Please see the errata for this document, which may include some normative corrections. See also translations .
Copyright © 2002 W3C ® ( MIT , INRIA , Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply.
This document specifies a process for encrypting data and representing the result in XML. The data may be arbitrary data (including an XML document), an XML element, or XML element content. The result of encrypting data is an XML Encryption element which contains or references the cipher data.
This document is the W3C XML Encryption Recommendation (REC). This document has been reviewed by W3C Members and other interested parties and has been endorsed by the Director as a W3C Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document. W3C's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.
This specification was produced by the W3C XML Encryption Working Group (Activity) which believes the specification is sufficient for the creation of independent interoperable implementations as demonstrated in the Interoperability Report.
Patent disclosures relevant to this specification may be found on the Working Group's patent disclosure page in conformance with W3C policy.
Please report errors in this document to xml-encryption@w3.org (public archive).
The list of known errors in this specification is available at http://www.w3.org/Encryption/2002/12-xmlenc-errata.
The English version of this specification is the only normative version. Information about translations of this document (if any) is available http://www.w3.org/Encryption/2002/12-xmlenc-translations.
A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document specifies a process for encrypting data and
representing the result in XML. The data may be arbitrary data
(including an XML document), an XML element, or XML element
content. The result of encrypting data is an XML Encryption
EncryptedData element which contains (via one of its
children's content) or identifies (via a URI reference) the
cipher data.
When encrypting an XML element or element content the
EncryptedData element replaces the element or
content (respectively) in the encrypted version of the XML
document.
When encrypting arbitrary data (including entire XML
documents), the EncryptedData element may become the
root of a new XML document or become a child element in an
application-chosen XML document.
This specification uses XML schemas [XML-schema] to describe the content model.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this specification are to be interpreted as described in RFC2119 [KEYWORDS]:
"they MUST only be used where it is actually required for interoperation or to limit behavior which has potential for causing harm (e.g., limiting retransmissions)"
Consequently, we use these capitalized keywords to unambiguously specify requirements over protocol and application features and behavior that affect the interoperability and security of implementations. These key words are not used (capitalized) to describe XML grammar; schema definitions unambiguously describe such requirements and we wish to reserve the prominence of these terms for the natural language descriptions of protocols and features. For instance, an XML attribute might be described as being "optional." Compliance with the XML-namespace specification [XML-NS] is described as "REQUIRED."
The design philosophy and requirements of this specification (including the limitations related to instance validity) are addressed in the XML Encryption Requirements [EncReq].
No provision is made for an explicit version number in this syntax. If a future version is needed, it will use a different namespace. The experimental XML namespace [XML-NS] URI that MUST be used by implementations of this (dated) specification is:
xmlns:xenc='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'
This namespace is also used as the prefix for
algorithm identifiers used by this specification. While
applications MUST support XML and XML namespaces, the use of
internal
entities [XML, section 4.2.1], the
"xenc" XML
namespace prefix [XML-NS, section
2] and defaulting/scoping conventions are OPTIONAL; we use these
facilities to provide compact and readable examples.
Additionally, the entity &xenc; is defined so as
to provide short-hand identifiers for URIs defined in this
specification. For example "&xenc;Element"
corresponds to "http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Element".
This specification makes use of the XML Signature [XML-DSIG] namespace and schema definitions
xmlns:ds='http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#'
URIs [URI] MUST abide by the
[XML-Schema] anyURI
type definition and the [XML-DSIG,
4.3.3.1 The URI Attribute] specification (i.e., permitted
characters, character escaping, scheme support, etc.).
The contributions of the following Working Group members to this specification are gratefully acknowledged in accordance with the contributor policies and the active WG roster.
Additionally, we thank the following for their comments during and subsequent to Last Call:
This section provides an overview and examples of XML Encryption syntax. The formal syntax is found in Encryption Syntax (section 3); the specific processing is given in Processing Rules (section 4).
Expressed in shorthand form, the
EncryptedData
element has the following structure (where "?" denotes zero or
one occurrence; "+" denotes one or more occurrences; "*" denotes
zero or more occurrences; and the empty element tag means the
element must be empty ):
<EncryptedData Id? Type? MimeType? Encoding?>
<EncryptionMethod/>?
<ds:KeyInfo>
<EncryptedKey>?
<AgreementMethod>?
<ds:KeyName>?
<ds:RetrievalMethod>?
<ds:*>?
</ds:KeyInfo>?
<CipherData>
<CipherValue>?
<CipherReference URI?>?
</CipherData>
<EncryptionProperties>?
