Hi Rebecca, 
Good catch! I could not find any IKEv2 drafts with normative language regarding 
ephemeral keys. And indeed section 2.12 of RFC7296 allows for reuse. I think we 
have since moved to a world where ephemeral is cheap and PFS is required. 

I am leaning towards taking your suggested text and using "RECOMMENDED" instead 
of "REQUIRED" and referencing RFC7296 section 2.12 about why. Other WGs have 
had long discussions about normative language on this topic and I think 
pointing it out and "RECOMMENDing" it is the important thing. The actual 
normative language, I don't have strong feelings about. 

I created a git issue to track it and it will go in the next iteration. 


-----Original Message-----
From: Rebecca Guthrie <[email protected]> 
Sent: Thursday, May 8, 2025 2:26 PM
To: [email protected]; Kampanakis, Panos <[email protected]>; Ravago, Gerardo 
<[email protected]>
Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] [IPsec] I-D Action: 
draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-mlkem-00.txt

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Hi all,

Glad to see this document adopted by the WG.

One small question- in Section 3, the draft reads, "As with (EC)DH keys today, 
generating an ephemeral key exchange keypair for ECDH and ML-KEM is still 
REQUIRED per connection by this specification (IND-CPA security)."

However, my understanding of RFC7296 (Section 2.12) is that it doesn't actually 
prohibit the re-use of ephemeral keys." Is there guidance other than 7296 that 
explicitly prohibits ephemeral key re-use?

Or is it better to rephrase to something like: "Generating an ephemeral key 
exchange keypair for ECDH and ML-KEM is REQUIRED per connection by this 
specification, as is common practice for (EC)DH keys today."

Thanks,

Rebecca

Rebecca Guthrie
she/her
Center for Cybersecurity Standards (CCSS) Cybersecurity Collaboration Center 
(CCC) National Security Agency (NSA)

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2025 6:14 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [IPsec] I-D Action: draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-mlkem-00.txt

Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-mlkem-00.txt is now available. It is a 
work item of the IP Security Maintenance and Extensions (IPSECME) WG of the 
IETF.

   Title:   Post-quantum Hybrid Key Exchange with ML-KEM in the Internet Key 
Exchange Protocol Version 2 (IKEv2)
   Authors: Panos Kampanakis
            Gerardo Ravago
   Name:    draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-mlkem-00.txt
   Pages:   10
   Dates:   2025-04-29

Abstract:

   NIST recently standardized ML-KEM, a new key encapsulation mechanism,
   which can be used for quantum-resistant key establishment.  This
   draft specifies how to use ML-KEM as an additional key exchange in
   IKEv2 along with traditional key exchanges.  This Post-Quantum
   Traditional Hybrid Key Encapsulation Mechanism approach allows for
   negotiating IKE and Child SA keys which are safe against
   cryptanalytically-relevant quantum computers and theoretical
   weaknesses in ML-KEM.

The IETF datatracker status page for this Internet-Draft is:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-mlkem/

There is also an HTML version available at:
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-mlkem-00.html

Internet-Drafts are also available by rsync at:
rsync.ietf.org::internet-drafts


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