
send) a client certificate of a different type than the server
certificate.
3.1. ECDSA_sign
To use this authentication mechanism, the client MUST possess a
certificate containing an ECDSA- or EdDSA-capable public key.
The client proves possession of the private key corresponding to the
certified key by including a signature in the CertificateVerify
message as described in Section 5.8.
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RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
4. TLS Extensions for ECC
Two TLS extensions are defined in this specification: (i) the
Supported Elliptic Curves Extension and (ii) the Supported Point
Formats Extension. These allow negotiating the use of specific
curves and point formats (e.g., compressed vs. uncompressed,
respectively) during a handshake starting a new session. These
extensions are especially relevant for constrained clients that may
only support a limited number of curves or point formats. They
follow the general approach outlined in [RFC 4366]; message details
are specified in Section 5. The client enumerates the curves it
supports and the point formats it can parse by including the
appropriate extensions in its ClientHello message. The server
similarly enumerates the point formats it can parse by including an
extension in its ServerHello message.
A TLS client that proposes ECC cipher suites in its ClientHello
message SHOULD include these extensions. Servers implementing ECC
cipher suites MUST support these extensions, and when a client uses
these extensions, servers MUST NOT negotiate the use of an ECC cipher
suite unless they can complete the handshake while respecting the
choice of curves specified by the client. This eliminates the
possibility that a negotiated ECC handshake will be subsequently
aborted due to a client's inability to deal with the server's EC key.
The client MUST NOT include these extensions in the ClientHello
message if it does not propose any ECC cipher suites. A client that
proposes ECC cipher suites may choose not to include these
extensions. In this case, the server is free to choose any one of
the elliptic curves or point formats listed in Section 5. That
section also describes the structure and processing of these
extensions in greater detail.
In the case of session resumption, the server simply ignores the
Supported Elliptic Curves Extension and the Supported Point Formats
Extension appearing in the current ClientHello message. These
extensions only play a role during handshakes negotiating a new
session.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 9
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
5. Data Structures and Computations
This section specifies the data structures and computations used by
ECC-based key mechanisms specified in the previous three sections.
The presentation language used here is the same as that used in TLS.
Since this specification extends TLS, these descriptions should be
merged with those in the TLS specification and any others that extend
TLS. This means that enum types may not specify all possible values,
and structures with multiple formats chosen with a select() clause
may not indicate all possible cases.
5.1. Client Hello Extensions
This section specifies two TLS extensions that can be included with
the ClientHello message as described in [RFC 4366]: the Supported
Elliptic Curves Extension and the Supported Point Formats Extension.
When these extensions are sent:
The extensions SHOULD be sent along with any ClientHello message that
proposes ECC cipher suites.
Meaning of these extensions:
These extensions allow a client to enumerate the elliptic curves it
supports and/or the point formats it can parse.
Structure of these extensions:
The general structure of TLS extensions is described in [RFC 4366],
and this specification adds two types to ExtensionType.
enum {
elliptic_curves(10),
ec_point_formats(11)
} ExtensionType;
o elliptic_curves (Supported Elliptic Curves Extension): Indicates
the set of elliptic curves supported by the client. For this
extension, the opaque extension_data field contains
NamedCurveList. See Section 5.1.1 for details.
o ec_point_formats (Supported Point Formats Extension): Indicates
the set of point formats that the client can parse. For this
extension, the opaque extension_data field contains
ECPointFormatList. See Section 5.1.2 for details.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 10
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Actions of the sender:
A client that proposes ECC cipher suites in its ClientHello message
appends these extensions (along with any others), enumerating the
curves it supports and the point formats it can parse. Clients
SHOULD send both the Supported Elliptic Curves Extension and the
Supported Point Formats Extension. If the Supported Point Formats
Extension is indeed sent, it MUST contain the value 0 (uncompressed)
as one of the items in the list of point formats.
Actions of the receiver:
A server that receives a ClientHello containing one or both of these
extensions MUST use the client's enumerated capabilities to guide its
selection of an appropriate cipher suite. One of the proposed ECC
cipher suites must be negotiated only if the server can successfully
complete the handshake while using the curves and point formats
supported by the client (cf. Sections 5.3 and 5.4).
NOTE: A server participating in an ECDHE_ECDSA key exchange may use
different curves for the ECDSA or EdDSA key in its certificate and
for the ephemeral ECDH key in the ServerKeyExchange message. The
server MUST consider the extensions in both cases.
If a server does not understand the Supported Elliptic Curves
Extension, does not understand the Supported Point Formats Extension,
or is unable to complete the ECC handshake while restricting itself
to the enumerated curves and point formats, it MUST NOT negotiate the
use of an ECC cipher suite. Depending on what other cipher suites
are proposed by the client and supported by the server, this may
result in a fatal handshake failure alert due to the lack of common
cipher suites.
