Internet DRAFT - draft-dthaler-rats-endorsements
draft-dthaler-rats-endorsements
RATS Working Group D. Thaler
Internet-Draft Microsoft
Intended status: Informational H. Birkholz
Expires: 22 April 2024 Fraunhofer SIT
T. Fossati
Arm
20 October 2023
RATS Endorsements
draft-dthaler-rats-endorsements-03
Abstract
In the IETF Remote Attestation Procedures (RATS) architecture, a
Verifier accepts Evidence and, using Appraisal Policy typically with
additional input from Endorsements and Reference Values, generates
Attestation Results in formats needed by a Relying Parties. This
document explains the purpose and role of Endorsements and discusses
some considerations in the choice of message format for Endorsements.
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
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 22 April 2024.
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
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft RATS Endorsements October 2023
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
2. Actual State vs Reference States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1. RATS Conceptual Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Conditionally Endorsed Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Endorsing Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Multiple Endorsements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. Endorsement Format Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6.1. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6.2. Scalability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1. Introduction
Section 3 in the Remote ATtestation procedures (RATS) Architecture
[RFC9334] gives an overview of the roles and conceptual messages in
the IETF RATS Architecture. As discussed in that document, a
Verifier accepts a well-defined set of RATS conceptual messages:
Evidence, Endorsements and Reference Values (as well es Policy for
Appraisal of Evidence). A Verifier appraises Evidence using
Appraisal Policy for Evidence, typically against a set of Reference
Values.
Various formats of conceptual messages exist, including standard and
vendor-specific formats. One of the purposes of a Verifier is
depicted in Figure 9 of [RFC9334]. A Verifier is intended to be able
to accept Evidence in a variety of formats and generate Attestation
Results in the formats needed by a Relying Parties it is intended to
cater.
2. Actual State vs Reference States
Appraisal policies (Appraisal Policy for Evidence, and Appraisal
Policy for Attestation Results) involve comparing the actual state of
an Attester against desired or undesired states, in order to
determine how trustworthy the Attester is for its purposes. The
state of an Attester represents its composition of components of
execution environments (its "shape"), typically in a hierarchical
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft RATS Endorsements October 2023
manner. The state of an Attester also encompasses the combination of
static and dynamic constitution (e.g., provisioned and deployed
software, firmware, and micro-code), static and dynamic
configuration, and the resulting operational state of its components
at a certain point of time. Thus, a Verifier needs to receive
messages with information about actual state, and information about
desired/undesired states, and an appraisal policy that controls how
the two are compared.
Each Attester in general has at least one Attesting Environment and
one Target Environment (e.g., hardware, firmware, Operating System,
etc.). Typically, each Attester has multiple Target Environments,
each with their own set of claims (sometimes called a "claimset")
representing their actual state. Additionally, the number of Target
Environments is not limited.
"Actual state" is a group of claimsets about the actual state of the
Attester at a given point in time. Each claimset holds claims about
a specific Target Environment that is essential to determining
trustworthiness. Generally speaking, each claim has a name (or other
ID) and a singleton value, being the value of that specific Attester
at a given point in time. Some claims may inherently have multiple
values, such as a list of files in a given location on the device,
but for our purposes we will treat such a list as a single unit,
meaning one Attester at one point in time.
"Reference state" is a group of claimsets about the desired or
undesired state of the Attester. Typically, each claim has a name
(or other ID) and a set of potential values, being the values that
are allowed/disallowed when determining whether to trust the
Attester. In general there may be more gradation than simply
"allowed or disallowed" so each value might include some more complex
level of gradation in some implementations.
That is, where actual state has a single value per claim per Target
Environment applying to one device at one point in time, reference
state can have a set of values per claim per Target Environment. The
appraisal policy then specifies how to match the actual value against
the set of Reference Values.
Some examples of such matching include:
* The actual value must be in the set of allowed Reference Values.
* The actual value must not be in the set of disallowed Reference
Values.
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft RATS Endorsements October 2023
* The actual value must be in a range where two Reference Values are
the min and max.
2.1. RATS Conceptual Messages
RATS conceptual messages in [RFC9334] fall into the above categories
as follows:
* Actual state: Evidence, Endorsements, Attestation Results
* Reference state: Reference Values
* Appraisal policy: Appraisal Policy for Evidence, Appraisal Policy
for Attestation Results
The figure below shows an example of Verifier input for a layered
Attester as discussed in [RFC9334].
