Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         R. Barnes
Request for Comments: 9345                                         Cisco
Category: Standards Track                                     S. Iyengar
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                 Facebook
                                                            N. Sullivan
                                                             Cloudflare
                                                            E. Rescorla
                                                Windy Hill Systems, LLC
                                                              July 2023


                Delegated Credentials for TLS and DTLS

Abstract

  The organizational separation between operators of TLS and DTLS
  endpoints and the certification authority can create limitations.
  For example, the lifetime of certificates, how they may be used, and
  the algorithms they support are ultimately determined by the
  Certification Authority (CA).  This document describes a mechanism to
  overcome some of these limitations by enabling operators to delegate
  their own credentials for use in TLS and DTLS without breaking
  compatibility with peers that do not support this specification.

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/rfc9345.

Copyright Notice

  Copyright (c) 2023 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 Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the
  Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described
  in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

  1.  Introduction
  2.  Conventions and Terminology
  3.  Solution Overview
    3.1.  Rationale
    3.2.  Related Work
  4.  Delegated Credentials
    4.1.  Client and Server Behavior
      4.1.1.  Server Authentication
      4.1.2.  Client Authentication
      4.1.3.  Validating a Delegated Credential
    4.2.  Certificate Requirements
  5.  Operational Considerations
    5.1.  Client Clock Skew
  6.  IANA Considerations
  7.  Security Considerations
    7.1.  Security of Delegated Credential's Private Key
    7.2.  Re-use of Delegated Credentials in Multiple Contexts
    7.3.  Revocation of Delegated Credentials
    7.4.  Interactions with Session Resumption
    7.5.  Privacy Considerations
    7.6.  The Impact of Signature Forgery Attacks
  8.  References
    8.1.  Normative References
    8.2.  Informative References
  Appendix A.  ASN.1 Module
  Appendix B.  Example Certificate
  Acknowledgements
  Authors' Addresses

1.  Introduction

  Server operators often deploy (D)TLS termination to act as the server
  for inbound TLS connections.  These termination services can be in
  locations such as remote data centers or Content Delivery Networks
  (CDNs) where it may be difficult to detect compromises of private key
  material corresponding to TLS certificates.  Short-lived certificates
  may be used to limit the exposure of keys in these cases.

  However, short-lived certificates need to be renewed more frequently
  than long-lived certificates.  If an external Certification Authority
  (CA) is unable to issue a certificate in time to replace a deployed
  certificate, the server would no longer be able to present a valid
  certificate to clients.  With short-lived certificates, there is a
  smaller window of time to renew a certificate and therefore a higher
  risk that an outage at a CA will negatively affect the uptime of the
  TLS-fronted service.

  Typically, a (D)TLS server uses a certificate provided by some entity
  other than the operator of the server (a CA) [RFC8446] [RFC5280].
  This organizational separation makes the (D)TLS server operator
  dependent on the CA for some aspects of its operations.  For example:

  *  Whenever the server operator wants to deploy a new certificate, it
     has to interact with the CA.

  *  The CA might only issue credentials containing certain types of
     public keys, which can limit the set of (D)TLS signature schemes
     usable by the server operator.

  To reduce the dependency on external CAs, this document specifies a
  limited delegation mechanism that allows a (D)TLS peer to issue its
  own credentials within the scope of a certificate issued by an
  external CA.  These credentials only enable the recipient of the
  delegation to terminate connections for names that the CA has
  authorized.  Furthermore, this mechanism allows the server to use
  modern signature algorithms such as Ed25519 [RFC8032] even if their
  CA does not support them.

  This document refers to the certificate issued by the CA as a
  "certificate", or "delegation certificate", and the one issued by the
  operator as a "delegated credential" or "DC".

2.  Conventions and Terminology

  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 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
  capitals, as shown here.

3.  Solution Overview

  A delegated credential (DC) is a digitally signed data structure with
  two semantic fields: a validity interval and a public key (along with
  its associated signature algorithm).  The signature on the delegated
  credential indicates a delegation from the certificate that is issued
  to the peer.  The private key used to sign a credential corresponds
  to the public key of the peer's X.509 end-entity certificate
  [RFC5280].  Figure 1 shows the intended deployment architecture.

