Secure group communication for CoAP
draft-ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm-01
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
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|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Marco Tiloca , Göran Selander , Francesca Palombini , Jiye Park | ||
| Last updated | 2018-03-05 | ||
| Replaces | draft-tiloca-core-multicast-oscoap | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
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draft-ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm-01
CoRE Working Group M. Tiloca
Internet-Draft RISE SICS AB
Intended status: Standards Track G. Selander
Expires: September 6, 2018 F. Palombini
Ericsson AB
J. Park
Universitaet Duisburg-Essen
March 05, 2018
Secure group communication for CoAP
draft-ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm-01
Abstract
This document describes a mode for protecting group communication
over the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). The proposed mode
relies on Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments
(OSCORE) and the CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE) format.
In particular, it is defined how OSCORE should be used in a group
communication setting, while fulfilling the same security
requirements for request messages and related response messages.
Source authentication of all messages exchanged within the group is
ensured, by means of digital signatures produced through private keys
of sender endpoints and embedded in the protected CoAP messages.
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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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 6, 2018.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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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 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.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. OSCORE Security Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1. Management of Group Keying Material . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. The COSE Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1. Example: Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2. Example: Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4. Message Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1. Protecting the Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2. Verifying the Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3. Protecting the Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4. Verifying the Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Synchronization of Sequence Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6. Responsibilities of the Group Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.1. Group-level Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Appendix A. Assumptions and Security Objectives . . . . . . . . 19
A.1. Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
A.2. Security Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Appendix B. List of Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Appendix C. Example of Group Identifier Format . . . . . . . . . 23
Appendix D. Set-up of New Endpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
D.1. Join Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
D.2. Provisioning and Retrieval of Public Keys . . . . . . . . 27
D.3. Group Joining Based on the ACE Framework . . . . . . . . 29
Appendix E. Examples of Synchronization Approaches . . . . . . . 29
E.1. Best-Effort Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
E.2. Baseline Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
E.3. Challenge-Response Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Appendix F. No Verification of Signatures . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
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1. Introduction
The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [RFC7252] is a web
transfer protocol specifically designed for constrained devices and
networks [RFC7228].
Group communication for CoAP [RFC7390] addresses use cases where
deployed devices benefit from a group communication model, for
example to reduce latencies and improve performance. Use cases
include lighting control, integrated building control, software and
firmware updates, parameter and configuration updates, commissioning
of constrained networks, and emergency multicast (see Appendix B).
Furthermore, [RFC7390] recognizes the importance to introduce a
secure mode for CoAP group communication. This specification defines
such a mode.
Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments
(OSCORE)[I-D.ietf-core-object-security] describes a security protocol
based on the exchange of protected CoAP messages. OSCORE builds on
CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE) [RFC8152] and provides end-
to-end encryption, integrity, and replay protection between a sending
endpoint and a receiving endpoint possibly involving intermediary
endpoints. To this end, a CoAP message is protected by including its
payload (if any), certain options, and header fields in a COSE
object, which finally replaces the authenticated and encrypted fields
in the protected message.
This document describes group OSCORE, providing end-to-end security
of CoAP messages exchanged between members of a group. In
particular, the described approach defines how OSCORE should be used
in a group communication setting, so that end-to-end security is
assured by using the same security method. That is, end-to-end
security is assured for multicast CoAP requests sent by multicaster
endpoints to the group and for related CoAP responses sent as reply
by multiple listener endpoints. Group OSCORE provides source
authentication of all CoAP messages exchanged within the group, by
means of digital signatures produced through private keys of sender
devices and embedded in the protected CoAP messages. As in OSCORE,
it is still possible to simultaneously rely on DTLS to protect hop-
by-hop communication between a multicaster endpoint and a proxy (and
vice versa), and between a proxy and a listener endpoint (and vice
versa).
1.1. 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
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14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
Readers are expected to be familiar with the terms and concepts
described in CoAP [RFC7252] including "endpoint", "sender" and
"recipient"; group communication for CoAP [RFC7390]; COSE and counter
signatures [RFC8152].
Readers are also expected to be familiar with the terms and concepts
for protection and processing of CoAP messages through OSCORE, such
as "Security Context", "Master Secret" and "Master Salt", defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security].
Terminology for constrained environments, such as "constrained
device", "constrained-node network", is defined in [RFC7228].
This document refers also to the following terminology.
o Keying material: data that is necessary to establish and maintain
secure communication among endpoints. This includes, for
instance, keys and IVs [RFC4949].
o Group: a set of endpoints that share group keying material and
parameters (Common Context of the group's Security Context, see
Section 2). That is, the term group used in this specification
refers to a "security group", not to be confused with network/
multicast groups or application groups.
o Group Manager (GM): entity responsible for a set of OSCORE groups.
Each endpoint in a group securely communicates with the respective
GM, which is not required to be an actual group member and to take
part in the group communication. The full list of
responsibilities of the Group Manager is provided in Section 6.
o Multicaster: member of a group that sends multicast CoAP request
messages intended for all members of the group. In a 1-to-N
communication model, only a single multicaster transmits data to
the group; in an M-to-N communication model (where M and N do not
necessarily have the same value), M group members are
multicasters. According to [RFC7390], any possible proxy entity
is supposed to know about the multicasters in the group and to not
perform aggregation of response messages. Also, every multicaster
expects and is able to handle multiple response messages
associated to a given multicast request message that it has
previously sent to the group.
o Listener: member of a group that receives multicast CoAP request
messages when listening to the multicast IP address associated to
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the group. A listener may reply back, by sending a response
message to the multicaster which has sent the request message.
o Pure listener: member of a group that is configured as listener
and never replies back to multicasters after receiving request
messages.
o Group ID: group identifier assigned to the group. Group IDs are
unique within the set of groups of a same Group Manager.
o Endpoint ID: Sender ID of the endpoint, as defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security]. An Endpoint ID is provided to an
endpoint upon joining a group, is valid only within that group,
and is unique within the same group. Endpoints which are
configured only as pure listeners do not have an Endpoint ID.
o Group request: multicast CoAP request message sent by a
multicaster in the group to all listeners in the group through
multicast IP, unless otherwise specified.
o Source authentication: evidence that a received message in the
group originated from a specifically identified group member.
This also provides assurances that the message was not tampered
with by a different group member or by a non-group member.
2. OSCORE Security Context
To support group communication secured with OSCORE, each endpoint
registered as member of a group maintains a Security Context as
defined in Section 3 of [I-D.ietf-core-object-security]. In
particular, each endpoint in a group stores:
1. one Common Context, shared by all the endpoints in the group.
All the endpoints in the group agree on the same COSE AEAD
algorithm. In addition to what is defined in Section 3 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security], the Common Context includes the
following information.