5.1.1. Supported Elliptic Curves Extension
RFC 4492 defined 25 different curves in the NamedCurve registry (now
renamed the "TLS Supported Groups" registry, although the enumeration
below is still named NamedCurve) for use in TLS. Only three have
seen much use. This specification is deprecating the rest (with
numbers 1-22). This specification also deprecates the explicit
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 11
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
curves with identifiers 0xFF01 and 0xFF02. It also adds the new
curves defined in [RFC 7748]. The end result is as follows:
enum {
deprecated(1..22),
secp256r1 (23), secp384r1 (24), secp521r1 (25),
x25519(29), x448(30),
reserved (0xFE00..0xFEFF),
deprecated(0xFF01..0xFF02),
(0xFFFF)
} NamedCurve;
Note that other specifications have since added other values to this
enumeration. Some of those values are not curves at all, but finite
field groups. See [RFC 7919].
secp256r1, etc: Indicates support of the corresponding named curve or
groups. The named curves secp256r1, secp384r1, and secp521r1 are
specified in SEC 2 [SECG-SEC2]. These curves are also recommended in
ANSI X9.62 [ANSI.X9-62.2005] and FIPS 186-4 [FIPS.186-4]. The rest
of this document refers to these three curves as the "NIST curves"
because they were originally standardized by the National Institute
of Standards and Technology. The curves x25519 and x448 are defined
in [RFC 7748]. Values 0xFE00 through 0xFEFF are reserved for private
use.
The predecessor of this document also supported explicitly defined
prime and char2 curves, but these are deprecated by this
specification.
The NamedCurve name space (now titled "TLS Supported Groups") is
maintained by IANA. See Section 9 for information on how new value
assignments are added.
struct {
NamedCurve named_curve_list<2..2^16-1>
} NamedCurveList;
Items in named_curve_list are ordered according to the client's
preferences (favorite choice first).
As an example, a client that only supports secp256r1 (aka NIST P-256;
value 23 = 0x0017) and secp384r1 (aka NIST P-384; value 24 = 0x0018)
and prefers to use secp256r1 would include a TLS extension consisting
of the following octets. Note that the first two octets indicate the
extension type (Supported Elliptic Curves Extension):
00 0A 00 06 00 04 00 17 00 18
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 12
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
5.1.2. Supported Point Formats Extension
enum {
uncompressed (0),
deprecated (1..2),
reserved (248..255)
} ECPointFormat;
struct {
ECPointFormat ec_point_format_list<1..2^8-1>
} ECPointFormatList;
Three point formats were included in the definition of ECPointFormat
above. This specification deprecates all but the uncompressed point
format. Implementations of this document MUST support the
uncompressed format for all of their supported curves and MUST NOT
support other formats for curves defined in this specification. For
backwards compatibility purposes, the point format list extension MAY
still be included and contain exactly one value: the uncompressed
point format (0). RFC 4492 specified that if this extension is
missing, it means that only the uncompressed point format is
supported, so interoperability with implementations that support the
uncompressed format should work with or without the extension.
If the client sends the extension and the extension does not contain
the uncompressed point format, and the client has used the Supported
Groups extension to indicate support for any of the curves defined in
this specification, then the server MUST abort the handshake and
return an illegal_parameter alert.
The ECPointFormat name space (now titled "TLS EC Point Formats") is
maintained by IANA. See Section 9 for information on how new value
assignments are added.
A client compliant with this specification that supports no other
curves MUST send the following octets; note that the first two octets
indicate the extension type (Supported Point Formats Extension):
00 0B 00 02 01 00
5.1.3. The signature_algorithms Extension and EdDSA
The signature_algorithms extension, defined in Section 7.4.1.4.1 of
[RFC 5246], advertises the combinations of signature algorithm and
hash function that the client supports. The pure (non-prehashed)
forms of EdDSA do not hash the data before signing it. For this
reason, it does not make sense to combine them with a hash function
in the extension.
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RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
For bits-on-the-wire compatibility with TLS 1.3, we define a new
dummy value in the "TLS HashAlgorithm" registry that we call
"Intrinsic" (value 8), meaning that hashing is intrinsic to the
signature algorithm.
To represent ed25519 and ed448 in the signature_algorithms extension,
the value shall be (8,7) and (8,8), respectively.
5.2. Server Hello Extension
This section specifies a TLS extension that can be included with the
ServerHello message as described in [RFC 4366], the Supported Point
Formats Extension.
When this extension is sent:
The Supported Point Formats Extension is included in a ServerHello
message in response to a ClientHello message containing the Supported
Point Formats Extension when negotiating an ECC cipher suite.
Meaning of this extension:
This extension allows a server to enumerate the point formats it can
parse (for the curve that will appear in its ServerKeyExchange
message when using the ECDHE_ECDSA, ECDHE_RSA, or ECDH_anon key
exchange algorithm.
Structure of this extension:
The server's Supported Point Formats Extension has the same structure
as the client's Supported Point Formats Extension (see
Section 5.1.2). Items in ec_point_format_list here are ordered
according to the server's preference (favorite choice first). Note
that the server MAY include items that were not found in the client's
list. However, without extensions, this specification allows exactly
one point format, so there is not really any opportunity for
mismatches.