.-- .------------. Appraisal .-----------------. --.
| |Actual state| Policy | Reference state | |
| | (layer N) | | (layer N) | | R
| '------------' | '-----------------' | e
| | | f
| .------------. | .-----------------. | e
Evidence | |Actual state| | | Reference state | | r
| | (layer 2) | | | (layer 2) | | e
| '------------' | '-----------------' | n
| v | c
| .------------. <==========> .-----------------. | e
| |Actual state| Comparison | Reference state | |
| | (layer 1) | Rules | (layer 1) | | V
'-- '------------' '-----------------' | a
| l
.-- .------------. .-----------------. | u
Endorsement | |Actual state| | Reference state | | e
| | (layer 0) | | (layer 0) | | s
'-- '------------' '-----------------' --'
Figure 1: Example Verifier Input
While the above example only shows one layer within Endorsements as
the typical case, there could be multiple layers (see Section 5),
such as a chip added to a hardware board potentially from a different
vendor.
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft RATS Endorsements October 2023
A Trust Anchor Store is a special case of state above, where the
Reference State would be the set of trust anchors accepted (or
rejected) by the Verifier, and the Actual State would be a trust
anchor used to verify Evidence or Endorsements.
In layered attestation using DICE [TCG-DICE] for example, the actual
state of each layer is signed by a key held by the next lower layer.
Thus in the example diagram above, the layer 2 actual state (e.g., OS
state) is signed by a layer 1 key (e.g., a signing key used by the
firmware), the layer 1 actual state (e.g., firmware state) is signed
by a layer 0 key (e.g., a hardware key stored in ROM), and the layer
0 actual state (hardware specs and key ID) is signed by a layer 0 key
(e.g., a vendor key) which is matched against the Verifier's trust
anchor store, which is part of the layer 0 reference state depicted
above.
3. Conditionally Endorsed Values
Some claims in Endorsements might be conditional. A claim is
conditional if it only applies if actual state matches Reference
Values, according to some matching policy.
Endorsers should not use conditionally endorsed values based on
immutable values of actual state in Evidence (such as an immutable
serial number for example). An Endorser can, however, use
conditionally endorsed values based on mutable values. For example
an Endorser for a given CPU might provide additional information
about what the CPU supports based on current firmware configuration
state.
Policies around matching actual state in Evidence against reference
states are normally expressed in Appraisal Policy for Evidence.
Similarly, reference states are normally expressed in the Reference
Values conceptual message. Such policies allow a Verifier and
Relying Parties to make their decisions about trustworthiness of an
Attester.
The use of conditionally endorsed values, however, is different in
that a matching policy is not about trustworthiness (and hence not
"appraisal" per se) but rather about whether an Endorser's claim is
applicable or not, and thus usable as input to trustworthiness
appraisal or not.
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft RATS Endorsements October 2023
As such the matching policy for conditionally endorsed values must be
up to the Endorser not the Appraisal Policy Provider. Thus, an
Endorsement format that supports conditionally endorsed values would
probably include some minimal matching policy (e.g., exact match
against a singleton reference value). This unfortunately complicates
design as a Verifier may need multiple parsers for matching policies.
4. Endorsing Identity
One type of claims that might be endorsed would be claims having to
do with identity, such as verification keys. While identity claims
are just another type of claims that may be endorsed, some
implementations might treat them differently. For example, a
Verifier might perform a first step to cryptographically verify the
Attester's identity before spending effort on another step to
appraise other claims for determining trustworthiness.
This document treats identity claims as with any other claims, but
allows Appraisal Policy for Evidence to have multiple steps if
desired.
5. Multiple Endorsements
Figure Figure 1 showed an example with an Endorsement at layer 0,
such as a hardware manufacturer providing claims about the hardware.
However, the same could be done at other layers in addition. For
example, an OS vendor might provide additional static claims about
the OS software it provides, and application developers might provide
additional static claims about the applications they release.
Figure 2 depicts an example with an Attester consisting of an
application, OS, firmware, and hardware, each from a different vendor
that provides an Endorsement for their own Target Environment,
containing additional claims about that Target Environment. Thus
each Target Environment (application, OS, firmware, and hardware) has
one set of claims in the Evidence, and an additional set of claims in
the Endorsement from its manufacturer. A Verifier that trusts each
Endorser would thus use claims from both conceptual messages when
comparing against reference state for a given Target Environment.
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft RATS Endorsements October 2023
.-----------------------. .-------------.