</EncryptedData>
The CipherData element envelopes or references
the raw encrypted data. If enveloping, the raw encrypted data is
the CipherValue element's content; if referencing,
the CipherReference element's URI
attribute points to the location of the raw encrypted data
Consider the following fictitious payment information, which includes identification information and information appropriate to a payment method (e.g., credit card, money transfer, or electronic check):
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<PaymentInfo xmlns='http://example.org/paymentv2'>
<Name>John Smith</Name>
<CreditCard Limit='5,000' Currency='USD'>
<Number>4019 2445 0277 5567</Number>
<Issuer>Example Bank</Issuer>
<Expiration>04/02</Expiration>
</CreditCard>
</PaymentInfo>
This markup represents that John Smith is using his credit card with a limit of $5,000USD.
Smith's credit card number is sensitive information! If the
application wishes to keep that information confidential, it can
encrypt the CreditCard element:
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<PaymentInfo xmlns='http://example.org/paymentv2'>
<Name>John Smith</Name>
<EncryptedData Type='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Element'
xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'>
<CipherData>
<CipherValue>A23B45C56</CipherValue>
</CipherData>
</EncryptedData>
</PaymentInfo>
By encrypting the entire CreditCard element from
its start to end tags, the identity of the element itself is
hidden. (An eavesdropper doesn't know whether he used a credit
card or money transfer.) The CipherData element
contains the encrypted serialization of the
CreditCard element.
As an alternative scenario, it may be useful for intermediate
agents to know that John used a credit card with a particular
limit, but not the card's number, issuer, and expiration date. In
this case, the content (character data or children elements) of
the CreditCard element is encrypted:
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<PaymentInfo xmlns='http://example.org/paymentv2'>
<Name>John Smith</Name>
<CreditCard Limit='5,000' Currency='USD'>
<EncryptedData xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'
Type='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Content'>
<CipherData>
<CipherValue>A23B45C56</CipherValue>
</CipherData>
</EncryptedData>
</CreditCard>
</PaymentInfo>
Or, consider the scenario in which all the information except the actual credit card number can be in the clear, including the fact that the Number element exists:
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<PaymentInfo xmlns='http://example.org/paymentv2'>
<Name>John Smith</Name>
<CreditCard Limit='5,000' Currency='USD'>
<Number>
<EncryptedData xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'
Type='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Content'>
<CipherData>
<CipherValue>A23B45C56</CipherValue>
</CipherData>
</EncryptedData>
</Number>
<Issuer>Example Bank</Issuer>
<Expiration>04/02</Expiration>
</CreditCard>
</PaymentInfo>
Both CreditCard and Number are in
the clear, but the character data content of Number
is encrypted.
If the application scenario requires all of the information to be encrypted, the whole document is encrypted as an octet sequence. This applies to arbitrary data including XML documents.
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<EncryptedData xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'
MimeType='text/xml'>
<CipherData>
<CipherValue>A23B45C56</CipherValue>
</CipherData>
</EncryptedData>
An XML document may contain zero or more
EncryptedData elements. EncryptedData
cannot be the parent or child of another
EncryptedData element. However, the actual data
encrypted can be anything, including EncryptedData
and EncryptedKey elements (i.e., super-encryption).
During super-encryption of an EncryptedData or
EncryptedKey element, one must encrypt the entire
element. Encrypting only the content of these elements, or
encrypting selected child elements is an invalid instance under
the provided schema.
For example, consider the following:
<pay:PaymentInfoxmlns:pay='http://example.org/paymentv2'> <EncryptedData Id='ED1' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#' Type='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Element'> <CipherData> <CipherValue>originalEncryptedData</CipherValue> </CipherData> </EncryptedData> </pay:PaymentInfo>
A valid super-encryption of
"//xenc:EncryptedData[@Id='ED1']" would be:
<pay:PaymentInfoxmlns:pay='http://example.org/paymentv2'> <EncryptedData Id='ED2' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#' Type='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Element'> <CipherData> <CipherValue>newEncryptedData</CipherValue> </CipherData> </EncryptedData> </pay:PaymentInfo>
where the CipherValue content of
'newEncryptedData' is the base64 encoding of the
encrypted octet sequence resulting from encrypting the
EncryptedData element with
Id='ED1'.
EncryptedData and EncryptedKey
Usage
EncryptedData with
Symmetric Key
(KeyName)
[s1] <EncryptedData xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'
Type='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Element'/>
[s2] <EncryptionMethod
Algorithm='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#tripledes-cbc'/>
[s3] <ds:KeyInfo xmlns:ds='http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#'>
[s4] <ds:KeyName>John Smith</ds:KeyName>
[s5] </ds:KeyInfo>
[s6] <CipherData><CipherValue>DEADBEEF</CipherValue></CipherData>
[s7] </EncryptedData>
[s1] The type of data encrypted may be
represented as an attribute value to aid in decryption and
subsequent processing. In this case, the data encrypted was an
'element'. Other alternatives include 'content' of an element, or
an external octet sequence which can also be identified via the
MimeType and Encoding attributes.