Actions of the sender:
A server that selects an ECC cipher suite in response to a
ClientHello message including a Supported Point Formats Extension
appends this extension (along with others) to its ServerHello
message, enumerating the point formats it can parse. The Supported
Point Formats Extension, when used, MUST contain the value 0
(uncompressed) as one of the items in the list of point formats.
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RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Actions of the receiver:
A client that receives a ServerHello message containing a Supported
Point Formats Extension MUST respect the server's choice of point
formats during the handshake (cf. Sections 5.6 and 5.7). If no
Supported Point Formats Extension is received with the ServerHello,
this is equivalent to an extension allowing only the uncompressed
point format.
5.3. Server Certificate
When this message is sent:
This message is sent in all non-anonymous, ECC-based key exchange
algorithms.
Meaning of this message:
This message is used to authentically convey the server's static
public key to the client. The following table shows the server
certificate type appropriate for each key exchange algorithm. ECC
public keys MUST be encoded in certificates as described in
Section 5.9.
NOTE: The server's Certificate message is capable of carrying a chain
of certificates. The restrictions mentioned in Table 2 apply only to
the server's certificate (first in the chain).
+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Algorithm | Server Certificate Type |
+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| ECDHE_ECDSA | Certificate MUST contain an ECDSA- or EdDSA-capable |
| | public key. |
| ECDHE_RSA | Certificate MUST contain an RSA public key. |
+-------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
Table 2: Server Certificate Types
Structure of this message:
Identical to the TLS Certificate format.
Actions of the sender:
The server constructs an appropriate certificate chain and conveys it
to the client in the Certificate message. If the client has used a
Supported Elliptic Curves Extension, the public key in the server's
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 15
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
certificate MUST respect the client's choice of elliptic curves. A
server that cannot satisfy this requirement MUST NOT choose an ECC
cipher suite in its ServerHello message.)
Actions of the receiver:
The client validates the certificate chain, extracts the server's
public key, and checks that the key type is appropriate for the
negotiated key exchange algorithm. (A possible reason for a fatal
handshake failure is that the client's capabilities for handling
elliptic curves and point formats are exceeded; cf. Section 5.1.)
5.4. Server Key Exchange
When this message is sent:
This message is sent when using the ECDHE_ECDSA, ECDHE_RSA, and
ECDH_anon key exchange algorithms.
Meaning of this message:
This message is used to convey the server's ephemeral ECDH public key
(and the corresponding elliptic curve domain parameters) to the
client.
The ECCurveType enum used to have values for explicit prime and for
explicit char2 curves. Those values are now deprecated, so only one
value remains:
Structure of this message:
enum {
deprecated (1..2),
named_curve (3),
reserved(248..255)
} ECCurveType;
The value named_curve indicates that a named curve is used. This
option is now the only remaining format.
Values 248 through 255 are reserved for private use.
The ECCurveType name space (now titled "TLS EC Curve Types") is
maintained by IANA. See Section 9 for information on how new value
assignments are added.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 16
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
RFC 4492 had a specification for an ECCurve structure and an
ECBasisType structure. Both of these are omitted now because they
were only used with the now deprecated explicit curves.
struct {
opaque point <1..2^8-1>;
} ECPoint;
point: This is the byte string representation of an elliptic curve
point following the conversion routine in Section 4.3.6 of
[ANSI.X9-62.2005]. This byte string may represent an elliptic curve
point in uncompressed, compressed, or hybrid format, but this
specification deprecates all but the uncompressed format. For the
NIST curves, the format is repeated in Section 5.4.1 for convenience.
For the X25519 and X448 curves, the only valid representation is the
one specified in [RFC 7748], a 32- or 56-octet representation of the u
value of the point. This structure MUST NOT be used with Ed25519 and
Ed448 public keys.
struct {
ECCurveType curve_type;
select (curve_type) {
case named_curve:
NamedCurve namedcurve;
};
} ECParameters;
curve_type: This identifies the type of the elliptic curve domain
parameters.
namedCurve: Specifies a recommended set of elliptic curve domain
parameters. All those values of NamedCurve are allowed that refer to
a curve capable of Diffie-Hellman. With the deprecation of the
explicit curves, this now includes all of the NamedCurve values.
struct {
ECParameters curve_params;
ECPoint public;
} ServerECDHParams;
curve_params: Specifies the elliptic curve domain parameters
associated with the ECDH public key.
public: The ephemeral ECDH public key.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 17
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
The ServerKeyExchange message is extended as follows.
enum {
ec_diffie_hellman
} KeyExchangeAlgorithm;
o ec_diffie_hellman: Indicates the ServerKeyExchange message
contains an ECDH public key.
select (KeyExchangeAlgorithm) {
case ec_diffie_hellman:
ServerECDHParams params;
Signature signed_params;
} ServerKeyExchange;
o params: Specifies the ECDH public key and associated domain
parameters.
o signed_params: A hash of the params, with the signature
appropriate to that hash applied. The private key corresponding
to the certified public key in the server's Certificate message is
used for signing.