App | .--------. | | .--------. |
Endorser ----> |Endorsement | app | | | | app | |
| |claimset| | | |claimset| |
| '--------' | | '--------' E|
'-----------------------' | v|
| i|
.-----------------------. | d|
OS | .--------. | | .--------. e|
Endorser ----> |Endorsement | OS | | | | OS | n|
| |claimset| | | |claimset| c|
| '--------' | | '--------' e|
'-----------------------' | |
| |
.-----------------------. | |
Firmware | .--------. | | .--------. |
Endorser ----> |Endorsement |firmware| | | |firmware| |
| |claimset| | | |claimset| |
| '--------' | | '--------' |
'-----------------------' | |
| |
.-----------------------. | |
Hardware | .--------. | | .--------. |
Endorser ----> |Endorsement |hardware| | | |hardware| |
| |claimset| | | |claimset| |
| '--------' | | '--------' |
'-----------------------' '-------------'
^
|
Attester ---------------------------------------'
Figure 2: Multiple Endorsements
When Target Environments from different vendors each have their own
Endorser, it is important that a Verifier be able to distinguish
which Endorser is allowed to provide an Endorsement about which
Target Environment. For example, the OS Endorser might be trusted to
provide additional claims about the OS, but not about the hardware.
Thus it is not as simple as saying that a Verifier has a trusted set
of Endorsers. The binding between Target Environment and Endorser
might be part of the Appraisal Policy for Evidence, or might be
specified as part of the Evidence itself, or some combination of the
two. An Endorsement format specification should explain how this
concern is addressed.
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft RATS Endorsements October 2023
6. Endorsement Format Considerations
This section discusses considerations around formats for
Endorsements.
6.1. Security Considerations
In many scenarios, a Verifier can also support a variety of different
formats, and while code size may not be a huge concern, simplicity
and correctness of code is essential to security. "Complexity is the
enemy of security" is a popular security mantra and hence to increase
security, any decrease in complexity helps. As such, using the same
format for both Evidence and Endorsements can reduce complexity and
hence increase security.
6.2. Scalability Considerations
We currently assume that Reference Value Providers and Endorsers
typically provide the same information to a potentially large number
of clients (Verifiers, or potentially to other entities for later
relay to a Verifier), and are generally on devices that are not
constrained nodes, and hence additional scalability, including code
size, is not a significant concern.
The scenario where scalability in terms of code size is strongest,
however, is when a Verifier is embedded into a constrained node. For
example, when a constrained node is a Relying Party for most
purposes, but still needs a way to establish trust in the Verifier it
will use. In such a case, the Relying Party may have a constrained
Verifier embedded in it that is only capable of appraising Evidence
provided by its desired Verifier. Thus, the Relying Party uses its
embedded Verifier for purposes of appraising its desired Verifier
which it treats as only an Attester, and once verified, then uses it
for verification of all other Attesters. In this scenario, the
embedded Verifier may have code and data size constraints, and a very
simple (by comparison) Appraisal Policy for Evidence and desired
state (e.g., a required trust anchor that Evidence must be signed
with and little else).
Using the same message format for Evidence, Endorsements, and (later)
Attestation Results received from the later Verifier, can provide a
code size savings due to having only a single parser in this limited
case.
Similarly, an embedded constrained Verifier can choose to not support
conditionally endorsed values, in order to avoid complexity
introduced by such.
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft RATS Endorsements October 2023
7. IANA Considerations
This document does not require any actions by IANA.
8. Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Thomas Hardjono, Laurence Lundblade, and
Kathleen Moriarty for feedback and ideas that contributed to this
document.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC9334] Birkholz, H., Thaler, D., Richardson, M., Smith, N., and
W. Pan, "Remote ATtestation procedureS (RATS)
Architecture", RFC 9334, DOI 10.17487/RFC9334, January
2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9334>.
9.2. Informative References
[TCG-DICE] Trusted Computing Group, "DICE Certificate Profiles",
n.d., <https://trustedcomputinggroup.org/wp-
content/uploads/DICE-Certificate-Profiles-
r01_3june2020-1.pdf>.
Authors' Addresses
Dave Thaler
Microsoft
United States of America
Email: dave.thaler.ietf@gmail.com
Henk Birkholz
Fraunhofer SIT
Rheinstrasse 75
64295 Darmstadt
Germany
Email: henk.birkholz@sit.fraunhofer.de
Thomas Fossati
Arm
Email: Thomas.Fossati@arm.com
Thaler, et al. Expires 22 April 2024 [Page 9]
