Network Working Group E. Stark
Internet-Draft Google
Intended status: Experimental October 30, 2016
Expires: May 3, 2017
Expect-CT
draft-stark-expect-ct-00
Abstract
This document defines a new HTTP header, named Expect-CT, that allows
web host operators to instruct user agents to expect valid Signed
Certificate Timestamps (SCTs) to be served on connections to these
hosts. When configured in enforcement mode, user agents (UAs) will
remember that hosts expect SCTs and will refuse connections that do
not conform to the UA's Certificate Transparency policy. When
configured in report-only mode, UAs will report the lack of valid
SCTs to a URI configured by the host, but will allow the connection.
By turning on Expect-CT, web host operators can discover
misconfigurations in their Certificate Transparency deployments and
ensure that misissued certificates accepted by UAs are discoverable
in Certificate Transparency logs.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
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This Internet-Draft will expire on May 3, 2017.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 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
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Server and Client Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Response Header Field Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1.1. The report-uri Directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.2. The enforce Directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.3. The max-age Directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2. Server Processing Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.1. HTTP-over-Secure-Transport Request Type . . . . . . . 6
2.2.2. HTTP Request Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3. User Agent Processing Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3.1. Expect-CT Header Field Processing . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3.2. Noting an Expect-CT Host - Storage Model . . . . . . 7
2.3.3. HTTP-Equiv Element Attribute . . . . . . . . . 8
2.4. Noting Expect-CT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.5. Evaluating Expect-CT Connections for CT Compliance . . . 9
3. Reporting Expect-CT Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1. Generating a violation report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2. Sending a violation report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.1. Maximum max-age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7. Usability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8.2. URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1. Introduction
This document defines a new HTTP header that enables UAs to identify
web hosts that expect the presence of Signed Certificate Timestamps
(SCTs) [RFC6962] in future Transport Layer Security (TLS) [RFC5246]
connections.
Web hosts that serve the Expect-CT HTTP header are noted by the UA as
Expect-CT hosts. The UA evaluates each connection to an Expect-CT
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host for compliance with the UA's Certificate Transparency (CT)
policy. If the connection violates the CT policy, the UA sends a
report to a URI configured by the Expect-CT host and/or fails the
connection, depending on the configuration that the Expect-CT host
has chosen.
If misconfigured, Expect-CT can cause unwanted connection failures
(for example, if a host deploys Expect-CT but then switches to a
legitimate certificate that is not logged in Certificate Transparency
logs, or if a web host operator believes their certificate to conform
to all UAs' CT policies but is mistaken). Web host operators are
advised to deploy Expect-CT with caution, by using the reporting
feature and gradually increasing the interval for the UA remembers
the host as an Expect-CT host. These precautions can help web host
operators gain confidence that their Expect-CT deployment is not
causing unwanted connection failures.
Expect-CT is a trust-on-first-use (TOFU) mechanism. The first time a
UA connects to a host, it lacks the information necessary to require
SCTs for the connection. Thus, the UA will not be able to detect and
thwart an attack on the UA's first connection to the host. Still,
Expect-CT provides value by allowing UAs to detect the use of
unlogged certificates after the initial communication.
1.1. Requirements Language
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 RFC
2119 [RFC2119].
2. Server and Client Behavior
2.1. Response Header Field Syntax
The "Expect-CT" header field is a new response header defined in this
specification. It is used by a server to indicate that UAs should
evaluate connections to the host emitting the header for CT
compliance (Section 2.5).
Figure 1 describes the syntax (Augmented Backus-Naur Form) of the
header field, using the grammar defined in RFC 5234 [RFC5234] and the
rules defined in Section 3.2 of RFC 7230 [RFC7230].
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Expect-CT-Directives = directive *( OWS ";" OWS directive )
directive = directive-name [ "=" directive-value ]
directive-name = token
directive-value = token / quoted-string
Figure 1: Syntax of the Expect-CT header field
Optional white space ("OWS") is used as defined in Section 3.2.3 of
RFC 7230 [RFC7230]. "token" and "quoted-string" are used as defined
in Section 3.2.6 of RFC 7230 [RFC7230].