Client            Front-End            Back-End
 |                   |<--DC distribution->|
 |----ClientHello--->|                    |
 |<---ServerHello----|                    |
 |<---Certificate----|                    |
 |<---CertVerify-----|                    |
 |        ...        |                    |

Legend:
Client: (D)TLS client
Front-End: (D)TLS server (could be a TLS-termination service like a CDN)
Back-End: Service with access to a private key

      Figure 1: Delegated Credentials Deployment Architecture

  A (D)TLS handshake that uses delegated credentials differs from a
  standard handshake in a few important ways:

  *  The initiating peer provides an extension in its ClientHello or
     CertificateRequest that indicates support for this mechanism.

  *  The peer sending the Certificate message provides both the
     certificate chain terminating in its certificate and the delegated
     credential.

  *  The initiator uses information from the peer's certificate to
     verify the delegated credential and that the peer is asserting an
     expected identity, determining an authentication result for the
     peer.

  *  Peers accepting the delegated credential use it as the certificate
     key for the (D)TLS handshake.

  As detailed in Section 4, the delegated credential is
  cryptographically bound to the end-entity certificate with which the
  credential may be used.  This document specifies the use of delegated
  credentials in (D)TLS 1.3 or later; their use in prior versions of
  the protocol is not allowed.

  Delegated credentials allow a peer to terminate (D)TLS connections on
  behalf of the certificate owner.  If a credential is stolen, there is
  no mechanism for revoking it without revoking the certificate itself.
  To limit exposure in case of the compromise of a delegated
  credential's private key, delegated credentials have a maximum
  validity period.  In the absence of an application profile standard
  specifying otherwise, the maximum validity period is set to 7 days.
  Peers MUST NOT issue credentials with a validity period longer than
  the maximum validity period or that extends beyond the validity
  period of the delegation certificate.  This mechanism is described in
  detail in Section 4.1.

  It was noted in [XPROT] that certificates in use by servers that
  support outdated protocols such as SSLv2 can be used to forge
  signatures for certificates that contain the keyEncipherment KeyUsage
  ([RFC5280], Section 4.2.1.3).  In order to reduce the risk of cross-
  protocol attacks on certificates that are not intended to be used
  with DC-capable TLS stacks, we define a new DelegationUsage extension
  to X.509 that permits use of delegated credentials.  (See
  Section 4.2.)

3.1.  Rationale

  Delegated credentials present a better alternative than other
  delegation mechanisms like proxy certificates [RFC3820] for several
  reasons:

  *  There is no change needed to certificate validation at the PKI
     layer.

  *  X.509 semantics are very rich.  This can cause unintended
     consequences if a service owner creates a proxy certificate where
     the properties differ from the leaf certificate.  Proxy
     certificates can be useful in controlled environments, but remain
     a risk in scenarios where the additional flexibility they provide
     is not necessary.  For this reason, delegated credentials have
     very restricted semantics that should not conflict with X.509
     semantics.

  *  Proxy certificates rely on the certificate path building process
     to establish a binding between the proxy certificate and the end-
     entity certificate.  Since the certificate path building process
     is not cryptographically protected, it is possible that a proxy
     certificate could be bound to another certificate with the same
     public key, with different X.509 parameters.  Delegated
     credentials, which rely on a cryptographic binding between the
     entire certificate and the delegated credential, cannot.

  *  Each delegated credential is bound to a specific signature
     algorithm for use in the (D)TLS handshake ([RFC8446],
     Section 4.2.3).  This prevents them from being used with other,
     perhaps unintended, signature algorithms.  The signature algorithm
     bound to the delegated credential can be chosen independently of
     the set of signature algorithms supported by the end-entity
     certificate.

3.2.  Related Work

  Many of the use cases for delegated credentials can also be addressed
  using purely server-side mechanisms that do not require changes to
  client behavior (e.g., a PKCS#11 interface or a remote signing
  mechanism, [KEYLESS] being one example).  These mechanisms, however,
  incur per-transaction latency, since the front-end server has to
  interact with a back-end server that holds a private key.  The
  mechanism proposed in this document allows the delegation to be done
  offline, with no per-transaction latency.  The figure below compares
  the message flows for these two mechanisms with (D)TLS 1.3 [RFC8446]
  [RFC9147].