enum {
ecdsa(3),
ed25519(7)
ed448(8)
} SignatureAlgorithm;
select (SignatureAlgorithm) {
case ecdsa:
digitally-signed struct {
opaque sha_hash[sha_size];
};
case ed25519,ed448:
digitally-signed struct {
opaque rawdata[rawdata_size];
};
} Signature;
ServerKeyExchange.signed_params.sha_hash
SHA(ClientHello.random + ServerHello.random +
ServerKeyExchange.params);
ServerKeyExchange.signed_params.rawdata
ClientHello.random + ServerHello.random +
ServerKeyExchange.params;
NOTE: SignatureAlgorithm is "rsa" for the ECDHE_RSA key exchange
algorithm and "anonymous" for ECDH_anon. These cases are defined in
TLS. SignatureAlgorithm is "ecdsa" or "eddsa" for ECDHE_ECDSA.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 18
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ECDSA signatures are generated and verified as described in
Section 5.10. SHA, in the above template for sha_hash, may denote a
hash algorithm other than SHA-1. As per ANSI X9.62, an ECDSA
signature consists of a pair of integers, r and s. The digitally-
signed element is encoded as an opaque vector <0..2^16-1>, the
contents of which are the DER encoding corresponding to the following
ASN.1 notation.
Ecdsa-Sig-Value ::= SEQUENCE {
r INTEGER,
s INTEGER
}
EdDSA signatures in both the protocol and in certificates that
conform to [RFC 8410] are generated and verified according to
[RFC 8032]. The digitally-signed element is encoded as an opaque
vector <0..2^16-1>, the contents of which include the octet string
output of the EdDSA signing algorithm.
Actions of the sender:
The server selects elliptic curve domain parameters and an ephemeral
ECDH public key corresponding to these parameters according to the
ECKAS-DH1 scheme from IEEE 1363 [IEEE.P1363]. It conveys this
information to the client in the ServerKeyExchange message using the
format defined above.
Actions of the receiver:
The client verifies the signature (when present) and retrieves the
server's elliptic curve domain parameters and ephemeral ECDH public
key from the ServerKeyExchange message. (A possible reason for a
fatal handshake failure is that the client's capabilities for
handling elliptic curves and point formats are exceeded; cf.
Section 5.1.)
5.4.1. Uncompressed Point Format for NIST Curves
The following represents the wire format for representing ECPoint in
ServerKeyExchange records. The first octet of the representation
indicates the form, which may be compressed, uncompressed, or hybrid.
This specification supports only the uncompressed format for these
curves. This is followed by the binary representation of the X value
in "big-endian" or "network" format, followed by the binary
representation of the Y value in "big-endian" or "network" format.
There are no internal length markers, so each number representation
occupies as many octets as implied by the curve parameters. For
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 19
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
P-256 this means that each of X and Y use 32 octets, padded on the
left by zeros if necessary. For P-384, they take 48 octets each, and
for P-521, they take 66 octets each.
Here's a more formal representation:
enum {
uncompressed(4),
(255)
} PointConversionForm;
struct {
PointConversionForm form;
opaque X[coordinate_length];
opaque Y[coordinate_length];
} UncompressedPointRepresentation;
5.5. Certificate Request
When this message is sent:
This message is sent when requesting client authentication.
Meaning of this message:
The server uses this message to suggest acceptable client
authentication methods.
Structure of this message:
The TLS CertificateRequest message is extended as follows.
enum {
ecdsa_sign(64),
deprecated1(65), /* was rsa_fixed_ecdh */
deprecated2(66), /* was ecdsa_fixed_ecdh */
(255)
} ClientCertificateType;
o ecdsa_sign: Indicates that the server would like to use the
corresponding client authentication method specified in Section 3.
Note that RFC 4492 also defined RSA and ECDSA certificates that
included a fixed ECDH public key. These mechanisms saw very little
implementation, so this specification is deprecating them.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 20
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Actions of the sender:
The server decides which client authentication methods it would like
to use and conveys this information to the client using the format
defined above.
Actions of the receiver:
The client determines whether it has a suitable certificate for use
with any of the requested methods and whether to proceed with client
authentication.
5.6. Client Certificate
When this message is sent:
This message is sent in response to a CertificateRequest when a
client has a suitable certificate and has decided to proceed with
client authentication. (Note that if the server has used a Supported
Point Formats Extension, a certificate can only be considered
suitable for use with the ECDSA_sign authentication method if the
public key point specified in it is uncompressed, as that is the only
point format still supported.
Meaning of this message:
This message is used to authentically convey the client's static
public key to the server. ECC public keys must be encoded in
certificates as described in Section 5.9. The certificate MUST
contain an ECDSA- or EdDSA-capable public key.
NOTE: The client's Certificate message is capable of carrying a chain
of certificates. The restrictions mentioned above apply only to the
client's certificate (first in the chain).
Structure of this message:
Identical to the TLS client Certificate format.