* Group Identifier (Gid). Variable length byte string
identifying the Security Context. A Gid MUST have a random
component and be long enough, in order to achieve a negligible
probability of collisions between Group Identifiers from
different Group Managers. A Group ID is used i) alone or
together with other parameters, such as the multicast IP
address of the group, to retrieve the OSCORE Security Context
of the associated group (see Section 4); and ii) as OSCORE
Master Salt (see Section 3.1 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security]). The choice of the Gid for a
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given group's Security Context is application specific. It is
the role of the application to specify how to handle possible
collisions. An example of specific formatting of the Group
Identifier that would follow this specification is given in
Appendix C.
* Counter Signature Algorithm. Value identifying the algorithm
used for source authenticating messages sent within the group,
by means of a counter signature (see Section 4.5 of
[RFC8152]). Its value is immutable once the Common Context is
established. All the endpoints in the group agree on the same
counter signature algorithm. The list of supported signature
algorithms is part of the group communication policy and MUST
include the EdDSA signature algorithm ed25519 [RFC8032].
2. one Sender Context, unless the endpoint is configured exclusively
as pure listener. The Sender Context is used to secure outgoing
group messages and is initialized according to Section 3 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security], once the endpoint has joined the
group. In practice, the symmetric keying material in the Sender
Context of the sender endpoint is shared with all the recipient
endpoints that have received group messages from that same sender
endpoint. Besides, in addition to what is defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security], the Sender Context stores also
the endpoint's public-private key pair.
3. one Recipient Context for each distinct endpoint from which group
messages are received, used to process such incoming messages.
The recipient endpoint creates a new Recipient Context upon
receiving an incoming message from another endpoint in the group
for the first time (see Section 4.2 and Section 4.4). In
practice, the symmetric keying material in a given Recipient
Context of the recipient endpoint is shared with the associated
sender endpoint from which group messages are received. Besides,
in addition to what is defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security], each Recipient Context stores
also the public key of the associated other endpoint from which
group messages are received.
The table in Figure 1 overviews the new information included in the
OSCORE Security Context, with respect to what defined in Section 3 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security].
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+---------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Context portion | New information |
+---------------------------+-----------------------------+
| | |
| Common Context | Group Identifier (Gid) |
| | |
| Common Context | Counter signature algorithm |
| | |
| Sender Context | Endpoint's private key |
| | |
| Sender Context | Endpoint's public key |
| | |
| Each Recipient Context | Public key of the |
| | associated other endpoint |
| | |
+---------------------------+-----------------------------+
Figure 1: Additions to the OSCORE Security Context
Upon receiving a secure CoAP message, a recipient endpoint relies on
the sender endpoint's public key, in order to verify the counter
signature conveyed in the COSE Object.
If not already stored in the Recipient Context associated to the
sender endpoint, the recipient endpoint retrieves the public key from
a trusted key repository. In such a case, the correct binding
between the sender endpoint and the retrieved public key must be
assured, for instance by means of public key certificates. Further
discussion about how public keys can be handled and retrieved in the
group is provided in Appendix D.2.
The Sender Key/IV stored in the Sender Context and the Recipient
Keys/IVs stored in the Recipient Contexts are derived according to
the same scheme defined in Section 3.2 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security].
2.1. Management of Group Keying Material
The approach described in this specification should take into account
the risk of compromise of group members. In particular, the adoption
of key management schemes for secure revocation and renewal of
Security Contexts and group keying material should be considered.
Consistently with the security assumptions in Appendix A.1, it is
RECOMMENDED to adopt a group key management scheme, and securely
distribute a new value for the Master Secret parameter of the group's
Security Context, before a new joining endpoint is added to the group
or after a currently present endpoint leaves the group. This is
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necessary in order to preserve backward security and forward security
in the group.
In particular, a new Group Identifier (Gid) for that group and a new
value for the Master Secret parameter must also be distributed. An
example of Group Identifier format supporting this operation is
provided in Appendix C. Then, each group member re-derives the
keying material stored in its own Sender Context and Recipient
Contexts as described in Section 2, using the updated Group
Identifier.
Especially in dynamic, large-scale, groups where endpoints can join
and leave at any time, it is important that the considered group key
management scheme is efficient and highly scalable with the group
size, in order to limit the impact on performance due to the Security
Context and keying material update.
3. The COSE Object
When creating a protected CoAP message, an endpoint in the group
computes the COSE object using the untagged COSE_Encrypt0 structure
[RFC8152] as defined in Section 5 of [I-D.ietf-core-object-security],
with the following modifications.
o The value of the "kid" parameter in the "unprotected" field of
response messagess SHALL be set to the Endpoint ID of the endpoint
transmitting the message, i.e. the Sender ID.
o The "unprotected" field of the "Headers" field SHALL additionally
include the following parameter:
* CounterSignature0 : its value is set to the counter signature
of the COSE object, computed by the endpoint by means of its
own private key as described in Section 4.5 of [RFC8152]. The
presence of this parameter is explicitly signaled, by using the
reserved sixth least significant bit of the first byte of flag
bits in the value of the Object-Security option (see
Section 6.1 of [I-D.ietf-core-object-security]).
o The Additional Authenticated Data (AAD) considered to compute the
COSE object is extended, by adding the countersignature algorithm
used to protect group messages. In particular, the "external_aad"
defined in Section 5.4 of [I-D.ietf-core-object-security] SHALL
also include "alg_countersign", which contains the Counter
Signature Algorithm from the Common Context (see Section 2).
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external_aad = [
oscore_version : uint,
[alg_aead : int / tstr , alg_countersign : int / tstr],
request_kid : bstr,
request_piv : bstr,
options : bstr
]
o The OSCORE compression defined in Section 6 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security] is used, with the following
additions for the encoding of the Object-Security option.
* The fourth least significant bit of the first byte of flag bits
SHALL be set to 1, to indicate the presence of the "kid"
parameter for both group requests and responses.
* The fifth least significant bit of the first byte of flag bits
MUST be set to 1 for group requests, to indicate the presence
of the kid context in the OSCORE payload. The kid context flag
MAY be set to 1 for responses.
* The sixth least significant bit of the first byte of flag bits
is originally marked as reserved in
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security] and its usage is defined in
this specification. This bit is set to 1 if the
"CounterSignature0" parameter is present, or to 0 otherwise.
In order to ensure source authentication of group messages as
described in this specification, this bit SHALL be set to 1.
* The 'kid context' value encodes the Group Identifier value
(Gid) of the group's Security Context.
* The following q bytes (q given by the Counter Signature
Algorithm specified in the Security Context) encode the value
of the "CounterSignature0" parameter including the counter
signature of the COSE object.
* The remaining bytes in the Object-Security value encode the
value of the "kid" parameter, which is always present both in
group requests and in responses.