The directives defined in this specification are described below.
The overall requirements for directives are:
1. The order of appearance of directives is not significant.
2. A given directive MUST NOT appear more than once in a given
header field. Directives are either optional or required, as
stipulated in their definitions.
3. Directive names are case insensitive.
4. UAs MUST ignore any header fields containing directives, or other
header field value data, that do not conform to the syntax
defined in this specification. In particular, UAs must not
attempt to fix malformed header fields.
5. If a header field contains any directive(s) the UA does not
recognize, the UA MUST ignore those directives.
6. If the Expect-CT header field otherwise satisfies the above
requirements (1 through 5), the UA MUST process the directives it
recognizes.
2.1.1. The report-uri Directive
The OPTIONAL "report-uri" directive indicates the URI to which the UA
SHOULD report Expect-CT failures (Section 2.5). The UA POSTs the
reports to the given URI as described in Section 3.
The "report-uri" directive is REQUIRED to have a directive value, for
which the syntax is defined in Figure 2.
report-uri-value = absolute-URI
Figure 2: Syntax of the report-uri directive value
"absolute-URI" is defined in Section 4.3 of RFC 3986 [RFC3986].
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Hosts may set "report-uri"s that use HTTP or HTTPS. If the scheme in
the "report-uri" is one that uses TLS (e.g., HTTPS), UAs MUST check
Expect-CT compliance when the host in the "report-uri" is an Expect-
CT host; similarly, UAs MUST apply HSTS if the host in the "report-
uri" is a Known HSTS Host.
Note that the report-uri need not necessarily be in the same Internet
domain or web origin as the host being reported about.
UAs SHOULD make their best effort to report Expect-CT failures to the
"report-uri", but they may fail to report in exceptional conditions.
For example, if connecting the "report-uri" itself incurs an Expect-
CT failure or other certificate validation failure, the UA MUST
cancel the connection. Similarly, if Expect-CT Host A sets a
"report-uri" referring to Expect-CT Host B, and if B sets a "report-
uri" referring to A, and if both hosts fail to comply to the UA's CT
policy, the UA SHOULD detect and break the loop by failing to send
reports to and about those hosts.
UAs SHOULD limit the rate at which they send reports. For example,
it is unnecessary to send the same report to the same "report-uri"
more than once.
2.1.2. The enforce Directive
The OPTIONAL "enforce" directive is a valueless directive that, if
present (i.e., it is "asserted"), signals to the UA that compliance
to the CT policy should be enforced (rather than report-only) and
that the UA should refuse future connections that violate its CT
policy.
2.1.3. The max-age Directive
The "max-age" directive specifies the number of seconds after the
reception of the Expect-CT header field during which the UA SHOULD
regard the host from whom the message was received as an Expect-CT
host.
The "max-age" directive is REQUIRED to be present within an "Expect-
CT" header field if and only if the "enforce" directive is present.
The "max-age" directive is meaningless if no "enforce" directive is
present (i.e., if the Expect-CT policy is report-only). UAs MUST
ignore the "max-age" directive if the "enforce" directive is not
present and not cache the header.
The "max-age" directive is REQUIRED to have a directive value, for
which the syntax (after quoted-string unescaping, if necessary) is
defined in Figure 3.
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max-age-value = delta-seconds
delta-seconds = 1*DIGIT
Figure 3: Syntax of the max-age directive value
"delta-seconds" is used as defined in Section 1.2.1 of RFC 7234
[RFC7234].
2.2. Server Processing Model
This section describes the processing model that Expect-CT hosts
implement. The model has 2 parts: (1) the processing rules for HTTP
request messages received over a secure transport (e.g.,
authenticated, non-anonymous TLS); and (2) the processing rules for
HTTP request messages received over non-secure transports, such as
TCP.
2.2.1. HTTP-over-Secure-Transport Request Type
When replying to an HTTP request that was conveyed over a secure
transport, an Expect-CT host SHOULD include in its response exactly
one Expect-CT header field. The header field MUST satisfy the
grammar specified in Section 2.1.
