On Sat, Aug 03, 2024 at 04:43:13PM +0000, lgl island-resort.com wrote:
> TLDR: CIS correctly protects the content encryption alg ID except for
> ECDH-with-key-wrap (alg ids -29…-34).
>
> TLDR: Changing the meaning of CIS AlgorithmID for ECDH-with-key-wrap
> is a low impact solution to the AEAD downgrade attack.

What about all the Key Wrap and Key Transport algorithms? 

- The first can be AE, which does not allow binding the algorithm.
- The second has no way of binding the algorithm by definition.

 
> RFC 9053 section 5.2<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9180.html#section-5.2>
> says how to use the CIS AlgorithmID. The AlgorithmID definition is not
> that clear, but the best interpretation of it for ECDH-with-key-wrap
> (-29…-34) is that it identifies the key wrap algorithm, not the
> content encryption algorithm. That is also what Jim’s code
> <https://github.com/cose-wg/COSE-C> does and what is in the
> COSE-Examples repository<https://github.com/cose-wg/Examples>.

What about those cases where the Key Agreement with Key Wrap uses unsafe
key wrap? One really does not want to assign a codepoint for a security
problem. I guess one could specify that the algorithm is the combined
algorithm (at least that would be explicit).


> I think this would be better than draft-tschofenig-cose-cek-hkdf-sha256
> because it is just a small adjustment.

There are cases where one actually needs something like that draft.


> Going on to complete the discussion of AEAD downgrade for all key
> distribution options in section 
> 6<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9053.html#section-6>,
> Direct_key (-6) and AES_key_wrap (-3… -5) are both vulnerable. Neither
> use HKDF and thus don’t use CIS AlgorithmID. Should they be remedied
> by draft-tschofenig-cose-cek-hkdf-sha256?

There is also Key Transport (-40, -41 and -42). I don't see a way to add
a context to that.




-Ilari

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