Actions of the sender:
The client constructs an appropriate certificate chain and conveys it
to the server in the Certificate message.
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RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Actions of the receiver:
The TLS server validates the certificate chain, extracts the client's
public key, and checks that the key type is appropriate for the
client authentication method.
5.7. Client Key Exchange
When this message is sent:
This message is sent in all key exchange algorithms. It contains the
client's ephemeral ECDH public key.
Meaning of the message:
This message is used to convey ephemeral data relating to the key
exchange belonging to the client (such as its ephemeral ECDH public
key).
Structure of this message:
The TLS ClientKeyExchange message is extended as follows.
enum {
implicit,
explicit
} PublicValueEncoding;
o implicit, explicit: For ECC cipher suites, this indicates whether
the client's ECDH public key is in the client's certificate
("implicit") or is provided, as an ephemeral ECDH public key, in
the ClientKeyExchange message ("explicit"). The implicit encoding
is deprecated and is retained here for backward compatibility
only.
struct {
ECPoint ecdh_Yc;
} ClientECDiffieHellmanPublic;
ecdh_Yc: Contains the client's ephemeral ECDH public key as a byte
string ECPoint.point, which may represent an elliptic curve point in
uncompressed format.
struct {
select (KeyExchangeAlgorithm) {
case ec_diffie_hellman: ClientECDiffieHellmanPublic;
} exchange_keys;
} ClientKeyExchange;
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 22
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Actions of the sender:
The client selects an ephemeral ECDH public key corresponding to the
parameters it received from the server. The format is the same as in
Section 5.4.
Actions of the receiver:
The server retrieves the client's ephemeral ECDH public key from the
ClientKeyExchange message and checks that it is on the same elliptic
curve as the server's ECDH key.
5.8. Certificate Verify
When this message is sent:
This message is sent when the client sends a client certificate
containing a public key usable for digital signatures.
Meaning of the message:
This message contains a signature that proves possession of the
private key corresponding to the public key in the client's
Certificate message.
Structure of this message:
The TLS CertificateVerify message and the underlying signature type
are defined in the TLS base specifications, and the latter is
extended here in Section 5.4. For the "ecdsa" and "eddsa" cases, the
signature field in the CertificateVerify message contains an ECDSA or
EdDSA (respectively) signature computed over handshake messages
exchanged so far, exactly similar to CertificateVerify with other
signing algorithms:
CertificateVerify.signature.sha_hash
SHA(handshake_messages);
CertificateVerify.signature.rawdata
handshake_messages;
ECDSA signatures are computed as described in Section 5.10, and SHA
in the above template for sha_hash accordingly may denote a hash
algorithm other than SHA-1. As per ANSI X9.62, an ECDSA signature
consists of a pair of integers, r and s. The digitally-signed
element is encoded as an opaque vector <0..2^16-1>, the contents of
which are the DER encoding [X.690] corresponding to the following
ASN.1 notation [X.680].
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 23
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Ecdsa-Sig-Value ::= SEQUENCE {
r INTEGER,
s INTEGER
}
EdDSA signatures are generated and verified according to [RFC 8032].
The digitally-signed element is encoded as an opaque vector
<0..2^16-1>, the contents of which include the octet string output of
the EdDSA signing algorithm.
Actions of the sender:
The client computes its signature over all handshake messages sent or
received starting at client hello and up to but not including this
message. It uses the private key corresponding to its certified
public key to compute the signature, which is conveyed in the format
defined above.
Actions of the receiver:
The server extracts the client's signature from the CertificateVerify
message and verifies the signature using the public key it received
in the client's Certificate message.
5.9. Elliptic Curve Certificates
X.509 certificates containing ECC public keys or signed using ECDSA
MUST comply with [RFC 3279] or another RFC that replaces or extends
it. X.509 certificates containing ECC public keys or signed using
EdDSA MUST comply with [RFC 8410]. Clients SHOULD use the elliptic
curve domain parameters recommended in ANSI X9.62, FIPS 186-4, and
SEC 2 [SECG-SEC2], or in [RFC 8032].
EdDSA keys using the Ed25519 algorithm MUST use the ed25519 signature
algorithm, and Ed448 keys MUST use the ed448 signature algorithm.
This document does not define use of Ed25519ph and Ed448ph keys with
TLS. Ed25519, Ed25519ph, Ed448, and Ed448ph keys MUST NOT be used
with ECDSA.
5.10. ECDH, ECDSA, and RSA Computations
All ECDH calculations for the NIST curves (including parameter and
key generation as well as the shared secret calculation) are
performed according to [IEEE.P1363] using the ECKAS-DH1 scheme with
the identity map as the Key Derivation Function (KDF) so that the
premaster secret is the x-coordinate of the ECDH shared secret
elliptic curve point represented as an octet string. Note that this
octet string (Z in IEEE 1363 terminology), as output by FE2OSP (Field
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 24
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Element to Octet String Conversion Primitive), has constant length
for any given field; leading zeros found in this octet string MUST
NOT be truncated.