Remote key signing:

Client            Front-End            Back-End
 |----ClientHello--->|                    |
 |<---ServerHello----|                    |
 |<---Certificate----|                    |
 |                   |<---remote sign---->|
 |<---CertVerify-----|                    |
 |        ...        |                    |


Delegated Credential:

Client            Front-End            Back-End
 |                   |<--DC distribution->|
 |----ClientHello--->|                    |
 |<---ServerHello----|                    |
 |<---Certificate----|                    |
 |<---CertVerify-----|                    |
 |        ...        |                    |

Legend:
Client: (D)TLS client
Front-End: (D)TLS server (could be a TLS-termination service like a CDN)
Back-End: Service with access to a private key

  These two mechanisms can be complementary.  A server could use
  delegated credentials for clients that support them, while using a
  server-side mechanism to support legacy clients.  Both mechanisms
  require a trusted relationship between the front-end and back-end --
  the delegated credential can be used in place of a certificate
  private key.

  The use of short-lived certificates with automated certificate
  issuance, e.g., with the Automated Certificate Management Environment
  (ACME) [RFC8555], reduces the risk of key compromise but has several
  limitations.  Specifically, it introduces an operationally critical
  dependency on an external party (the CA).  It also limits the types
  of algorithms supported for (D)TLS authentication to those the CA is
  willing to issue a certificate for.  Nonetheless, existing automated
  issuance APIs like ACME may be useful for provisioning delegated
  credentials.

4.  Delegated Credentials

  While X.509 forbids end-entity certificates from being used as
  issuers for other certificates, it is valid to use them to issue
  other signed objects as long as the certificate contains the
  digitalSignature KeyUsage ([RFC5280], Section 4.2.1.3).  (All
  certificates compatible with TLS 1.3 are required to contain the
  digitalSignature KeyUsage.)  This document defines a new signed
  object format that encodes only the semantics that are needed for
  this application.  The Credential has the following structure:

     struct {
       uint32 valid_time;
       SignatureScheme dc_cert_verify_algorithm;
       opaque ASN1_subjectPublicKeyInfo<1..2^24-1>;
     } Credential;

  valid_time:  Time, in seconds relative to the delegation
     certificate's notBefore value, after which the delegated
     credential is no longer valid.  By default, unless set to an
     alternative value by an application profile (see Section 3),
     endpoints will reject delegated credentials that expire more than
     7 days from the current time (as described in Section 4.1.3).

  dc_cert_verify_algorithm:  The signature algorithm of the Credential
     key pair, where the type SignatureScheme is as defined in
     [RFC8446].  This is expected to be the same as the sender's
     CertificateVerify.algorithm (as described in Section 4.1.3).
     When using RSA, the public key MUST NOT use the rsaEncryption OID.
     As a result, the following algorithms are not allowed for use with
     delegated credentials: rsa_pss_rsae_sha256, rsa_pss_rsae_sha384,
     and rsa_pss_rsae_sha512.

  ASN1_subjectPublicKeyInfo:  The Credential's public key, a DER-
     encoded [X.690] SubjectPublicKeyInfo as defined in [RFC5280].

  The DelegatedCredential has the following structure:

     struct {
       Credential cred;
       SignatureScheme algorithm;
       opaque signature<1..2^16-1>;
     } DelegatedCredential;

  cred:  The Credential structure as previously defined.

  algorithm:  The signature algorithm used to create
     DelegatedCredential.signature.

  signature:  The delegation, a signature that binds the credential to
     the end-entity certificate's public key as specified below.  The
     signature scheme is specified by DelegatedCredential.algorithm.

  The signature of the DelegatedCredential is computed over the
  concatenation of:

  1.  An octet stream that consists of octet 32 (0x20) repeated 64
      times.

  2.  The non-null terminated context string "TLS, server delegated
      credentials" for server authentication and "TLS, client delegated
      credentials" for client authentication.

  3.  A single octet 0x00, which serves as the separator.

  4.  The DER-encoded X.509 end-entity certificate used to sign the
      DelegatedCredential.

  5.  DelegatedCredential.cred.

  6.  DelegatedCredential.algorithm.

  The signature is computed by using the private key of the peer's end-
  entity certificate, with the algorithm indicated by
  DelegatedCredential.algorithm.