Establishing a given host as an Expect-CT host, in the context of a
given UA, is accomplished as follows:
1. Over the HTTP protocol running over secure transport, by
correctly returning (per this specification) at least one valid
Expect-CT header field to the UA.
2. Through other mechanisms, such as a client-side preloaded Expect-
CT host list.
2.2.2. HTTP Request Type
Expect-CT hosts SHOULD NOT include the Expect-CT header field in HTTP
responses conveyed over non-secure transport. UAs MUST ignore any
Expect-CT header received in an HTTP response conveyed over non-
secure transport.
2.3. User Agent Processing Model
The UA processing model relies on parsing domain names. Note that
internationalized domain names SHALL be canonicalized according to
the scheme in Section 10 of [RFC6797].
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2.3.1. Expect-CT Header Field Processing
If the UA receives, over a secure transport, an HTTP response that
includes an Expect-CT header field conforming to the grammar
specified in Section 2.1, the UA MUST evaluate the connection on
which the header was received for compliance with the UA's CT policy,
and then process the Expect-CT header field as follows.
If the header field includes a "report-uri" directive, and the
connection does not comply with the UA's CT policy, then the UA MUST
send a report to the specified "report-uri" as specified in
Section 3.
If the header field contains the "enforce" directive and the
connection complies with the UA's CT policy, then the UA MUST either:
o Note the host as an Expect-CT host if it is not already so noted
(see Section 2.4), or
o Update the UA's cached information for the Expect-CT host if the
"max-age" or "report-uri" header field value directives convey
information different from that already maintained by the UA. If
the "max-age" directive has a value of 0, the UA MUST remove its
cached Expect-CT information if the host was previously noted as
an Expect-CT host, and MUST NOT note this host as an Expect-CT
host if it is not already noted.
If the header field contains the "enforce" directive and the
connection does not comply with the UA's CT policy, then the UA MUST
NOT note this host as an Expect-CT host.
If a UA receives more than one Expect-CT header field in an HTTP
response message over secure transport, then the UA MUST process only
the first Expect-CT header field.
The UA MUST ignore any Expect-CT header field not conforming to the
grammar specified in Section 2.1.
2.3.2. Noting an Expect-CT Host - Storage Model
The "effective Expect-CT date" of an Expect-CT host is the time that
the UA observed a valid Expect-CT header for the host. The
"effective expiration date" of a known Expect-CT host is the
effective Expect-CT date plus the max-age. An Expect-CT host is
"expired" if the effective expiration date refers to a date in the
past. The UA MUST ignore any expired Expect-CT hosts in its cache.
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Expect-CT hosts are identified only by domain names, and never IP
addresses. If the substring matching the host production from the
Request-URI (of the message to which the host responded)
syntactically matches the IP-literal or IPv4address productions from
Section 3.2.2 of [RFC3986], then the UA MUST NOT note this host as an
Expect-CT host.
Otherwise, if the substring does not congruently match an existing
Expect-CT host's domain name, per the matching procedure specified in
Section 8.2 of [RFC6797], then the UA MUST add this host to the
Expect-CT host cache. The UA caches:
o the Expect-CT host's domain name,
o the effective expiration date, or enough information to calculate
it (the effective Expect-CT date and the value of the "max-age"
directive),
o the value of the "report-uri" directive, if present.
If any other metadata from optional or future Expect-CT header
directives are present in the Expect-CT header, and the UA
understands them, the UA MAY note them as well.
UAs MAY set an upper limit on the value of max-age, so that UAs that
have noted erroneous Expect-CT hosts (whether by accident or due to
attack) have some chance of recovering over time. If the server sets
a max-age greater than the UA's upper limit, the UA MAY behave as if
the server set the max-age to the UA's upper limit. For example, if
the UA caps max-age at 5,184,000 seconds (60 days), and a Pinned Host
sets a max- age directive of 90 days in its Expect-CT header, the UA
MAY behave as if the max-age were effectively 60 days. (One way to
achieve this behavior is for the UA to simply store a value of 60
days instead of the 90-day value provided by the Expect-CT host.)