(Note that this use of the identity KDF is a technicality. The
complete picture is that ECDH is employed with a non-trivial KDF
because TLS does not directly use the premaster secret for anything
other than for computing the master secret. In TLS 1.0 and 1.1, this
means that the MD5- and SHA-1-based TLS Pseudorandom Function (PRF)
serves as a KDF; in TLS 1.2, the KDF is determined by ciphersuite,
and it is conceivable that future TLS versions or new TLS extensions
introduced in the future may vary this computation.)
An ECDHE key exchange using X25519 (curve x25519) goes as follows:
(1) each party picks a secret key d uniformly at random and computes
the corresponding public key x = X25519(d, G); (2) parties exchange
their public keys and compute a shared secret as x_S = X25519(d,
x_peer); and (3), if either party obtains all-zeroes x_S, it MUST
abort the handshake (as required by definition of X25519 and X448).
ECDHE for X448 works similarly, replacing X25519 with X448 and x25519
with x448. The derived shared secret is used directly as the
premaster secret, which is always exactly 32 bytes when ECDHE with
X25519 is used and 56 bytes when ECDHE with X448 is used.
All ECDSA computations MUST be performed according to ANSI X9.62 or
its successors. Data to be signed/verified is hashed, and the result
runs directly through the ECDSA algorithm with no additional hashing.
A secure hash function such as SHA-256, SHA-384, or SHA-512 from
[FIPS.180-4] MUST be used.
All EdDSA computations MUST be performed according to [RFC 8032] or
its successors. Data to be signed/verified is run through the EdDSA
algorithm with no hashing (EdDSA will internally run the data through
the "prehash" function PH). The context parameter for Ed448 MUST be
set to the empty string.
RFC 4492 anticipated the standardization of a mechanism for
specifying the required hash function in the certificate, perhaps in
the parameters field of the subjectPublicKeyInfo. Such
standardization never took place, and as a result, SHA-1 is used in
TLS 1.1 and earlier (except for EdDSA, which uses identity function).
TLS 1.2 added a SignatureAndHashAlgorithm parameter to the
DigitallySigned struct, thus allowing agility in choosing the
signature hash. EdDSA signatures MUST have HashAlgorithm of 8
(Intrinsic).
All RSA signatures must be generated and verified according to
Section 7.2 of [RFC 8017].
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 25
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
5.11. Public Key Validation
With the NIST curves, each party MUST validate the public key sent by
its peer in the ClientKeyExchange and ServerKeyExchange messages. A
receiving party MUST check that the x and y parameters from the
peer's public value satisfy the curve equation, y^2 = x^3 + ax + b
mod p. See Section 2.3 of [Menezes] for details. Failing to do so
allows attackers to gain information about the private key to the
point that they may recover the entire private key in a few requests
if that key is not really ephemeral.
With X25519 and X448, a receiving party MUST check whether the
computed premaster secret is the all-zero value and abort the
handshake if so, as described in Section 6 of [RFC 7748].
Ed25519 and Ed448 internally do public key validation as part of
signature verification.
6. Cipher Suites
The table below defines ECC cipher suites that use the key exchange
algorithms specified in Section 2.
+-----------------------------------------+----------------+
| CipherSuite | Identifier |
+-----------------------------------------+----------------+
| TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_NULL_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x06 } |
| TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x08 } |
| TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x09 } |
| TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x0A } |
| TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 | { 0xC0, 0x2B } |
| TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | { 0xC0, 0x2C } |
| | |
| TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x10 } |
| TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x12 } |
| TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x13 } |
| TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x14 } |
| TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 | { 0xC0, 0x2F } |
| TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | { 0xC0, 0x30 } |
| | |
| TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_NULL_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x15 } |
| TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x17 } |
| TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x18 } |
| TLS_ECDH_anon_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA | { 0xC0, 0x19 } |
+-----------------------------------------+----------------+
Table 3: TLS ECC Cipher Suites
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 26
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
The key exchange method, cipher, and hash algorithm for each of these
cipher suites are easily determined by examining the name. Ciphers
(other than AES ciphers) and hash algorithms are defined in [RFC 2246]
and [RFC 4346]. AES ciphers are defined in [RFC 5246], and AES-GCM
ciphersuites are in [RFC 5289].
Server implementations SHOULD support all of the following cipher
suites, and client implementations SHOULD support at least one of
them:
o TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
o TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
o TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
o TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
7. Implementation Status
Both ECDHE and ECDSA with the NIST curves are widely implemented and
supported in all major browsers and all widely used TLS libraries.
ECDHE with Curve25519 is by now implemented in several browsers and
several TLS libraries including OpenSSL. Curve448 and EdDSA have
working interoperable implementations, but they are not yet as widely
deployed.
8. Security Considerations
Security issues are discussed throughout this memo.
For TLS handshakes using ECC cipher suites, the security
considerations in Appendix D of each of the three TLS base documents
apply accordingly.
