Internet-Draft Unsigned X.509 Certificates July 2025
Benjamin Expires 8 January 2026 [Page]
Workgroup:
Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME
Internet-Draft:
draft-ietf-lamps-x509-alg-none-08
Updates:
5280 (if approved)
Published:
Intended Status:
Standards Track
Expires:
Author:
D. Benjamin
Google LLC

Unsigned X.509 Certificates

Abstract

This document defines a placeholder X.509 signature algorithm that may be used in contexts where the consumer of the certificate is not expected to verify the signature. As part of this, it updates RFC 5280.

About This Document

This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

The latest revision of this draft can be found at https://davidben.github.io/x509-alg-none/draft-ietf-lamps-x509-alg-none.html. Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-lamps-x509-alg-none/.

Discussion of this document takes place on the Limited Additional Mechanisms for PKIX and SMIME Working Group mailing list (mailto:spasm@ietf.org), which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/spasm/. Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/spasm/.

Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/davidben/x509-alg-none.

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 8 January 2026.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

An X.509 certificate [RFC5280] relates two entities in the PKI: information about a subject and a proof from an issuer. Viewing the PKI as a graph with entities as nodes, as in [RFC4158], a certificate is an edge between the subject and issuer.

In some contexts, an application needs standalone subject information instead of a certificate. In the graph model, the application needs a node, not an edge. For example, certification path validation (Section 6 of [RFC5280]) begins at a trust anchor, or root certification authority (root CA). The application trusts this trust anchor information out-of-band and does not require an issuer's signature.

X.509 does not define a structure for this scenario. Instead, X.509 trust anchors are often represented with "self-signed" certificates, where the subject's key signs over itself. Other formats, such as [RFC5914] exist to convey trust anchors, but self-signed certificates remain widely used.

Additionally, some TLS [RFC8446] server deployments use self-signed end entity certificates when they do not intend to present a CA-issued identity, instead expecting the relying party to authenticate the certificate out-of-band, e.g. via a known fingerprint.

These self-signatures typically have no security value, aren't checked by the receiver, and only serve as placeholders to meet syntactic requirements of an X.509 certificate.

Computing signatures as placeholders has some drawbacks:

This document defines a profile for unsigned X.509 certificates, which may be used when the certificate is used as a container for subject information, without any specific issuer.

2. Conventions and Definitions

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.

3. Constructing Unsigned Certificates

This section describes how to construct an unsigned certificate.

3.1. Signature

To construct an unsigned X.509 certificate, the sender MUST set the Certificate's signatureAlgorithm and TBSCertificate's signature fields each to an AlgorithmIdentifier with algorithm id-alg-unsigned, defined below:

  id-alg-unsigned OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {1 3 6 1 5 5 7 6 36}

The parameters for id-alg-unsigned MUST be omitted. The Certificate's signatureValue field MUST be a BIT STRING of length zero.

3.2. Issuer

An unsigned certificate takes the place of a self-signed certificate in scenarios where the application only requires subject information. It has no issuer, so some requirements in the profile defined in [RFC5280] cannot meaningfully be applied. However, the application may have pre-existing requirements derived from [X.509] and [RFC5280], so senders MAY construct the certificate as if it were a self-signed certificate, if needed for interoperability.

In particular, the following fields describe a certificate's issuer:

The issuer field is not optional, and both [X.509] and Section 4.1.2.4 of [RFC5280] forbid empty issuers, so such a value may not be interoperable with existing applications.

If the subject is not empty, senders MAY use the subject field, as in a self-signed certificate. This may be useful in applications that, for example, expect trust anchors to have matching issuer and subject. This is, however, a placerholder value. The unsigned certificate is not considered self-signed or self-issued.

Senders MAY alternatively use a short placeholder issuer consisting of a single relative distinguished name, with a single attribute of type id-rdna-unsigned and value a zero-length UTF8String. id-rdna-unsigned is defined as follows:

  id-rdna-unsigned OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {1 3 6 1 5 5 7 TBD1 TBD2}

This placeholder name, in the string representation of [RFC4514], is:

1.3.6.1.5.5.7.TBD1.TBD2=#0C00

Senders MUST omit the issuerUniqueID field, as it is optional, not applicable, and already forbidden by Section 4.1.2.8 of [RFC5280].