The UA MUST NOT cache information from an Expect-CT header that does
not include the "enforce" directive. (Report-only headers are useful
only at the time of receipt and processing.)
2.3.3. HTTP-Equiv Element Attribute
UAs MUST NOT heed "http-equiv="Expect-CT"" attribute settings on
"" elements [W3C.REC-html401-19991224] in received content.
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2.4. Noting Expect-CT
Upon receipt of the Expect-CT response header field containing an
"enforce" directive, the UA notes the host as an Expect-CT host,
storing the host's domain name and its associated Expect-CT
directives in non-volatile storage. The domain name and associated
Expect-CT directives are collectively known as "Expect-CT metadata".
The UA MUST note a host as an Expect-CT host if and only if it
received the Expect-CT response header field over an error-free TLS
connection, inluding the validation added in Section 2.5, that
included the "enforce" directive.
To note a host as an Expect-CT host, the UA MUST set its Expect-CT
metadata to the effective expiration date and report-uri (if any)
given in the most recently received valid Expect-CT header.
For forward compatibility, the UA MUST ignore any unrecognized
Expect-CT header directives, while still processing those directives
it does recognize. Section 2.1 specifies the directives "enforce",
"max-age", and "report-uri", but future specifications and
implementations might use additional directives.
2.5. Evaluating Expect-CT Connections for CT Compliance
When a UA connects to an Expect-CT host using a TLS connection, if
the TLS connection has errors, the UA MUST terminate the connection
without allowing the user to proceed anyway. (This behavior is the
same as that required by [RFC6797].)
If the connection has no errors, then the UA will apply an additional
correctness check: compliance with a CT policy. A UA should evaluate
compliance with its CT policy whenever connecting to an Expect-CT
host, as soon as possible. It is acceptable to skip this CT
compliance check for some hosts according to local policy. For
example, a UA may disable CT compliance checks for hosts whose
validated certificate chain terminates at a user-defined trust
anchor, rather than a trust anchor built-in to the UA (or underlying
platform).
A UA that has previously noted a host as an Expect-CT host MUST
evaluate evaluate CT compliance when setting up the TLS session,
before beginning an HTTP conversation over the TLS channel.
If the UA does not evaluate CT compliance, e.g. because the user has
elected to disable it, or because a presented certificate chain
chains up to a user-defined trust anchor, UAs SHOULD NOT send Expect-
CT reports.
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3. Reporting Expect-CT Failure
When the UA receives an Expect-CT header with a "report-uri"
directive that does not comply with the UA's CT policy, or when the
UA connects to a noted Expect-CT host that does not comply with the
CT policy, the UA SHOULD report Expect-CT failures to the configured
"report-uri".
3.1. Generating a violation report
To generate a violation report object, the UA constructs a JSON
message of the following form:
{
"date-time": date-time,
"hostname": hostname,
"port": port,
"effective-expiration-date": expiration-date,
"served-certificate-chain": [ (MUST be in the order served)
pem1, ... pemN
],
"validated-certificate-chain":
pem1, ... pemN
],
"scts": [
sct1, ... sctN
]
}
Figure 4: JSON format of a violation report object
Whitespace outside of quoted strings is not significant. The key/
value pairs may appear in any order, but each MUST appear only once.
The "date-time" indicates the time the UA observed the CT compliance
failure. It is provided as a string formatted according to
Section 5.6, "Internet Date/Time Format", of RFC 3339 [RFC3339].
The "hostname" is the hostname to which the UA made the original
request that failed the CT compliance check. It is provided as a
string.
The "port" is the port to which the UA made the original request that
failed the CT compliance check. It is provided as an integer.
The "effective-expiration-date" is the Effective Expiration Date for
the Expect-CT host that failed the CT compliance check. It is
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provided as a string formatted according to Section 5.6, "Internet
Date/Time Format", of RFC 3339 [RFC3339].