Security discussions specific to ECC can be found in [IEEE.P1363] and
[ANSI.X9-62.2005]. One important issue that implementers and users
must consider is elliptic curve selection. Guidance on selecting an
appropriate elliptic curve size is given in Table 1. Security
considerations specific to X25519 and X448 are discussed in Section 7
of [RFC 7748].
Beyond elliptic curve size, the main issue is elliptic curve
structure. As a general principle, it is more conservative to use
elliptic curves with as little algebraic structure as possible.
Thus, random curves are more conservative than special curves such as
Koblitz curves, and curves over F_p with p random are more
conservative than curves over F_p with p of a special form, and
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 27
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
curves over F_p with p random are considered more conservative than
curves over F_2^m as there is no choice between multiple fields of
similar size for characteristic 2.
Another issue is the potential for catastrophic failures when a
single elliptic curve is widely used. In this case, an attack on the
elliptic curve might result in the compromise of a large number of
keys. Again, this concern may need to be balanced against efficiency
and interoperability improvements associated with widely used curves.
Substantial additional information on elliptic curve choice can be
found in [IEEE.P1363], [ANSI.X9-62.2005], and [FIPS.186-4].
The Introduction of [RFC 8032] lists the security, performance, and
operational advantages of EdDSA signatures over ECDSA signatures
using the NIST curves.
All of the key exchange algorithms defined in this document provide
forward secrecy. Some of the deprecated key exchange algorithms do
not.
9. IANA Considerations
[RFC 4492], the predecessor of this document, defined the IANA
registries for the following:
o Supported Groups (Section 5.1)
o EC Point Format (Section 5.1)
o EC Curve Type (Section 5.4)
IANA has prepended "TLS" to the names of these three registries.
For each name space, this document defines the initial value
assignments and defines a range of 256 values (NamedCurve) or eight
values (ECPointFormat and ECCurveType) reserved for Private Use. The
policy for any additional assignments is "Specification Required".
(RFC 4492 required IETF review.)
All existing entries in the "ExtensionType Values", "TLS
ClientCertificateType Identifiers", "TLS Cipher Suites", "TLS
Supported Groups", "TLS EC Point Format", and "TLS EC Curve Type"
registries that referred to RFC 4492 have been updated to refer to
this document.
IANA has assigned the value 29 to x25519 and the value 30 to x448 in
the "TLS Supported Groups" registry.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 28
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
IANA has assigned two values in the "TLS SignatureAlgorithm" registry
for ed25519 (7) and ed448 (8) with this document as reference. This
keeps compatibility with TLS 1.3.
IANA has assigned one value from the "TLS HashAlgorithm" registry for
Intrinsic (8) with DTLS-OK set to true (Y) and this document as
reference. This keeps compatibility with TLS 1.3.
10. References
10.1. Normative References
[ANSI.X9-62.2005]
American National Standards Institute, "Public Key
Cryptography for the Financial Services Industry: The
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA)",
ANSI X9.62, November 2005.
[FIPS.186-4]
National Institute of Standards and Technology, "Digital
Signature Standard (DSS)", FIPS PUB 186-4,
DOI 10.6028/NIST.FIPS.186-4, July 2013,
<http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/FIPS/
NIST.FIPS.186-4.pdf>.
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2119>.
[RFC 2246] Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0",
RFC 2246, DOI 10.17487/RFC 2246, January 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2246>.
[RFC 3279] Bassham, L., Polk, W., and R. Housley, "Algorithms and
Identifiers for the Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
(CRL) Profile", RFC 3279, DOI 10.17487/RFC 3279, April
2002, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3279>.
[RFC 4346] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.1", RFC 4346,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 4346, April 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4346>.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 29
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
[RFC 4366] Blake-Wilson, S., Nystrom, M., Hopwood, D., Mikkelsen, J.,
and T. Wright, "Transport Layer Security (TLS)
Extensions", RFC 4366, DOI 10.17487/RFC 4366, April 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4366>.
[RFC 5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 5246, August 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5246>.
[RFC 5289] Rescorla, E., "TLS Elliptic Curve Cipher Suites with SHA-
256/384 and AES Galois Counter Mode (GCM)", RFC 5289,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 5289, August 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5289>.
[RFC 7748] Langley, A., Hamburg, M., and S. Turner, "Elliptic Curves
for Security", RFC 7748, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7748, January
2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7748>.
[RFC 8017] Moriarty, K., Ed., Kaliski, B., Jonsson, J., and A. Rusch,
"PKCS #1: RSA Cryptography Specifications Version 2.2",
RFC 8017, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8017, November 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8017>.
[RFC 8032] Josefsson, S. and I. Liusvaara, "Edwards-Curve Digital
Signature Algorithm (EdDSA)", RFC 8032,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 8032, January 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8032>.
[RFC 8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8174>.
[RFC 8410] Josefsson, S. and J. Schaad, "Algorithm Identifiers for
Ed25519, Ed448, X25519 and X448 for Use in the Internet
X.509 Public Key Infrastructure", RFC 8410,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 8410, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8410>.