[s2] This (3DES CBC) is a symmetric key
cipher.
[s4] The symmetric key has an associated name
"John Smith".
[s6] CipherData contains a
CipherValue, which is a base64 encoded octet
sequence. Alternately, it could contain a
CipherReference, which is a URI reference along with
transforms necessary to obtain the encrypted data as an octet
sequence
EncryptedKey
(ReferenceList, ds:RetrievalMethod,
CarriedKeyName)The following EncryptedData structure is very
similar to the one above, except this time the key is referenced
using a ds:RetrievalMethod:
[t01] <EncryptedData Id='ED'
xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'>
[t02] <EncryptionMethod
Algorithm='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#aes128-cbc'/>
[t03] <ds:KeyInfo xmlns:ds='http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#'>
[t04] <ds:RetrievalMethod URI='#EK'
Type="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#EncryptedKey"/>
[t05] <ds:KeyName>Sally Doe</ds:KeyName>
[t06] </ds:KeyInfo>
[t07] <CipherData><CipherValue>DEADBEEF</CipherValue></CipherData>
[t08] </EncryptedData>
[t02] This (AES-128-CBC) is a symmetric key
cipher.
[t04] ds:RetrievalMethod is used to
indicate the location of a key with type
&xenc;EncryptedKey. The (AES) key is located at
'#EK'.
[t05] ds:KeyName provides an
alternative method of identifying the key needed to decrypt the
CipherData. Either or both the
ds:KeyName and ds:KeyRetrievalMethod
could be used to identify the same key.
Within the same XML document, there existed an
EncryptedKey structure that was referenced within
[t04]:
[t09] <EncryptedKey Id='EK' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'>
[t10] <EncryptionMethod
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#rsa-1_5"/>
[t11] <ds:KeyInfo xmlns:ds='http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#'>
[t12] <ds:KeyName>John Smith</ds:KeyName>
[t13] </ds:KeyInfo>
[t14] <CipherData><CipherValue>xyzabc</CipherValue></CipherData>
[t15] <ReferenceList>
[t16] <DataReference URI='#ED'/>
[t17] </ReferenceList>
[t18] <CarriedKeyName>Sally Doe</CarriedKeyName>
[t19] </EncryptedKey>
[t09] The EncryptedKey element is
similar to the EncryptedData element except that the
data encrypted is always a key value.
[t10] The EncryptionMethod is the
RSA public key algorithm.
[t12] ds:KeyName of "John Smith" is
a property of the key necessary for decrypting (using RSA) the
CipherData.
[t14] The CipherData's
CipherValue is an octet sequence that is processed
(serialized, encrypted, and encoded) by a referring encrypted
object's EncryptionMethod. (Note, an EncryptedKey's
EncryptionMethod is the algorithm used to encrypt
these octets and does not speak about what type of octets they
are.)
[t15-17] A ReferenceList identifies
the encrypted objects (DataReference and
KeyReference) encrypted with this key. The
ReferenceList contains a list of references to data
encrypted by the symmetric key carried within this structure.
[t18] The CarriedKeyName element is
used to identify the encrypted key value which may be referenced
by the KeyName element in ds:KeyInfo.
(Since ID attribute values must be unique to a
document,CarriedKeyName can indicate that several
EncryptedKey structures contain the same key value
encrypted for different recipients.)
This section provides a detailed description of the syntax and features for XML Encryption. Features described in this section MUST be implemented unless otherwise noted. The syntax is defined via [XML-Schema] with the following XML preamble, declaration, internal entity, and import:
Schema Definition:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE schema PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XMLSchema 200102//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema.dtd"
[
<!ATTLIST schema
xmlns:xenc CDATA #FIXED 'http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'
xmlns:ds CDATA #FIXED 'http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#'>
<!ENTITY xenc 'http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'>
<!ENTITY % p ''>
<!ENTITY % s ''>
]>
<schema xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema' version='1.0'
xmlns:ds='http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#'
xmlns:xenc='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'
targetNamespace='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#'
elementFormDefault='qualified'>
<import namespace='http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#'
schemaLocation='http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xmldsig-core-20020212/xmldsig-core-schema.xsd'/>
EncryptedType
Element
EncryptedType is the abstract type from which
EncryptedData and EncryptedKey are
derived. While these two latter element types are very similar
with respect to their content models, a syntactical distinction
is useful to processing. Implementation MUST generate laxly
schema valid [XML-schema]
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey as
specified by the subsequent schema declarations. (Note the laxly
schema valid generation means that the content permitted by
xsd:ANY need not be valid.) Implementations SHOULD
create these XML structures (EncryptedType elements
and their descendents/content) in Normalization Form C
[NFC,
NFC-Corrigendum].