  The signature effectively binds the credential to the parameters of
  the handshake in which it is used.  In particular, it ensures that
  credentials are only used with the certificate and signature
  algorithm chosen by the delegator.

  The code changes required in order to create and verify delegated
  credentials, and the implementation complexity this entails, are
  localized to the (D)TLS stack.  This has the advantage of avoiding
  changes to the often-delicate security-critical PKI code.

4.1.  Client and Server Behavior

  This document defines the following (D)TLS extension code point.

     enum {
       ...
       delegated_credential(34),
       (65535)
     } ExtensionType;

4.1.1.  Server Authentication

  A client that is willing to use delegated credentials in a connection
  SHALL send a "delegated_credential" extension in its ClientHello.
  The body of the extension consists of a SignatureSchemeList (defined
  in [RFC8446]):

     struct {
       SignatureScheme supported_signature_algorithms<2..2^16-2>;
     } SignatureSchemeList;

  If the client receives a delegated credential without having
  indicated support in its ClientHello, then the client MUST abort the
  handshake with an "unexpected_message" alert.

  If the extension is present, the server MAY send a delegated
  credential; if the extension is not present, the server MUST NOT send
  a delegated credential.  When a (D)TLS version negotiated is less
  than 1.3, the server MUST ignore this extension.  An example of when
  a server could choose not to send a delegated credential is when the
  SignatureSchemes listed only contain signature schemes for which a
  corresponding delegated credential does not exist or are otherwise
  unsuitable for the connection.

  The server MUST send the delegated credential as an extension in the
  CertificateEntry of its end-entity certificate; the client MUST NOT
  use delegated credentials sent as extensions to any other
  certificate, and SHOULD ignore them, but MAY abort the handshake with
  an "illegal_parameter" alert.  If the server sends multiple delegated
  credentials extensions in a single CertificateEntry, the client MUST
  abort the handshake with an "illegal_parameter" alert.

  The algorithm field MUST be of a type advertised by the client in the
  "signature_algorithms" extension of the ClientHello message, and the
  dc_cert_verify_algorithm field MUST be of a type advertised by the
  client in the SignatureSchemeList; otherwise, the credential is
  considered not valid.  Clients that receive non-valid delegated
  credentials MUST terminate the connection with an "illegal_parameter"
  alert.

4.1.2.  Client Authentication

  A server that supports this specification SHALL send a
  "delegated_credential" extension in the CertificateRequest message
  when requesting client authentication.  The body of the extension
  consists of a SignatureSchemeList.  If the server receives a
  delegated credential without having indicated support in its
  CertificateRequest, then the server MUST abort with an
  "unexpected_message" alert.

  If the extension is present, the client MAY send a delegated
  credential; if the extension is not present, the client MUST NOT send
  a delegated credential.  When a (D)TLS version negotiated is less
  than 1.3, the client MUST ignore this extension.

  The client MUST send the delegated credential as an extension in the
  CertificateEntry of its end-entity certificate; the server MUST NOT
  use delegated credentials sent as extensions to any other
  certificate, and SHOULD ignore them, but MAY abort the handshake with
  an "illegal_parameter" alert.  If the client sends multiple delegated
  credentials extensions in a single CertificateEntry, the server MUST
  abort the handshake with an "illegal_parameter" alert.

  The algorithm field MUST be of a type advertised by the server in the
  "signature_algorithms" extension of the CertificateRequest message,
  and the dc_cert_verify_algorithm field MUST be of a type advertised
  by the server in the SignatureSchemeList; otherwise, the credential
  is considered not valid.  Servers that receive non-valid delegated
  credentials MUST terminate the connection with an "illegal_parameter"
  alert.

4.1.3.  Validating a Delegated Credential

  On receiving a delegated credential and certificate chain, the peer
  validates the certificate chain and matches the end-entity
  certificate to the peer's expected identity in the same way that it
  is done when delegated credentials are not in use.  It then performs
  the following checks with expiry time set to the delegation
  certificate's notBefore value plus
  DelegatedCredential.cred.valid_time:

  1.  Verify that the current time is within the validity interval of
      the credential.  This is done by asserting that the current time
      does not exceed the expiry time.  (The start time of the
      credential is implicitly validated as part of certificate
      validation.)