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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 <----------- n bytes -----------> <-- 1 byte -->
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+---------------------------------+--------------+
|0 0|1|h|1| n | Partial IV (if any) | s (if any) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+---------------------------------+--------------+
<------ s bytes ------> <--------- q bytes --------->
-----------------------+-----------------------------+-----------+
kid context = Gid | CounterSignature0 | kid |
-----------------------+-----------------------------+-----------+
Figure 2: Object-Security Value
3.1. Example: Request
Request with kid = 0x25, Partial IV = 5 and kid context = 0x44616c,
assuming the label for the new kid context defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security] has value 10. COUNTERSIGN is the
CounterSignature0 byte string as described in Section 3 and is 64
bytes long in this example. The ciphertext in this example is 14
bytes long.
Before compression (96 bytes):
[
h'',
{ 4:h'25', 6:h'05', 10:h'44616c', 9:COUNTERSIGN },
h'aea0155667924dff8a24e4cb35b9'
]
After compression (85 bytes):
Flag byte: 0b00111001 = 0x39
Option Value: 39 05 03 44 61 6c COUNTERSIGN 25 (7 bytes + size of
COUNTERSIGN)
Payload: ae a0 15 56 67 92 4d ff 8a 24 e4 cb 35 b9 (14 bytes)
3.2. Example: Response
Response with kid = 0x52. COUNTERSIGN is the CounterSignature0 byte
string as described in Section 3 and is 64 bytes long in this
example. The ciphertext in this example is 14 bytes long.
Before compression (88 bytes):
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[
h'',
{ 4:h'52', 9:COUNTERSIGN },
h'60b035059d9ef5667c5a0710823b'
]
After compression (80 bytes):
Flag byte: 0b00101000 = 0x28
Option Value: 28 COUNTERSIGN 52 (2 bytes + size of COUNTERSIGN)
Payload: 60 b0 35 05 9d 9e f5 66 7c 5a 07 10 82 3b (14 bytes)
4. Message Processing
Each request message and response message is protected and processed
as specified in [I-D.ietf-core-object-security], with the
modifications described in the following sections. The following
security objectives are fulfilled, as further discussed in
Appendix A.2: data replay protection, group-level data
confidentiality, source authentication, message integrity, and
message ordering.
Furthermore, endpoints in the group locally perform error handling
and processing of invalid messages according to the same principles
adopted in [I-D.ietf-core-object-security]. However, a receiver
endpoint MUST stop processing and silently reject any message which
is malformed and does not follow the format specified in Section 3,
without sending back any error message. This prevents listener
endpoints from sending multiple error messages to a multicaster
endpoint, so avoiding the risk of flooding and possibly congesting
the group.
4.1. Protecting the Request
A multicaster endpoint transmits a secure group request as described
in Section 8.1 of [I-D.ietf-core-object-security], with the following
modifications.
1. The multicaster endpoint stores the association Token - Group
Identifier. That is, it SHALL be able to find the correct
Security Context used to protect the group request and verify the
response(s) by using the CoAP Token used in the message exchange.
2. The multicaster computes the COSE object as defined in Section 3
of this specification.
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4.2. Verifying the Request
Upon receiving a secure group request, a listener endpoint proceeds
as described in Section 8.2 of [I-D.ietf-core-object-security], with
the following modifications.
1. The listener endpoint retrieves the Group Identifier from the
'kid context' parameter of the received COSE object. Then, it
uses the Group Identifier together with the destination IP
address of the group request to identify the correct group's
Security Context.
2. The listener endpoint retrieves the Sender ID from the "kid"
parameter of the received COSE object. Then, the Sender ID is
used to retrieve the correct Recipient Context associated to the
multicaster endpoint and used to process the group request. When
receiving a secure group request message from that multicaster
endpoint for the first time, the listener endpoint creates a new
Recipient Context, initializes it according to Section 3 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security], and includes the multicaster
endpoint's public key.
3. The listener endpoint retrieves the corresponding public key of
the multicaster endpoint from the associated Recipient Context.
Then, it verifies the counter signature and decrypts the group
request.
4.3. Protecting the Response
A listener endpoint that has received a secure group request may
reply with a secure response, which is protected as described in
Section 8.3 of [I-D.ietf-core-object-security], with the following
modifications.
1. The listener endpoint computes the COSE object as defined in
Section 3 of this specification.
4.4. Verifying the Response
Upon receiving a secure response message, a multicaster endpoint
proceeds as described in Section 8.4 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security], with the following modifications.
1. The multicaster endpoint retrieves the Security Context by using
the Token of the received response message.
2. The multicaster endpoint retrieves the Sender ID from the "kid"
parameter of the received COSE object. Then, the Sender ID is
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used to retrieve the correct Recipient Context associated to the
listener endpoint and used to process the response message. When
receiving a secure response message from that listener endpoint
for the first time, the multicaster endpoint creates a new
Recipient Context, initializes it according to Section 3 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security], and includes the listener
endpoint's public key.
3. The multicaster endpoint retrieves the corresponding public key
of the listener endpoint from the associated Recipient Context.
Then, it verifies the counter signature and decrypts the response
message.
The mapping between response messages from listener endpoints and the
associated group request from a multicaster endpoint relies on the
pair (Sender ID, Partial IV) associated to the secure group request.
This is used by listener endpoints as part of the Additional
Authenticated Data when protecting their own response message, as
described in Section 3.
5. Synchronization of Sequence Numbers
Upon joining the group, new listeners are not aware of the sequence
number values currently used by different multicasters to transmit
group requests. This means that, when such listeners receive a
secure group request from a given multicaster for the first time,
they are not able to verify if that request is fresh and has not been
replayed. The same holds when a listener endpoint loses
synchronization with sequence numbers of multicasters, for instance
after a device reboot.
The exact way to address this issue depends on the specific use case
and its synchronization requirements. The list of methods to handle
synchronization of sequence numbers is part of the group
communication policy, and different listener endpoints can use
different methods. Appendix E describes three possible approaches
that can be considered.
6. Responsibilities of the Group Manager
The Group Manager is responsible for performing the following tasks:
o Creating and managing OSCORE groups. This includes the assignment
of a Group ID to every newly created group, as well as ensuring
uniqueness of Group IDs within the set of its OSCORE groups.
o Defining policies for authorizing the joining of its OSCORE
groups. Such policies can be enforced by a third party, which is
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in a trust relation with the Group Manager and enforces join
policies on behalf of the Group Manager.
o Driving the join process to add new endpoints as group members.
o Establishing Security Common Contexts and providing them to
authorized group members during the join process, together with a
corresponding Security Sender Context.
o Generating and managing Endpoint IDs within its OSCORE groups, as
well as assigning and providing them to new endpoints during the
join process. This includes ensuring uniqueness of Endpoints IDs
within each of its OSCORE groups.
o Defining a set of supported signature algorithms as part of the
communication policy of each of its OSCORE groups, and signalling
it to new endpoints during the join process.
o Defining the methods to handle loss of synchronization with
sequence numbers as part of the communication policy of each of
its OSCORE groups, and signaling the one(s) to use to new
endpoints during the join process.
o Renewing the Security Context of an OSCORE group upon membership
change, by revoking and renewing common security parameters and
keying material (rekeying).
o Providing the management keying material that a new endpoint
requires to participate in the rekeying process, consistently with
the key management scheme used in the group joined by the new
endpoint.
o Updating the Group ID of its OSCORE groups, upon renewing the
respective Security Context.
