RFC 9257 · INFORMATIONAL · 2022

Guidance for External Pre-Shared Key Usage in TLS

Overview

RFC 9257, “Guidance for External Pre-Shared Key Usage in TLS”, is an Informational document published in July 2022 by R. Housley, J. Hoyland, M. Sethi, C. A. Wood. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

This document provides usage guidance for external Pre-Shared Keys (PSKs) in Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 as defined in RFC 8446. It lists TLS security properties provided by PSKs under certain assumptions, then it demonstrates how violations of these assumptions lead to attacks. Advice for applications to help meet these assumptions is provided. This document also discusses PSK use cases and provisioning processes. Finally, it lists the privacy and security properties that are not provided by TLS 1.3 when external PSKs are used.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Informational” means

Published for the general information of the community. It does not define an IETF standard and carries no standards-track status.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 9257 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in HTML,TXT,PDF,XML.

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