  2.  Verify that the delegated credential's remaining validity period
      is no more than the maximum validity period.  This is done by
      asserting that the expiry time does not exceed the current time
      plus the maximum validity period (7 days by default) and that the
      expiry time is less than the certificate's expiry_time.

  3.  Verify that dc_cert_verify_algorithm matches the scheme indicated
      in the peer's CertificateVerify message and that the algorithm is
      allowed for use with delegated credentials.

  4.  Verify that the end-entity certificate satisfies the conditions
      described in Section 4.2.

  5.  Use the public key in the peer's end-entity certificate to verify
      the signature of the credential using the algorithm indicated by
      DelegatedCredential.algorithm.

  If one or more of these checks fail, then the delegated credential is
  deemed not valid.  Clients and servers that receive non-valid
  delegated credentials MUST terminate the connection with an
  "illegal_parameter" alert.

  If successful, the participant receiving the Certificate message uses
  the public key in DelegatedCredential.cred to verify the signature in
  the peer's CertificateVerify message.

4.2.  Certificate Requirements

  This document defines a new X.509 extension, DelegationUsage, to be
  used in the certificate when the certificate permits the usage of
  delegated credentials.  What follows is the ASN.1 [X.680] for the
  DelegationUsage certificate extension.

      ext-delegationUsage EXTENSION  ::= {
          SYNTAX DelegationUsage IDENTIFIED BY id-pe-delegationUsage
      }

      DelegationUsage ::= NULL

      id-pe-delegationUsage OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
          { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
            private(4) enterprise(1) id-cloudflare(44363) 44 }

  The extension MUST be marked non-critical.  (See Section 4.2 of
  [RFC5280].)  An endpoint MUST NOT accept a delegated credential
  unless the peer's end-entity certificate satisfies the following
  criteria:

  *  It has the DelegationUsage extension.

  *  It has the digitalSignature KeyUsage (see the KeyUsage extension
     defined in [RFC5280]).

  A new extension was chosen instead of adding a new Extended Key Usage
  (EKU) to be compatible with deployed (D)TLS and PKI software stacks
  without requiring CAs to issue new intermediate certificates.

5.  Operational Considerations

  The operational considerations documented in this section should be
  taken into consideration when using delegated credentials.

5.1.  Client Clock Skew

  One of the risks of deploying a short-lived credential system based
  on absolute time is client clock skew.  If a client's clock is
  sufficiently ahead of or behind the server's clock, then clients will
  reject delegated credentials that are valid from the server's
  perspective.  Clock skew also affects the validity of the original
  certificates.  The lifetime of the delegated credential should be set
  taking clock skew into account.  Clock skew may affect a delegated
  credential at the beginning and end of its validity periods, which
  should also be taken into account.

6.  IANA Considerations

  This document registers the "delegated_credential" extension in the
  "TLS ExtensionType Values" registry.  The "delegated_credential"
  extension has been assigned the ExtensionType value 34.  The IANA
  registry lists this extension as "Recommended" (i.e., "Y") and
  indicates that it may appear in the ClientHello (CH),
  CertificateRequest (CR), or Certificate (CT) messages in (D)TLS 1.3
  [RFC8446] [RFC9147].  Additionally, the "DTLS-Only" column is
  assigned the value "N".

  This document also defines an ASN.1 module for the DelegationUsage
  certificate extension in Appendix A.  IANA has registered value 95
  for "id-mod-delegated-credential-extn" in the "SMI Security for PKIX
  Module Identifier" (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.0) registry.  An OID for the
  DelegationUsage certificate extension is not needed, as it is already
  assigned to the extension from Cloudflare's IANA Private Enterprise
  Number (PEN) arc.

7.  Security Considerations

  The security considerations documented in this section should be
  taken into consideration when using delegated credentials.

7.1.  Security of Delegated Credential's Private Key

  Delegated credentials limit the exposure of the private key used in a
  (D)TLS connection by limiting its validity period.  An attacker who
  compromises the private key of a delegated credential cannot create
  new delegated credentials, but they can impersonate the compromised
  party in new TLS connections until the delegated credential expires.