The Group Manager may additionally be responsible for the following
tasks:
o Acting as trusted key repository, in order to store the public
keys of the members of its OSCORE groups, and provide such public
keys to other members of the same group upon request. This
specification recommends that the Group Manager is entrusted to
perform this task.
o Acting as network router device where endpoints register to
correctly receive group messages sent to the multicast IP address
of that group.
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o Autonomously and locally enforcing access policies to authorize
new endpoints to join its OSCORE groups.
7. Security Considerations
The same security considerations from OSCORE (Section 11 of
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security]) apply to this specification.
Additional security aspects to be taken into account are discussed
below.
7.1. Group-level Security
The approach described in this document relies on commonly shared
group keying material to protect communication within a group. This
means that messages are encrypted at a group level (group-level data
confidentiality), i.e. they can be decrypted by any member of the
group, but not by an external adversary or other external entities.
In addition, it is required that all group members are trusted, i.e.
they do not forward the content of group messages to unauthorized
entities. However, in many use cases, the devices in the group
belong to a common authority and are configured by a commissioner
(see Appendix B).
8. IANA Considerations
This document has no actions for IANA.
9. Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely thank Stefan Beck, Rolf Blom, Carsten Bormann,
Esko Dijk, Klaus Hartke, Richard Kelsey, John Mattsson, Jim Schaad,
Ludwig Seitz and Peter van der Stok for their feedback and comments.
The work on this document has been partly supported by the EIT-
Digital High Impact Initiative ACTIVE.
10. References
10.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security]
Selander, G., Mattsson, J., Palombini, F., and L. Seitz,
"Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments
(OSCORE)", draft-ietf-core-object-security-08 (work in
progress), January 2018.
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[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>.
[RFC7252] Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7252>.
[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>.
[RFC8152] Schaad, J., "CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE)",
RFC 8152, DOI 10.17487/RFC8152, July 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8152>.
[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>.
10.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-ace-dtls-authorize]
Gerdes, S., Bergmann, O., Bormann, C., Selander, G., and
L. Seitz, "Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)
Profiles for Authentication and Authorization for
Constrained Environments (ACE)", draft-ietf-ace-dtls-
authorize-02 (work in progress), October 2017.
[I-D.ietf-ace-oauth-authz]
Seitz, L., Selander, G., Wahlstroem, E., Erdtman, S., and
H. Tschofenig, "Authentication and Authorization for
Constrained Environments (ACE)", draft-ietf-ace-oauth-
authz-10 (work in progress), February 2018.
[I-D.ietf-ace-oscore-profile]
Seitz, L., Palombini, F., and M. Gunnarsson, "OSCORE
profile of the Authentication and Authorization for
Constrained Environments Framework", draft-ietf-ace-
oscore-profile-00 (work in progress), December 2017.
[I-D.ietf-core-echo-request-tag]
Amsuess, C., Mattsson, J., and G. Selander, "Echo and
Request-Tag", draft-ietf-core-echo-request-tag-00 (work in
progress), October 2017.
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[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm]
Palombini, F. and M. Tiloca, "Key Provisioning for Group
Communication using ACE", draft-palombini-ace-key-
groupcomm-00 (work in progress), March 2018.
[I-D.somaraju-ace-multicast]
Somaraju, A., Kumar, S., Tschofenig, H., and W. Werner,
"Security for Low-Latency Group Communication", draft-
somaraju-ace-multicast-02 (work in progress), October
2016.
[I-D.tiloca-ace-oscoap-joining]
Tiloca, M. and J. Park, "Joining of OSCORE multicast
groups in ACE", draft-tiloca-ace-oscoap-joining-02 (work
in progress), October 2017.
[RFC2093] Harney, H. and C. Muckenhirn, "Group Key Management
Protocol (GKMP) Specification", RFC 2093,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2093, July 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2093>.
[RFC2094] Harney, H. and C. Muckenhirn, "Group Key Management
Protocol (GKMP) Architecture", RFC 2094,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2094, July 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2094>.
[RFC2627] Wallner, D., Harder, E., and R. Agee, "Key Management for
Multicast: Issues and Architectures", RFC 2627,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2627, June 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2627>.
[RFC3376] Cain, B., Deering, S., Kouvelas, I., Fenner, B., and A.
Thyagarajan, "Internet Group Management Protocol, Version
3", RFC 3376, DOI 10.17487/RFC3376, October 2002,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3376>.
[RFC3740] Hardjono, T. and B. Weis, "The Multicast Group Security
Architecture", RFC 3740, DOI 10.17487/RFC3740, March 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3740>.
[RFC3810] Vida, R., Ed. and L. Costa, Ed., "Multicast Listener
Discovery Version 2 (MLDv2) for IPv6", RFC 3810,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3810, June 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3810>.
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[RFC4046] Baugher, M., Canetti, R., Dondeti, L., and F. Lindholm,
"Multicast Security (MSEC) Group Key Management
Architecture", RFC 4046, DOI 10.17487/RFC4046, April 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4046>.
[RFC4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, DOI 10.17487/RFC4301,
December 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4301>.
[RFC4535] Harney, H., Meth, U., Colegrove, A., and G. Gross,
"GSAKMP: Group Secure Association Key Management
Protocol", RFC 4535, DOI 10.17487/RFC4535, June 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4535>.
[RFC4944] Montenegro, G., Kushalnagar, N., Hui, J., and D. Culler,
"Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE 802.15.4
Networks", RFC 4944, DOI 10.17487/RFC4944, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4944>.
[RFC4949] Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary, Version 2",
FYI 36, RFC 4949, DOI 10.17487/RFC4949, August 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4949>.
[RFC6282] Hui, J., Ed. and P. Thubert, "Compression Format for IPv6
Datagrams over IEEE 802.15.4-Based Networks", RFC 6282,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6282, September 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6282>.
[RFC6347] Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer
Security Version 1.2", RFC 6347, DOI 10.17487/RFC6347,
January 2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6347>.
[RFC6749] Hardt, D., Ed., "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework",
RFC 6749, DOI 10.17487/RFC6749, October 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6749>.
