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Using Early Data in DNS over TLS
draft-ghedini-dprive-early-data-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
Author Alessandro Ghedini
Last updated 2019-03-25
Replaced by draft-ietf-dprive-early-data
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draft-ghedini-dprive-early-data-00
Network Working Group                                         A. Ghedini
Internet-Draft                                          Cloudflare, Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track                          March 25, 2019
Expires: September 26, 2019

                    Using Early Data in DNS over TLS
                   draft-ghedini-dprive-early-data-00

Abstract

   This document illustrates the risks of using TLS 1.3 early data with
   DNS over TLS, and specifies behaviors that can be adopted by clients
   and servers to reduce those risks.

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 September 26, 2019.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2019 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
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Notational Conventions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Early Data in DNS over TLS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.1.  Information Exposure  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.2.  Denial of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.3.  Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.4.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     5.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     5.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5

1.  Introduction

   TLS 1.3 [TLS13] defines a mechanism, called 0-RTT session resumption
   or early data, that allows clients to send data to servers in the
   first round-trip of a connection without having to wait for the TLS
   handshake to complete.

   This can be used to send DNS queries to DNS over TLS [DOT] servers
   without incurring in the cost of the additional round-trip required
   by the TLS handshake, and it can be useful in cases where new DNS
   over TLS connections need to be established often such as on mobile
   clients where the network might not be stable, or on resolvers where
   keeping an open connection to many authoritative servers might not be
   practical.

   However, the use of early data allows an attacker to capture and
   replay the encrypted DNS queries carried on the TLS connection.  This
   can have unwanted consequences and help in recovering information
   about those queries.  While [TLS13] describes tecniques to reduce the
   likelihood of a replay attack, they are not perfect and still leave
   some potential for exploitation.

2.  Notational Conventions

   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.

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3.  Early Data in DNS over TLS

   TODO: talk more about 0-RTT vs. 1-RTT security properties.

   A server can signal to clients whether it is willing to accept early
   data in future connections by providing the "early_data" TLS
   extension as part of a TLS session ticket, as well as limit the
   amount of early data it is willing to accept using the
   "max_early_data_size" field of the "early_data" extension.

   In addition to the mitigation mechanisms mandated in [TLS13] that
   reduce the ability of an attacker to replay early data, but may not
   completely eliminate it, a server that decided to offer early data to
   clients MAY reject early data at the TLS layer, or delay the
   processing of early data to after the handshake is completed.

   If the server rejects early data at the TLS layer, a client MUST
   forget information it optmisitically assumed about the onnection when
   sending early data, such as the negotiated protocol [ALPN].  Any DNS
   queries sent in early data will need to be sent again, unless the
   client decides to abandon them.

   TODO: forbid sending DNS updates in early data (RFC2136)?  XFR?
   Other query types?

4.  Security Considerations

4.1.  Information Exposure

   By replaying DNS queries that were captured when transmitted over
   early data, an attacker might be able to expose information about
   those queries, even if encrypted.

   For example, it's a common behavior for DNS servers to statefully
   rotate the order of RRs when replying to DNS queries for an RRSet
   that contains multiple RRs.  If the order of rotation is predictable,
   replaying a captured early data DNS query and observing the order of
   RRs in DNS responses before and after the replayed query, might allow
   an attacker to confirm whether the replayed query targeted a specific
   name that was suspected of being queried without having to decrypt
   it.

   Servers SHOULD either use fixed ordering for multiple RRs in the same
   DNS response or shuffle the RRs at random, but MUST NOT use stateful
   and deterministic ordering across multiple queries.

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4.2.  Denial of Service

   Accepting early data exposes a server to potential denial of service
   through the replay of queries that might be expensive to handle.

   When under load, a server MAY reject TLS early data such that the
   client is forced to retry them after the handshake is completed.

4.3.  Privacy

   TODO: linkability (e.g. clients changing network, ...) and more?

4.4.  Acknowledgments

   This document was heavily inspired by [RFC8470].  Daniel Kahn Gillmor
   and Colm MacCarthaigh also provided important ideas and
   contributions.

5.  References

5.1.  Normative References

   [DOT]      Hu, Z., Zhu, L., Heidemann, J., Mankin, A., Wessels, D.,
              and P. Hoffman, "Specification for DNS over Transport
              Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 7858, DOI 10.17487/RFC7858, May
              2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7858>.

   [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>.

   [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>.

   [TLS13]    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>.

5.2.  Informative References

   [ALPN]     Friedl, S., Popov, A., Langley, A., and E. Stephan,
              "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Application-Layer Protocol
              Negotiation Extension", RFC 7301, DOI 10.17487/RFC7301,
              July 2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7301>.

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   [RFC8470]  Thomson, M., Nottingham, M., and W. Tarreau, "Using Early
              Data in HTTP", RFC 8470, DOI 10.17487/RFC8470, September
              2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8470>.

Author's Address

   Alessandro Ghedini
   Cloudflare, Inc.

   Email: alessandro@cloudflare.com

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