  Thus, delegated credentials should not be used to send a delegation
  to an untrusted party.  Rather, they are meant to be used between
  parties that have some trust relationship with each other.  The
  secrecy of the delegated credential's private key is thus important,
  and access control mechanisms SHOULD be used to protect it, including
  file system controls, physical security, or hardware security
  modules.

7.2.  Re-use of Delegated Credentials in Multiple Contexts

  It is not possible to use the same delegated credential for both
  client and server authentication because issuing parties compute the
  corresponding signature using a context string unique to the intended
  role (client or server).

7.3.  Revocation of Delegated Credentials

  Delegated credentials do not provide any additional form of early
  revocation.  Since it is short-lived, the expiry of the delegated
  credential revokes the credential.  Revocation of the long-term
  private key that signs the delegated credential (from the end-entity
  certificate) also implicitly revokes the delegated credential.

7.4.  Interactions with Session Resumption

  If a peer decides to cache the certificate chain and re-validate it
  when resuming a connection, they SHOULD also cache the associated
  delegated credential and re-validate it.  Failing to do so may result
  in resuming connections for which the delegated credential has
  expired.

7.5.  Privacy Considerations

  Delegated credentials can be valid for 7 days (by default), and it is
  much easier for a service to create delegated credentials than a
  certificate signed by a CA.  A service could determine the client
  time and clock skew by creating several delegated credentials with
  different expiry timestamps and observing which credentials the
  client accepts.  Since client time can be unique to a particular
  client, privacy-sensitive clients who do not trust the service, such
  as browsers in incognito mode, might not want to advertise support
  for delegated credentials, or might limit the number of probes that a
  server can perform.

7.6.  The Impact of Signature Forgery Attacks

  Delegated credentials are only used in (D)TLS 1.3 connections.
  However, the certificate that signs a delegated credential may be
  used in other contexts such as (D)TLS 1.2.  Using a certificate in
  multiple contexts opens up a potential cross-protocol attack against
  delegated credentials in (D)TLS 1.3.

  When (D)TLS 1.2 servers support RSA key exchange, they may be
  vulnerable to attacks that allow forging an RSA signature over an
  arbitrary message [BLEI].  The TLS 1.2 specification describes a
  strategy for preventing these attacks that requires careful
  implementation of timing-resistant countermeasures.  (See
  Section 7.4.7.1 of [RFC5246].)

  Experience shows that, in practice, server implementations may fail
  to fully stop these attacks due to the complexity of this mitigation
  [ROBOT].  For (D)TLS 1.2 servers that support RSA key exchange using
  a DC-enabled end-entity certificate, a hypothetical signature forgery
  attack would allow forging a signature over a delegated credential.
  The forged delegated credential could then be used by the attacker as
  the equivalent of an on-path attacker, valid for a maximum of 7 days
  (if the default valid_time is used).

  Server operators should therefore minimize the risk of using DC-
  enabled end-entity certificates where a signature forgery oracle may
  be present.  If possible, server operators may choose to use DC-
  enabled certificates only for signing credentials and not for serving
  non-DC (D)TLS traffic.  Furthermore, server operators may use
  elliptic curve certificates for DC-enabled traffic, while using RSA
  certificates without the DelegationUsage certificate extension for
  non-DC traffic; this completely prevents such attacks.

  Note that if a signature can be forged over an arbitrary credential,
  the attacker can choose any value for the valid_time field.  Repeated
  signature forgeries therefore allow the attacker to create multiple
  delegated credentials that can cover the entire validity period of
  the certificate.  Temporary exposure of the key or a signing oracle
  may allow the attacker to impersonate a server for the lifetime of
  the certificate.

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

  [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
             Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

  [RFC5280]  Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
             Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
             Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
             (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, DOI 10.17487/RFC5280, May 2008,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5280>.

  [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
             2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
             May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

  [RFC8446]  Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
             Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8446>.

  [RFC9147]  Rescorla, E., Tschofenig, H., and N. Modadugu, "The
             Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Protocol Version
             1.3", RFC 9147, DOI 10.17487/RFC9147, April 2022,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9147>.

  [X.680]    ITU-T, "Information technology - Abstract Syntax Notation
             One (ASN.1): Specification of basic notation", ISO/
             IEC 8824-1:2021, February 2021,
             <https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.680>.