[RFC7228] Bormann, C., Ersue, M., and A. Keranen, "Terminology for
Constrained-Node Networks", RFC 7228,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7228, May 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7228>.
[RFC7390] Rahman, A., Ed. and E. Dijk, Ed., "Group Communication for
the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7390,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7390, October 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7390>.
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Appendix A. Assumptions and Security Objectives
This section presents a set of assumptions and security objectives
for the approach described in this document.
A.1. Assumptions
The following assumptions are assumed to be already addressed and are
out of the scope of this document.
o Multicast communication topology: this document considers both
1-to-N (one multicaster and multiple listeners) and M-to-N
(multiple multicasters and multiple listeners) communication
topologies. The 1-to-N communication topology is the simplest
group communication scenario that would serve the needs of a
typical low-power and lossy network (LLN). Examples of use cases
that benefit from secure group communication are provided in
Appendix B.
o Group size: security solutions for group communication should be
able to adequately support different and possibly large groups.
The group size is the current number of members in a group. In
the use cases mentioned in this document, the number of
multicasters (normally the controlling devices) is expected to be
much smaller than the number of listeners (i.e. the controlled
devices). A security solution for group communication that
supports 1 to 50 multicasters would be able to properly cover the
group sizes required for most use cases that are relevant for this
document. The maximum group size is expected to be in the range
of 2 to 100 devices. Groups larger than that should be divided
into smaller independent groups, e.g. by grouping lights in a
building on a per floor basis.
o Communication with the Group Manager: an endpoint must use a
secure dedicated channel when communicating with the Group
Manager, even when not registered as group member. In particular,
communications with the Group Manager occuring during the join
process to become a group member must also be secured.
o Establishment and management of Security Contexts: an OSCORE
Security Context must be established among the group members. In
particular, a Common Context must be provided to a new joining
endpoint together with a corresponding Sender Context. On the
other hand, Recipient Contexts are locally and individually
derived by each group member. A secure mechanism must be used to
generate, revoke and (re-)distribute keying material, multicast
security policies and security parameters in the group. The
actual establishment and management of the Security Context is out
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of the scope of this document, and it is anticipated that an
activity in IETF dedicated to the design of a generic key
management scheme will include this feature, preferably based on
[RFC3740][RFC4046][RFC4535].
o Multicast data security ciphersuite: all group members must agree
on a ciphersuite to provide authenticity, integrity and
confidentiality of messages in the group. The ciphersuite is
specified as part of the Security Context.
o Backward security: a new device joining the group should not have
access to any old Security Contexts used before its joining. This
ensures that a new group member is not able to decrypt
confidential data sent before it has joined the group. The
adopted key management scheme should ensure that the Security
Context is updated to ensure backward confidentiality. The actual
mechanism to update the Security Context and renew the group
keying material upon a group member's joining has to be defined as
part of the group key management scheme.
o Forward security: entities that leave the group should not have
access to any future Security Contexts or message exchanged within
the group after their leaving. This ensures that a former group
member is not able to decrypt confidential data sent within the
group anymore. Also, it ensures that a former member is not able
to send encrypted and/or integrity protected messages to the group
anymore. The actual mechanism to update the Security Context and
renew the group keying material upon a group member's leaving has
to be defined as part of the group key management scheme.
A.2. Security Objectives
The approach described in this document aims at fulfilling the
following security objectives:
o Data replay protection: replayed group request messages or
response messages must be detected.
o Group-level data confidentiality: messages sent within the group
shall be encrypted if privacy sensitive data is exchanged within
the group. This document considers group-level data
confidentiality since messages are encrypted at a group level,
i.e. in such a way that they can be decrypted by any member of the
group, but not by an external adversary or other external
entities.
o Source authentication: messages sent within the group shall be
authenticated. That is, it is essential to ensure that a message
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is originated by a member of the group in the first place, and in
particular by a specific member of the group.
o Message integrity: messages sent within the group shall be
integrity protected. That is, it is essential to ensure that a
message has not been tampered with by an external adversary or
other external entities which are not group members.
o Message ordering: it must be possible to determine the ordering of
messages coming from a single sender endpoint. In accordance with
OSCORE [I-D.ietf-core-object-security], this results in providing
relative freshness of group requests and absolute freshness of
responses. It is not required to determine ordering of messages
from different sender endpoints.
Appendix B. List of Use Cases
Group Communication for CoAP [RFC7390] provides the necessary
background for multicast-based CoAP communication, with particular
reference to low-power and lossy networks (LLNs) and resource
constrained environments. The interested reader is encouraged to
first read [RFC7390] to understand the non-security related details.
This section discusses a number of use cases that benefit from secure
group communication. Specific security requirements for these use
cases are discussed in Appendix A.
o Lighting control: consider a building equipped with IP-connected
lighting devices, switches, and border routers. The devices are
organized into groups according to their physical location in the
building. For instance, lighting devices and switches in a room
or corridor can be configured as members of a single group.
Switches are then used to control the lighting devices by sending
on/off/dimming commands to all lighting devices in a group, while
border routers connected to an IP network backbone (which is also
multicast-enabled) can be used to interconnect routers in the
building. Consequently, this would also enable logical groups to
be formed even if devices in the lighting group may be physically
in different subnets (e.g. on wired and wireless networks).
Connectivity between lighting devices may be realized, for
instance, by means of IPv6 and (border) routers supporting 6LoWPAN
[RFC4944][RFC6282]. Group communication enables synchronous
operation of a group of connected lights, ensuring that the light
preset (e.g. dimming level or color) of a large group of
luminaires are changed at the same perceived time. This is
especially useful for providing a visual synchronicity of light
effects to the user. As a practical guideline, events within a
200 ms interval are perceived as simultaneous by humans, which is
necessary to ensure in many setups. Devices may reply back to the
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switches that issue on/off/dimming commands, in order to report
about the execution of the requested operation (e.g. OK, failure,
error) and their current operational status. In a typical
lighting control scenario, a single switch is the only entity
responsible for sending commands to a group of lighting devices.
