Hi,

When I analysed an earlier version of Group OSCORE some years ago it had severe 
security problems when used with CCM_8 + Countersignature. The attacks were 
pretty bad. 64-bit offline complexity against source 
authentication/availability from a different person in the group and something 
slightly over 32-bit online security (collecting 2^32 messages) against a 
source authentication/availability from a third party outside of the group. The 
problem was that the countersignature relied on the AEAD tag for integrity 
protection of the additional data. This was fixed in Group OSCORE be adding all 
the additional data to the signature as well.

The use case of Countersignatures is "Countersignatures provide a method of 
having a second party sign some data." In this case I don't think CCM_8 + 
Countersignature provides the expected security. Unless you can put all the 
additional data to the signature as well, I think CCM_8 + Countersignature 
needs to be forbidden.

I don't really see why Group OSCORE is using countersign in the first place, it 
seems like a relic from a time when it was assumed that OSCORE would be a 
single COSE structure on the wire as well.

Cheers,
John

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