  [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)", ISO/IEC 8825-1:2021, February 2021,
             <https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.690>.

8.2.  Informative References

  [BLEI]     Bleichenbacher, D., "Chosen Ciphertext Attacks against
             Protocols Based on RSA Encryption Standard PKCS #1",
             Advances in Cryptology -- CRYPTO'98, LNCS vol. 1462,
             pages: 1-12, 1998,
             <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/BFb0055716>.

  [KEYLESS]  Stebila, D. and N. Sullivan, "An Analysis of TLS Handshake
             Proxying", IEEE Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA 2015, 2015,
             <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7345293>.

  [RFC3820]  Tuecke, S., Welch, V., Engert, D., Pearlman, L., and M.
             Thompson, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
             Proxy Certificate Profile", RFC 3820,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC3820, June 2004,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3820>.

  [RFC5246]  Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
             (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5246>.

  [RFC5912]  Hoffman, P. and J. Schaad, "New ASN.1 Modules for the
             Public Key Infrastructure Using X.509 (PKIX)", RFC 5912,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC5912, June 2010,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5912>.

  [RFC8032]  Josefsson, S. and I. Liusvaara, "Edwards-Curve Digital
             Signature Algorithm (EdDSA)", RFC 8032,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC8032, January 2017,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8032>.

  [RFC8555]  Barnes, R., Hoffman-Andrews, J., McCarney, D., and J.
             Kasten, "Automatic Certificate Management Environment
             (ACME)", RFC 8555, DOI 10.17487/RFC8555, March 2019,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8555>.

  [ROBOT]    Boeck, H., Somorovsky, J., and C. Young, "Return Of
             Bleichenbacher's Oracle Threat (ROBOT)", 27th USENIX
             Security Symposium, 2018,
             <https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/
             presentation/bock>.

  [XPROT]    Jager, T., Schwenk, J., and J. Somorovsky, "On the
             Security of TLS 1.3 and QUIC Against Weaknesses in PKCS#1
             v1.5 Encryption", Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSAC
             Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 2015,
             <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2810103.2813657>.

Appendix A.  ASN.1 Module

  The following ASN.1 module provides the complete definition of the
  DelegationUsage certificate extension.  The ASN.1 module makes
  imports from [RFC5912].

  DelegatedCredentialExtn
    { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
      security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
      id-mod-delegated-credential-extn(95) }

  DEFINITIONS IMPLICIT TAGS ::=
  BEGIN

  -- EXPORT ALL

  IMPORTS

  EXTENSION
    FROM PKIX-CommonTypes-2009 -- From RFC 5912
    { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
      security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
      id-mod-pkixCommon-02(57) } ;

  -- OID

  id-cloudflare OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::=
    { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1) private(4)
      enterprise(1) 44363 }

  -- EXTENSION

  ext-delegationUsage EXTENSION ::=
    { SYNTAX DelegationUsage
      IDENTIFIED BY id-pe-delegationUsage }

  id-pe-delegationUsage OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-cloudflare 44 }

  DelegationUsage ::= NULL

  END

Appendix B.  Example Certificate

  The following is an example of a delegation certificate that
  satisfies the requirements described in Section 4.2 (i.e., uses the
  DelegationUsage extension and has the digitalSignature KeyUsage).