3.3. Extensions

Some X.509 extensions also describe the certificate issuer and thus are not meaningful for an unsigned certificate:

Senders SHOULD omit the authority key identifier and issuer alternative name extensions. Section 4.2.1.1 of [RFC5280] requires certificates to include the authority key identifier, but includes an exception for self-signed certificates used when distributing a public key. This document updates [RFC5280] to also permit omitting authority key identifier in unsigned certificates.

Some extensions reflect whether the subject is a CA or an end entity:

Senders SHOULD fill in these values to reflect the subject. That is:

If the subject is a CA, it SHOULD assert the keyCertSign key usage bit and SHOULD include a basic constraints extensions that sets the cA boolean to TRUE.

If the subject is an end entity, it SHOULD NOT assert the keyCertSign key usage bit, and it SHOULD either omit the basic constraints extension or set the cA boolean to FALSE. Unlike a self-signed certificate, an unsigned certificate does not issue itself, so there is no need to accommodate a self-signature in either extension.

4. Consuming Unsigned Certificates

X.509 signatures of type id-alg-unsigned are always invalid:

In particular, X.509 validators MUST NOT accept id-alg-unsigned in the place of a signature in the certification path.

It is expected that most unmodified X.509 applications will already be compliant with this guidance. Applications are thus RECOMMENDED to satisfy these requirements by ignoring this document, and instead treating id-alg-unsigned as the same as an unrecognized signature algorithm. An unmodified X.509 validator will unable to verify the signature (Step (a.1) of Section 6.1.3 of [RFC5280]) and thus reject the certification path. Conversely, in contexts where an X.509 application was ignoring the self-signature, id-alg-unsigned will also be ignored, but more efficiently.

In other contexts, an application may require modifications, or limit itself to particular forms of unsigned certificate. For example, an application might check self-signedness to classify locally-configured certificates as trust anchors or untrusted intermediates. Such an application may need to modify its configuration model or user interface before using an unsigned certificate as a trust anchor.

5. Security Considerations

It is best practice to limit cryptographic keys to a single purpose each. If a key is reused across contexts, applications risk cross-protocol attacks when the two uses collide. However, in applications that use self-signed end entity certificates, the subject's key is necessarily used in two ways: the X.509 self-signature, and the end entity protocol. Unsigned certificates fix this key reuse by removing the X.509 self-signature.

If an application accepts id-alg-unsigned as part of a certification path, or in any other context where it is necessary to verify the X.509 signature, the signature check would be bypassed. Thus, Section 4 prohibits this and recommends that applications treat id-alg-unsigned the same as any other previously unrecognized signature algorithm. Non-compliant applications risk vulnerabilities analogous to those described in [JWT] and Section 1.1 of [I-D.ietf-jose-deprecate-none-rsa15].

The signature in a self-signed certificate is self-derived and thus of limited use to convey trust. However, some applications might use it as an integrity check to guard against accidental storage corruption, etc. An unsigned certificate does not provide any integrity check. Applications checking self-signature for integrity SHOULD instead use some other mechanism, such as an external hash.

6. IANA Considerations

6.1. Module Identifier

IANA is requested to add the following entry in the "SMI Security for PKIX Module Identifier" registry, defined by [RFC7299]:

Table 1
Decimal Description References
TBD id-mod-algUnsigned-2025 [this-RFC]

6.2. Algorithm

IANA is requested to add the following entry to the "SMI Security for PKIX Algorithms" registry [RFC7299]:

Table 2
Decimal Description References
36 id-alg-unsigned [this-RFC]

6.3. Relative Distinguished Name Attribute

To allocate id-rdna-unsigned, this document introduces a new PKIX OID arc for relative distinguished name attributes:

IANA is requested to add the following entry to the "SMI Security for PKIX" registry [RFC7299]:

Table 3
Decimal Description References
TBD1 Relative Distinguished Name Attribute [this-RFC]

IANA is requested to create the "SMI Security for PKIX Relative Distinguished Name Attribute" registry within the "Structure of Management Information (SMI) Numbers (MIB Module Registrations)" group.