In more advanced lighting control use cases, a M-to-N
communication topology would be required, for instance in case
multiple sensors (presence or day-light) are responsible to
trigger events to a group of lighting devices. Especially in
professional lighting scenarios, the roles of multicaster and
listener are configured by the lighting commissioner, and devices
strictly follow those roles.
o Integrated building control: enabling Building Automation and
Control Systems (BACSs) to control multiple heating, ventilation
and air-conditioning units to pre-defined presets. Controlled
units can be organized into groups in order to reflect their
physical position in the building, e.g. devices in the same room
can be configured as members of a single group. As a practical
guideline, events within intervals of seconds are typically
acceptable. Controlled units are expected to possibly reply back
to the BACS issuing control commands, in order to report about the
execution of the requested operation (e.g. OK, failure, error)
and their current operational status.
o Software and firmware updates: software and firmware updates often
comprise quite a large amount of data. This can overload a LLN
that is otherwise typically used to deal with only small amounts
of data, on an infrequent base. Rather than sending software and
firmware updates as unicast messages to each individual device,
multicasting such updated data to a larger group of devices at
once displays a number of benefits. For instance, it can
significantly reduce the network load and decrease the overall
time latency for propagating this data to all devices. Even if
the complete whole update process itself is secured, securing the
individual messages is important, in case updates consist of
relatively large amounts of data. In fact, checking individual
received data piecemeal for tampering avoids that devices store
large amounts of partially corrupted data and that they detect
tampering hereof only after all data has been received. Devices
receiving software and firmware updates are expected to possibly
reply back, in order to provide a feedback about the execution of
the update operation (e.g. OK, failure, error) and their current
operational status.
o Parameter and configuration update: by means of multicast
communication, it is possible to update the settings of a group of
similar devices, both simultaneously and efficiently. Possible
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parameters are related, for instance, to network load management
or network access controls. Devices receiving parameter and
configuration updates are expected to possibly reply back, to
provide a feedback about the execution of the update operation
(e.g. OK, failure, error) and their current operational status.
o Commissioning of LLNs systems: a commissioning device is
responsible for querying all devices in the local network or a
selected subset of them, in order to discover their presence, and
be aware of their capabilities, default configuration, and
operating conditions. Queried devices displaying similarities in
their capabilities and features, or sharing a common physical
location can be configured as members of a single group. Queried
devices are expected to reply back to the commissioning device, in
order to notify their presence, and provide the requested
information and their current operational status.
o Emergency multicast: a particular emergency related information
(e.g. natural disaster) is generated and multicast by an emergency
notifier, and relayed to multiple devices. The latters may reply
back to the emergency notifier, in order to provide their feedback
and local information related to the ongoing emergency. This kind
of setups should additionally rely on a fault tolerance multicast
algorithm, such as MPL.
Appendix C. Example of Group Identifier Format
This section provides an example of how the Group Identifier (Gid)
can be specifically formatted. That is, the Gid can be composed of
two parts, namely a Group Prefix and a Group Epoch.
The Group Prefix is uniquely defined in the set of all the groups
associated to the same Group Manager. The choice of the Group Prefix
for a given group's Security Context is application specific. A
Group Prefix is random, constant over time, and long enough to
achieve a negligible probability of collisions between Group
Identifiers from different Group Managers. The size of the Group
Prefix directly impact on the maximum number of distinct groups under
the same Group Manager.
The Group Epoch is set to 0 upon the group's initialization, and is
incremented by 1 upon completing each renewal of the Security Context
and keying material in the group (see Section 2.1). In particular,
once a new Master Secret has been distributed to the group, all the
group members increment by 1 the Group Epoch in the Group Identifier
of that group.
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As an example, a 3-byte Group Identifier can be composed of: i) a
1-byte Group Prefix '0xb1' interpreted as a raw byte string; and ii)
a 2-byte Group Epoch interpreted as an unsigned integer ranging from
0 to 65535. Then, after having established the Security Common
Context 61532 times in the group, its Group Identifier will assume
value '0xb1f05c'.
Appendix D. Set-up of New Endpoints
An endpoint joins a group by explicitly interacting with the
responsible Group Manager. Communications between a joining endpoint
and the Group Manager rely on the CoAP protocol and must be secured.
Specific details on how to secure communications between joining
endpoints and a Group Manager are out of scope.
In order to receive multicast messages sent to the group, a joining
endpoint has to register with a network router device
[RFC3376][RFC3810], signaling its intent to receive packets sent to
the multicast IP address of that group. As a particular case, the
Group Manager can also act as such a network router device. Upon
joining the group, endpoints are not required to know how many and
what endpoints are active in the same group.
Furthermore, in order to participate in the secure group
communication, an endpoint needs to be properly initialized upon
joining the group. In particular, the Group Manager provides keying
material and parameters to a joining endpoint, which can then
initialize its own Security Context (see Section 2).
The following Appendix D.1 provides an example describing how such
information can be provided to an endpoint upon joining a group
through the responsible Group Manager. Then, Appendix D.2 discusses
how public keys of group members can be handled and made available to
group members. Finally, Appendix D.3 overviews how the ACE framework
for Authentication and Authorization in constrained environments
[I-D.ietf-ace-oauth-authz] can be possibly used to support such a
join process.
D.1. Join Process
An endpoint requests to join a group by sending a confirmable CoAP
POST request to the Group Manager responsible for that group. This
join request can reflect the format of the Key Distribution Request
message defined in Section 4.1 of [I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
Besides, it can be addressed to a CoAP resource associated to that
group and carries the following information.
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o Group identifier: the Group Identifier (Gid) of the group, as
known to the joining endpoint at this point in time. This may not
fully coincide with the Gid currently associated to the group,
e.g. if it includes a dynamic component. This information can be
mapped to the first element of the "scope" parameter of the Key
Distribution Request message defined in Section 4.1 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
o Role: the exact role of the joining endpoint in the group.
Possible values are: "multicaster", "listener", "pure listener",
"multicaster and listener", or "multicaster and pure listener".
This information can be mapped to the second element of the
"scope" parameter of the Key Distribution Request message defined
in Section 4.1 of [I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
o Retrieval flag: indication of interest to receive the public keys
of the endpoints currently in the group, as included in the
following join response. This flag must not be present if the
Group Manager is not configured to store the public keys of group
members, or if the joining endpoint is configured exclusively as
pure listener for the group to join. This information can be
mapped to the "get_pub_keys" parameter of the Key Distribution
Request message defined in Section 4.1 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
o Identity credentials: information elements to enforce source
authentication of group messages from the joining endpoint, such
as its public key. The exact content depends on whether the Group
Manager is configured to store the public keys of group members.
If this is the case, this information is omitted if it has been
provided to the same Group Manager upon previously joining the
same or a different group under its control. This information is
also omitted if the joining endpoint is configured exclusively as
pure listener for the joined group. Appendix D.2 discusses
additional details on provisioning of public keys and other
information to enforce source authentication of joining
endpoints's messages. This information can be mapped to the
"client_cred" parameter of the Key Distribution Request message
defined in Section 4.1 of [I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
The Group Manager must be able to verify that the joining endpoint is
authorized to become a member of the group. To this end, the Group
Manager can directly authorize the joining endpoint, or expect it to
provide authorization evidence previously obtained from a trusted
entity. Appendix D.3 describes how this can be achieved by
leveraging the ACE framework for Authentication and Authorization in
constrained environments [I-D.ietf-ace-oauth-authz].