[SECG-SEC2]
Certicom Research, "SEC 2: Recommended Elliptic Curve
Domain Parameters", Standards for Efficient Cryptography 2
(SEC 2), Version 2.0, January 2010,
<http://www.secg.org/sec2-v2.pdf>.
[X.680] ITU-T, "Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1):
Specification of basic notation", ITU-T Recommendation
X.680, ISO/IEC 8824-1, August 2015.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 30
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
[X.690] ITU-T, "Information technology-ASN.1 encoding rules:
Specification of Basic Encoding Rules (BER), Canonical
Encoding Rules (CER) and Distinguished Encoding Rules
(DER)", ITU-T Recommendation X.690, ISO/IEC 8825-1, August
2015.
10.2. Informative References
[FIPS.180-4]
National Institute of Standards and Technology, "Secure
Hash Standard (SHS)", FIPS PUB 180-4, DOI
10.6028/NIST.FIPS.180-4, August 2015,
<http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/FIPS/
NIST.FIPS.180-4.pdf>.
[IEEE.P1363]
IEEE, "Standard Specifications for Public Key
Cryptography", IEEE Std P1363,
<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/891000/>.
[Menezes] Menezes, A. and B. Ustaoglu, "On reusing ephemeral keys in
Diffie-Hellman key agreement protocols", International
Journal of Applied Cryptography, Vol. 2, Issue 2,
DOI 10.1504/IJACT.2010.038308, January 2010.
[RFC 4492] Blake-Wilson, S., Bolyard, N., Gupta, V., Hawk, C., and B.
Moeller, "Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Cipher Suites
for Transport Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 4492,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 4492, May 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4492>.
[RFC 7919] Gillmor, D., "Negotiated Finite Field Diffie-Hellman
Ephemeral Parameters for Transport Layer Security (TLS)",
RFC 7919, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7919, August 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7919>.
[TLS1.3] Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", Work in Progress, draft-ietf-tls-tls13-28,
March 2018.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 31
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Appendix A. Equivalent Curves (Informative)
All of the NIST curves [FIPS.186-4] and several of the ANSI curves
[ANSI.X9-62.2005] are equivalent to curves listed in Section 5.1.1.
The following table displays the curve names chosen by different
standards organizations; multiple names in one row represent aliases
for the same curve.
+-----------+------------+------------+
| SECG | ANSI X9.62 | NIST |
+-----------+------------+------------+
| sect163k1 | | NIST K-163 |
| sect163r1 | | |
| sect163r2 | | NIST B-163 |
| sect193r1 | | |
| sect193r2 | | |
| sect233k1 | | NIST K-233 |
| sect233r1 | | NIST B-233 |
| sect239k1 | | |
| sect283k1 | | NIST K-283 |
| sect283r1 | | NIST B-283 |
| sect409k1 | | NIST K-409 |
| sect409r1 | | NIST B-409 |
| sect571k1 | | NIST K-571 |
| sect571r1 | | NIST B-571 |
| secp160k1 | | |
| secp160r1 | | |
| secp160r2 | | |
| secp192k1 | | |
| secp192r1 | prime192v1 | NIST P-192 |
| secp224k1 | | |
| secp224r1 | | NIST P-224 |
| secp256k1 | | |
| secp256r1 | prime256v1 | NIST P-256 |
| secp384r1 | | NIST P-384 |
| secp521r1 | | NIST P-521 |
+-----------+------------+------------+
Table 4: Equivalent Curves Defined by SECG, ANSI, and NIST
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 32
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Appendix B. Differences from RFC 4492
o Renamed EllipticCurveList to NamedCurveList.
o Added TLS 1.2.
o Merged errata.
o Removed the ECDH key exchange algorithms: ECDH_RSA and ECDH_ECDSA
o Deprecated a bunch of ciphersuites:
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_NULL_SHA
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
All the other RC4 ciphersuites
o Removed unused curves and all but the uncompressed point format.
o Added X25519 and X448.
o Deprecated explicit curves.
o Removed restriction on signature algorithm in certificate.
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 33
RFC 8422 ECC Cipher Suites for TLS August 2018
Acknowledgements
Most of the text in this document is taken from [RFC 4492], the
predecessor of this document. The authors of that document were:
o Simon Blake-Wilson
o Nelson Bolyard
o Vipul Gupta
o Chris Hawk
o Bodo Moeller
In the predecessor document, the authors acknowledged the
contributions of Bill Anderson and Tim Dierks.
The authors would like to thank Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos, Martin
Thomson, and Tanja Lange for contributions to this document.
Authors' Addresses
Yoav Nir
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
5 Hasolelim st.
Tel Aviv 6789735
Israel
Email: ynir.ietf@gmail.com
Simon Josefsson
SJD AB
Email: simon@josefsson.org
Manuel Pegourie-Gonnard
ARM
Email: mpg@elzevir.fr
Nir, et al. Standards Track PAGE 34
Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Cipher Suites for Transport Layer Security (TLS) Versions 1.2 and Earlier
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 69965 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Tuesday, August 7th, 2018
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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