The "served-certificate-chain" is the certificate chain, as served by
the Expect-CT host during TLS session setup. It is provided as an
array of strings, which MUST appear in the order that the
certificates were served; each string "pem1", ... "pemN" is the
Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) representation of each X.509 certificate
as described in RFC 7468 [RFC7468].
The "validated-certificate-chain" is the certificate chain, as
constructed by the UA during certificate chain verification. (This
may differ from the "served-certificate-chain".) It is provided as
an array of strings, which MUST appear in the order matching the
chain that the UA validated; each string "pem1", ... "pemN" is the
Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) representation of each X.509 certificate
as described in RFC 7468 [RFC7468].
The "scts" are JSON messages representing the SCTs (if any) that the
UA received for the Expect-CT host and their validation statuses.
The format of "sct1", ... "sctN" is shown in Figure 5. The SCTs may
appear in any order.
{
"sct": sct,
"status": status,
"source": source
}
Figure 5: JSON format of an SCT object
The "sct" is as defined in Section 4.1 of RFC 6962 [RFC6962].
The "status" is a string that the UA MUST set to one of the following
values: "unknown" (indicating that the UA does not have or does not
trust the public key of the log from which the SCT was issued),
"valid" (indicating that the UA successfully validated the SCT as
described in Section 5.2 of [RFC6962]), or "invalid" (indicating that
the SCT validation failed because of, e.g., a bad signature).
The "source" is a string that indicates from where the UA obtained
the SCT, as defined in Section 3.3 of RFC 6962 [RFC6962]. The UA
MUST set "source" to one of the following values: "tls-extension",
"ocsp", or "embedded".
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3.2. Sending a violation report
When an Expect-CT header field contains the "report-uri" directive,
and the connection does not comply with the UA's CT policy, the UA
SHOULD report the failure as follows:
1. Prepare a JSON object "report object" with the single key
"expect-ct-report", whose value is the result of generating a
violation report object as described in Figure 4.
2. Let "report body" by the JSON stringification of "report object".
3. Let "report-uri" be the value of the "report-uri" directive in
the Expect-CT header field.
4. Queue a task [1] to fetch [2] "report-uri", with the synchronous
flag not set, using HTTP method "POST", with a "Content-Type"
header field of "application/expect-ct-report", and an entity
body consisting of "report body".
4. Security Considerations
4.1. Maximum max-age
1 year?
5. Privacy Considerations
6. IANA Considerations
7. Usability Considerations
When the UA detects an Expect-CT host in violation of the UA's CT
policy, users will experience denials of service. It is advisable
for UAs to explain the reason why.
It is advisable that UAs have a way for users to clear noted Expect-
CT hosts and that UAs allow users to query noted Expect-CT hosts.
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,
.
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[RFC3339] Klyne, G. and C. Newman, "Date and Time on the Internet:
Timestamps", RFC 3339, DOI 10.17487/RFC3339, July 2002,
.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008,
.
[RFC6797] Hodges, J., Jackson, C., and A. Barth, "HTTP Strict
Transport Security (HSTS)", RFC 6797,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6797, November 2012,
.
[RFC6962] Laurie, B., Langley, A., and E. Kasper, "Certificate
Transparency", RFC 6962, DOI 10.17487/RFC6962, June 2013,
.
[RFC7230] Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing",
RFC 7230, DOI 10.17487/RFC7230, June 2014,
.
[RFC7234] Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Caching",
RFC 7234, DOI 10.17487/RFC7234, June 2014,
.
[RFC7468] Josefsson, S. and S. Leonard, "Textual Encodings of PKIX,
PKCS, and CMS Structures", RFC 7468, DOI 10.17487/RFC7468,
April 2015, .
[W3C.REC-html401-19991224]
Raggett, D., Hors, A., and I. Jacobs, "HTML 4.01
Specification", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation
REC-html401-19991224, December 1999,
.
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8.2. URIs
[1] https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#queue-a-task
[2] https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/#fetching
Author's Address
Emily Stark
Google
Email: estark@google.com
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