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In case of successful authorization check, the Group Manager
generates an Endpoint ID assigned to the joining endpoint, before
proceeding with the rest of the join process. Instead, in case the
authorization check fails, the Group Manager aborts the join process.
Further details about the authorization of joining endpoint are out
of scope.
As discussed in Section 2.1, it is recommended that the Security
Context is renewed before the joining endpoint receives the group
keying material and becomes a new active member of the group. This
is achieved by securely distributing a new Master Secret and a new
Group Identifier to the endpoints currently present in the same
group.
Once renewed the Security Context in the group, the Group Manager
replies to the joining endpoint with a CoAP response carrying the
following information. This join response can reflect the format of
the Key Distribution Response message defined in Section 4.2 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
o Security Common Context: the OSCORE Security Common Context
associated to the joined group (see Section 2). This information
can be mapped to the "key" parameter of the Key Distribution
Response message defined in Section 4.2 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
o Endpoint ID: the Endpoint ID associated to the joining endpoint.
This information is not included in case "Role" in the join
request is equal to "pure listener". This information can be
mapped to the "clientID" parameter within the "key" parameter of
the Key Distribution Response message defined in Section 4.2 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
o Member public keys: the public keys of the endpoints currently
present in the group. This includes: the public keys of the non-
pure listeners currently in the group, if the joining endpoint is
configured (also) as multicaster; and the public keys of the
multicasters currently in the group, if the joining endpoint is
configured (also) as listener or pure listener. This information
is omitted in case the Group Manager is not configured to store
the public keys of group members or if the "Retrieval flag" was
not present in the join request. Appendix D.2 discusses
additional details on provisioning public keys upon joining the
group and on retrieving public keys of group members. This
information can be mapped to the "pub_keys" parameter of the Key
Distribution Response message defined in Section 4.2 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
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o Group policies: a list of key words indicating the particular
policies enforced in the group. This includes, for instance, the
list of supported signature algorithms and the method to achieve
synchronization of sequence numbers among group members (see
Appendix E). This information can be mapped to the
"group_policies" parameter of the Key Distribution Response
message defined in Section 4.2 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
o Management keying material: the set of administrative keying
material used to participate in the group rekeying process run by
the Group Manager (see Section 2.1). The specific elements of
this management keying material depend on the group rekeying
protocol used in the group. For instance, this can simply consist
in a group key encryption key and a pairwise symmetric key shared
between the joining endpoint and the Group Manager, in case GKMP
[RFC2093][RFC2094] is used. Instead, if key-tree based rekeying
protocols like LKH [RFC2627] are used, it can consist in the set
of symmetric keys associated to the key-tree leaf representing the
group member up to the key-tree root representing the group key
encryption key. This information can be mapped to the
"mgt_key_material" parameter of the Key Distribution Response
message defined in Section 4.2 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
D.2. Provisioning and Retrieval of Public Keys
As mentioned in Section 6, it is recommended that the Group Manager
acts as trusted key repository, so storing public keys of group
members and providing them to other members of the same group upon
request. In such a case, a joining endpoint provides its own public
key to the Group Manager, as "Identity credentials" of the join
request, when joining the group (see Appendix D.1).
After that, the Group Manager should verify that the joining endpoint
actually owns the associated private key, for instance by performing
a proof-of-possession challenge-response, whose details are out of
scope. In case of failure, the Group Manager performs up to a pre-
defined maximum number of retries, after which it aborts the join
process.
In case of successful challenge-response, the Group Manager stores
the received public key as associated to the joining endpoint and its
Endpoint ID. From then on, that public key will be available for
secure and trusted delivery to other endpoints in the group.
Finally, the Group Manager sends the join response to the joining
endpoint, as described in Appendix D.1.
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The joining endpoint does not have to provide its own public key if
that already occurred upon previously joining the same or a different
group under the same Group Manager. However, separately for each
group under its control, the Group Manager maintains an updated list
of active Endpoint IDs associated to the respective endpoint's public
key.
Instead, in case the Group Manager does not act as trusted key
repository, the following exchange with the Group Manager can occur
during the join process.
1. The joining endpoint signs its own certificate by using its own
private key. The certificate includes also the identifier of the
issuer Certification Authority (CA). There is no restriction on
the Certificate Subject included in the joining endpoint's
certificate.
2. The joining endpoint specifies the signed certificate as
"Identity credentials" in the join request (Appendix D.1). The
joining endpoint can optionally specify also a list of public key
repositories storing its own certificate. In such a case, this
information can be mapped to the "pub_keys_repos" parameter of
the Key Distribution Request message defined in Section 4.1 of
[I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm].
3. When processing the join request, the Group Manager first
validates the certificate by verifying the signature of the
issuer CA, and then verifies the signature of the joining
endpoint.
4. The Group Manager stores the association between the Certificate
Subject of the joining endpoint's certificate and the pair {Group
ID, Endpoint ID of the joining endpoint}. If received from the
joining endpoint, the Group Manager also stores the list of
public key repositories storing the certificate of the joining
endpoint.
When a group member X wants to retrieve the public key of another
group member Y in the same group, the endpoint X proceeds as follows.
1. The endpoint X contacts the Group Manager, specifying the pair
{Group ID, Endpoint ID of the endpoint Y}.
2. The Group Manager provides the endpoint X with the Certificate
Subject CS from the certificate of endpoint Y. If available, the
Group Manager provides the endpoint X also with the list of
public key repositories storing the certificate of the endpoint
Y.
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3. The endpoint X retrieves the certificate of the endpoint X from a
key repository storing it, by using the Certificate Subject CS.
D.3. Group Joining Based on the ACE Framework
The join process to register an endpoint as a new member of a group
can be based on the ACE framework for Authentication and
Authorization in constrained environments [I-D.ietf-ace-oauth-authz],
built on re-use of OAuth 2.0 [RFC6749].
In particular, the approach described in
[I-D.tiloca-ace-oscoap-joining] uses the ACE framework to delegate
the authentication and authorization of joining endpoints to an
Authorization Server in a trust relation with the Group Manager. At
the same time, it allows a joining endpoint to establish a secure
channel with the Group Manager, by leveraging protocol-specific
profiles of ACE, such as [I-D.ietf-ace-oscore-profile] and
[I-D.ietf-ace-dtls-authorize], to achieve communication security,
proof-of-possession and server authentication.
More specifically and with reference to the terminology defined in
OAuth 2.0:
o The joining endpoint acts as Client;
o The Group Manager acts as Resource Server, with different CoAP
resources for different groups it is responsible for;
o An Authorization Server enables and enforces authorized access of
the joining endpoint to the Group Manager and its CoAP resources
paired with groups to join.
