With "parallel signatures" I meant to use a composite signature

sign_A(key_A, M) || sign_B(key_B, M)

instead of the LAMPS combiner. I didn't mean using non-composite (i.e., multiple certificates).

Falko

Am 25.07.25 um 10:03 schrieb Daniel Van Geest:

I don't think it's plausible to provide support for parallel signature chains and then expect people to not use a chain individually. An advantage of parallel chains is that you can maintain a traditional algorithm chain for backwards compatibility with peers who haven't yet been upgraded to PQ. And similarly, when it's time to sunset traditional algorithm you can just stop using the traditional chain an only use the already-deployed PQ chain.

Daniel

On 2025-07-25 7:26 a.m., Jun Hu (Nokia) wrote:

Thanks for your comment, just to clarify, there is no intention to and people should not reuse key between composite key and separate key; and I don’t expect people will actually do that in typical actual deployments; there is already some text in the security consideration of the draft regarding the key reuse, but I will make it more clear in next revision.

*From:*Falko Strenzke <[email protected]>
*Sent:* Thursday, July 24, 2025 5:52 PM
*To:* [email protected]; [email protected]
*Subject:* comment on signature combiner / key reuse in draft-hu-ipsecme-pqt-hybrid-auth-02

I have a comment on the presentation of draft-hu-ipsecme-pqt-hybrid-auth-02 in the session today. On the slides <https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/123/materials/slides-123-ipsecme-post-quantum-traditional-hybrid-pki-authentication-in-ikev2-00#page=8> it says that it is intended to allow key-reuse among standalone and composite keys with the currently proposed LAMPS signature combiner <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-lamps-pq-composite-sigs-07.html>. The reason that is given there is that the context parameter that is set should mitigate the security concerns in this case.

I want to raise awareness that the signature combiner that you are using will exhibit a principal signature forgery vulnerability in the scenario where an attacker downgrades the composite key to a traditional-only key. In that case the forged message takes the specific form of the message representative M' in the LAMPS composite sig draft <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-lamps-pq-composite-sigs-07.html#section-3.2-1>. The context parameter that is intended to be used by the authors doesn't prevent this.

I don't understand enough about IPsec to say whether the described downgrade like this is possible. I suggest that the authors verify this.

Generally, I recommend that the authors choose the signature combiner based on an evaluation of its security features. Even if it can be ruled out that the forged messages are meaningful protocol messages, there might be problems when a formal verification of the protocol is conducted. I don't think that this combiner is suitable for other protocols in general. The mere fact that its use entails further security analysis is reason enough to be careful in my view. Possibly, using straightforward parallel signatures is the better choice in your case.

Falko

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*MTG AG*
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MTG AG - Dolivostr. 11 - 64293 Darmstadt, Germany
Commercial register: HRB 8901
Register Court: Amtsgericht Darmstadt
Management Board: Jürgen Ruf (CEO), Tamer Kemeröz
Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Dr. Thomas Milde

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