  -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
  MIIFRjCCBMugAwIBAgIQDGevB+lY0o/OecHFSJ6YnTAKBggqhkjOPQQDAzBMMQsw
  CQYDVQQGEwJVUzEVMBMGA1UEChMMRGlnaUNlcnQgSW5jMSYwJAYDVQQDEx1EaWdp
  Q2VydCBFQ0MgU2VjdXJlIFNlcnZlciBDQTAeFw0xOTAzMjYwMDAwMDBaFw0yMTAz
  MzAxMjAwMDBaMGoxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMRMwEQYDVQQIEwpDYWxpZm9ybmlhMRYw
  FAYDVQQHEw1TYW4gRnJhbmNpc2NvMRkwFwYDVQQKExBDbG91ZGZsYXJlLCBJbmMu
  MRMwEQYDVQQDEwprYzJrZG0uY29tMFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAE
  d4azI83Bw0fcPgfoeiZpZZnwGuxjBjv++wzE0zAj8vNiUkKxOWSQiGNLn+xlWUpL
  lw9djRN1rLmVmn2gb9GgdKOCA28wggNrMB8GA1UdIwQYMBaAFKOd5h/52jlPwG7o
  kcuVpdox4gqfMB0GA1UdDgQWBBSfcb7fS3fUFAyB91fRcwoDPtgtJjAjBgNVHREE
  HDAaggprYzJrZG0uY29tggwqLmtjMmtkbS5jb20wDgYDVR0PAQH/BAQDAgeAMB0G
  A1UdJQQWMBQGCCsGAQUFBwMBBggrBgEFBQcDAjBpBgNVHR8EYjBgMC6gLKAqhiho
  dHRwOi8vY3JsMy5kaWdpY2VydC5jb20vc3NjYS1lY2MtZzEuY3JsMC6gLKAqhiho
  dHRwOi8vY3JsNC5kaWdpY2VydC5jb20vc3NjYS1lY2MtZzEuY3JsMEwGA1UdIARF
  MEMwNwYJYIZIAYb9bAEBMCowKAYIKwYBBQUHAgEWHGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmRpZ2lj
  ZXJ0LmNvbS9DUFMwCAYGZ4EMAQICMHsGCCsGAQUFBwEBBG8wbTAkBggrBgEFBQcw
  AYYYaHR0cDovL29jc3AuZGlnaWNlcnQuY29tMEUGCCsGAQUFBzAChjlodHRwOi8v
  Y2FjZXJ0cy5kaWdpY2VydC5jb20vRGlnaUNlcnRFQ0NTZWN1cmVTZXJ2ZXJDQS5j
  cnQwDAYDVR0TAQH/BAIwADAPBgkrBgEEAYLaSywEAgUAMIIBfgYKKwYBBAHWeQIE
  AgSCAW4EggFqAWgAdgC72d+8H4pxtZOUI5eqkntHOFeVCqtS6BqQlmQ2jh7RhQAA
  AWm5hYJ5AAAEAwBHMEUCICiGfq+hSThRL2m8H0awoDR8OpnEHNkF0nI6nL5yYL/j
  AiEAxwebGs/T6Es0YarPzoQJrVZqk+sHH/t+jrSrKd5TDjcAdgCHdb/nWXz4jEOZ
  X73zbv9WjUdWNv9KtWDBtOr/XqCDDwAAAWm5hYNgAAAEAwBHMEUCIQD9OWA8KGL6
  bxDKfgIleHJWB0iWieRs88VgJyfAg/aFDgIgQ/OsdSF9XOy1foqge0DTDM2FExuw
  0JR0AGZWXoNtJzMAdgBElGUusO7Or8RAB9io/ijA2uaCvtjLMbU/0zOWtbaBqAAA
  AWm5hYHgAAAEAwBHMEUCIQC4vua1n3BqthEqpA/VBTcsNwMtAwpCuac2IhJ9wx6X
  /AIgb+o00k28JQo9TMpP4vzJ3BD3HXWSNc2Zizbq7mkUQYMwCgYIKoZIzj0EAwMD
  aQAwZgIxAJsX7d0SuA8ddf/m7IWfNfs3MQfJyGkEezMJX1t6sRso5z50SS12LpXe
  muGa1FE2ZgIxAL+CDUF5pz7mhrAEIjQ1MqlpF9tH40dJGvYZZQ3W23cMzSkDfvlt
  y5S4RfWHIIPjbw==
  -----END CERTIFICATE-----

Acknowledgements

  Thanks to David Benjamin, Christopher Patton, Kyle Nekritz, Anirudh
  Ramachandran, Benjamin Kaduk, 奥 一穂 (Kazuho Oku), Daniel Kahn Gillmor,
  Watson Ladd, Robert Merget, Juraj Somorovsky, and Nimrod Aviram for
  their discussions, ideas, and bugs they have found.

Authors' Addresses

  Richard Barnes
  Cisco
  Email: [email protected]


  Subodh Iyengar
  Facebook
  Email: [email protected]


  Nick Sullivan
  Cloudflare
  Email: [email protected]


  Eric Rescorla
  Windy Hill Systems, LLC
  Email: [email protected]