Messages exchanged among the participants follow the formats defined
in [I-D.palombini-ace-key-groupcomm]. Both the joining endpoint and
the Group Manager have to adopt secure communication also for any
message exchange with the Authorization Server. To this end,
different alternatives are possible, such as OSCORE, DTLS [RFC6347]
or IPsec [RFC4301].
Appendix E. Examples of Synchronization Approaches
This section describes three possible approaches that can be
considered by listener endpoints to synchronize with sequence numbers
of multicasters.
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E.1. Best-Effort Synchronization
Upon receiving a multicast request from a multicaster, a listener
endpoint does not take any action to synchonize with the sequence
number of that multicaster. This provides no assurance at all as to
message freshness, which can be acceptable in non-critical use cases.
E.2. Baseline Synchronization
Upon receiving a multicast request from a given multicaster for the
first time, a listener endpoint initializes its last-seen sequence
number in its Recipient Context associated to that multicaster.
However, the listener drops the multicast request without delivering
it to the application layer. This provides a reference point to
identify if future group requests from the same multicaster are
fresher than the last one received.
A replay time interval exists, between when a possibly replayed
message is originally transmitted by a given multicaster and the
first authentic fresh message from that same multicaster is received.
This can be acceptable for use cases where listener endpoints admit
such a trade-off between performance and assurance of message
freshness.
E.3. Challenge-Response Synchronization
A listener endpoint performs a challenge-response exchange with a
multicaster, by using the Repeat Option for CoAP described in
Section 2 of [I-D.ietf-core-echo-request-tag].
That is, upon receiving a group request from a particular multicaster
for the first time, the listener processes the message as described
in Section 4.2 of this specification, but, even if valid, does not
deliver it to the application. Instead, the listener replies to the
multicaster with a 4.03 Forbidden response message including a Repeat
Option, and stores the option value included therein.
Upon receiving a 4.03 Forbidden response that includes a Repeat
Option and originates from a verified group member, a multicaster
sends a request as a unicast message addressed to the same listener,
echoing the Repeat Option value. In particular, the multicaster does
not necessarily resend the same group request, but can instead send a
more recent one, if the application permits it. This makes it
possible for the multicaster to not retain previously sent group
requests for full retransmission, unless the application explicitly
requires otherwise. In either case, the multicaster uses the
sequence number value currently stored in its own Sender Context. If
the multicaster stores group requests for possible retransmission
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with the Repeat Option, it should not store a given request for
longer than a pre-configured time interval. Note that the unicast
request echoing the Repeat Option is correctly treated and processed
as a group message, since the 'kid context' field including the Group
Identifier of the OSCORE group is still present in the Object-
Security Option as part of the COSE object (see Section 3).
Upon receiving the unicast request including the Repeat Option, the
listener verifies that the option value equals the stored and
previously sent value; otherwise, the request is silently discarded.
Then, the listener verifies that the unicast request has been
received within a pre-configured time interval, as described in
[I-D.ietf-core-echo-request-tag]. In such a case, the request is
further processed and verified; otherwise, it is silently discarded.
Finally, the listener updates the Recipient Context associated to
that multicaster, by setting the Replay Window according to the
Sequence Number from the unicast request conveying the Repeat Option.
The listener either delivers the request to the application if it is
an actual retransmission of the original one, or discards it
otherwise. Mechanisms to signal whether the resent request is a full
retransmission of the original one are out of the scope of this
specification.
In case it does not receive a valid unicast request including the
Repeat Option within the configured time interval, the listener
endpoint should perform the same challenge-response upon receiving
the next multicast request from that same multicaster.
A listener should not deliver group requests from a given multicaster
to the application until one valid request from that same multicaster
has been verified as fresh, as conveying an echoed Repeat Option
[I-D.ietf-core-echo-request-tag]. Also, a listener may perform the
challenge-response described above at any time, if synchronization
with sequence numbers of multicasters is (believed to be) lost, for
instance after a device reboot. It is the role of the application to
define under what circumstances sequence numbers lose
synchronization. This can include a minimum gap between the sequence
number of the latest accepted group request from a multicaster and
the sequence number of a group request just received from the same
multicaster. A multicaster has to be always ready to perform the
challenge-response based on the Repeat Option in case a listener
starts it.
Note that endpoints configured as pure listeners are not able to
perform the challenge-response described above, as they do not store
a Sender Context to secure the 4.03 Forbidden response to the
multicaster. Therefore, pure listeners should adopt alternative
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approaches to achieve and maintain synchronization with sequence
numbers of multicasters.
This approach provides an assurance of absolute message freshness.
However, it can result in an impact on performance which is
undesirable or unbearable, especially in large groups where many
endpoints at the same time might join as new members or lose
synchronization.
Appendix F. No Verification of Signatures
There are some application scenarios using group communication that
have particularly strict requirements. One example of this is the
requirement of low message latency in non-emergency lighting
applications [I-D.somaraju-ace-multicast]. For those applications
which have tight performance constraints and relaxed security
requirements, it can be inconvenient for some endpoints to verify
digital signatures in order to assert source authenticity of received
group messages. In other cases, the signature verification can be
deferred or only checked for specific actions. For instance, a
command to turn a bulb on where the bulb is already on does not need
the signature to be checked. In such situations, the counter
signature needs to be included anyway as part of the group message,
so that an endpoint that needs to validate the signature for any
reason has the ability to do so.
In this specification, it is NOT RECOMMENDED that endpoints do not
verify the counter signature of received group messages. However, it
is recognized that there may be situations where it is not always
required. The consequence of not doing the signature validation is
that security in the group is based only on the group-authenticity of
the shared keying material used for encryption. That is, endpoints
in the group have evidence that a received message has been
originated by a group member, although not specifically identifiable
in a secure way. This can violate a number of security requirements,
as the compromise of any element in the group means that the attacker
has the ability to control the entire group. Even worse, the group
may not be limited in scope, and hence the same keying material might
be used not only for light bulbs but for locks as well. Therefore,
extreme care must be taken in situations where the security
requirements are relaxed, so that deployment of the system will
always be done safely.
Authors' Addresses
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Marco Tiloca
RISE SICS AB
Isafjordsgatan 22
Kista SE-16440 Stockholm
Sweden
Email: marco.tiloca@ri.se
Goeran Selander
Ericsson AB
Torshamnsgatan 23
Kista SE-16440 Stockholm
Sweden
Email: goran.selander@ericsson.com
Francesca Palombini
Ericsson AB
Torshamnsgatan 23
Kista SE-16440 Stockholm
Sweden
Email: francesca.palombini@ericsson.com
Jiye Park
Universitaet Duisburg-Essen
Schuetzenbahn 70
Essen 45127
Germany
Email: ji-ye.park@uni-due.de
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