The new registry's description is "iso.org.dod.internet.security.mechanisms.pkix.rdna (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.TBD1)".

The new registry has three columns and is initialized with the following values:

Table 4
Decimal Description References
TBD2 id-rdna-unsigned [this-RFC]

Future updates to this table are to be made according to the Specification Required policy as defined in [RFC8126].

7. References

7.1. Normative References

[RFC2119]
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
[RFC5280]
Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S., Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, DOI 10.17487/RFC5280, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5280>.
[RFC5912]
Hoffman, P. and J. Schaad, "New ASN.1 Modules for the Public Key Infrastructure Using X.509 (PKIX)", RFC 5912, DOI 10.17487/RFC5912, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5912>.
[RFC8126]
Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8126>.
[RFC8174]
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

7.2. Informative References

[I-D.ietf-jose-deprecate-none-rsa15]
Madden, N., "JOSE: Deprecate 'none' and 'RSA1_5'", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-jose-deprecate-none-rsa15-02, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-jose-deprecate-none-rsa15-02>.
[JWT]
Sanderson, J., "How Many Days Has It Been Since a JWT alg:none Vulnerability?", , <https://www.howmanydayssinceajwtalgnonevuln.com/>.
[RFC4158]
Cooper, M., Dzambasow, Y., Hesse, P., Joseph, S., and R. Nicholas, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure: Certification Path Building", RFC 4158, DOI 10.17487/RFC4158, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4158>.
[RFC4514]
Zeilenga, K., Ed., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP): String Representation of Distinguished Names", RFC 4514, DOI 10.17487/RFC4514, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4514>.
[RFC5914]
Housley, R., Ashmore, S., and C. Wallace, "Trust Anchor Format", RFC 5914, DOI 10.17487/RFC5914, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5914>.
[RFC7299]
Housley, R., "Object Identifier Registry for the PKIX Working Group", RFC 7299, DOI 10.17487/RFC7299, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7299>.
[RFC8446]
Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8446>.
[X.509]
ITU-T, "Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - The Directory: Public-key and attribute certificate frameworks", ISO/IEC 9594-8:2020 , .

Appendix A. ASN.1 Module

SignatureAlgorithmNone
  { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
    security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
    id-mod-algUnsigned-2025(TBD) }

DEFINITIONS IMPLICIT TAGS ::=
BEGIN

IMPORTS
  SIGNATURE-ALGORITHM
  FROM AlgorithmInformation-2009  -- in [RFC5912]
    { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
      security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
      id-mod-algorithmInformation-02(58) }
  ATTRIBUTE
  FROM PKIX-CommonTypes-2009 -- in [RFC5912]
    { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1)
      security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
      id-mod-pkixCommon-02(57) } ;

-- Unsigned Signature Algorithm

id-alg-unsigned OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { iso(1)
   identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1) security(5)
   mechanisms(5) pkix(7) alg(6) 36 }

sa-unsigned SIGNATURE-ALGORITHM ::= {
   IDENTIFIER id-alg-unsigned
   PARAMS ARE absent
}

id-rdna-unsigned OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { iso(1)
   identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1) security(5)
   mechanisms(5) pkix(7) rdna(TBD1) TBD2 }

at-unsigned ATTRIBUTE ::= {
   TYPE UTF8String (SIZE (0))
   IDENTIFIED BY id-rdna-unsigned
}

END

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Bob Beck, Nick Harper, and Sophie Schmieg for reviewing an early iteration of this document. Thanks to Alex Gaynor for providing a link to cite for [JWT]. Thanks to Russ Housley for additional input.

Author's Address

David Benjamin
Google LLC