Schema Definition: <complexType name='EncryptedType' abstract='true'> <sequence> <element name='EncryptionMethod' type='xenc:EncryptionMethodType' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='ds:KeyInfo' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='xenc:CipherData'/> <element ref='xenc:EncryptionProperties' minOccurs='0'/> </sequence> <attribute name='Id' type='ID' use='optional'/> <attribute name='Type' type='anyURI' use='optional'/> <attribute name='MimeType' type='string' use='optional'/> <attribute name='Encoding' type='anyURI' use='optional'/> </complexType>
EncryptionMethod is an optional element that
describes the encryption algorithm applied to the cipher data. If
the element is absent, the encryption algorithm must be known by
the recipient or the decryption will fail.
ds:KeyInfo is an optional element, defined by
[XML-DSIG], that carries information
about the key used to encrypt the data. Subsequent sections of
this specification define new elements that may appear as
children of ds:KeyInfo.
CipherData is a mandatory element that contains
the CipherValue or CipherReference with
the encrypted data.
EncryptionProperties can contain additional
information concerning the generation of the
EncryptedType (e.g., date/time stamp).
Id is an optional attribute providing for the
standard method of assigning a string id to the element within
the document context.
Type is an optional attribute identifying type
information about the plaintext form of the encrypted content.
While optional, this specification takes advantage of it for
mandatory processing described in Processing Rules:
Decryption (section 4.2). If the EncryptedData
element contains data of Type 'element' or element
'content', and replaces that data in an XML document context, it
is strongly recommended the Type attribute be
provided. Without this information, the decryptor will be unable
to automatically restore the XML document to its original
cleartext form.
MimeType is an optional (advisory) attribute
which describes the media type of the data which has been
encrypted. The value of this attribute is a string with values
defined by [MIME]. For example, if the
data that is encrypted is a base64 encoded PNG, the transfer
Encoding may be specified as
'http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#base64'
and the MimeType as 'image/png'. This attribute is
purely advisory; no validation of the MimeType
information is required and it does not indicate the encryption
application must do any additional processing. Note, this
information may not be necessary if it is already bound to the
identifier in the Type attribute. For example, the
Element and Content types defined in this specification are
always UTF-8 encoded text.
EncryptionMethod is an optional element that describes the encryption algorithm applied to the cipher data. If the element is absent, the encryption algorithm must be known by the recipient or the decryption will fail.
Schema Definition:
<complexType name='EncryptionMethodType' mixed='true'>
<sequence>
<element name='KeySize' minOccurs='0' type='xenc:KeySizeType'/>
<element name='OAEPparams' minOccurs='0' type='base64Binary'/>
<any namespace='##other' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/>
</sequence>
<attribute name='Algorithm' type='anyURI' use='required'/>
</complexType>
The permitted child elements of the
EncryptionMethod are determined by the specific
value of the Algorithm attribute URI, and the
KeySize child element is always permitted. For
example, the RSA-OAEP algorithm
(section 5.4.2) uses the ds:DigestMethod and
OAEPparams elements. (We rely upon the
ANY schema construct because it is not possible to
specify element content based on the value of an attribute.)
The presence of any child element under
EncryptionMethod which is not permitted by the
algorithm or the presence of a KeySize child
inconsistent with the algorithm MUST be treated as an error. (All
algorithm URIs specified in this document imply a key size but
this is not true in general. Most popular stream cipher
algorithms take variable size keys.)
CipherData
ElementThe CipherData is a mandatory element that
provides the encrypted data. It must either contain the encrypted
octet sequence as base64 encoded text of the
CipherValue element, or provide a reference to an
external location containing the encrypted octet sequence via the
CipherReference element.
Schema Definition: <element name='CipherData' type='xenc:CipherDataType'/> <complexType name='CipherDataType'> <choice> <element name='CipherValue' type='base64Binary'/> <element ref='xenc:CipherReference'/> </choice> </complexType>
CipherReference
ElementIf CipherValue is not supplied directly, the
CipherReference identifies a source which, when
processed, yields the encrypted octet sequence.
The actual value is obtained as follows. The
CipherReference URI contains an
identifier that is dereferenced. Should the
CipherReference element contain an OPTIONAL sequence
of Transforms, the data resulting from dereferencing
the URI is transformed as specified so as to yield the intended
cipher value. For example, if the value is base64 encoded within
an XML document; the transforms could specify an XPath expression
followed by a base64 decoding so as to extract the octets.
The syntax of the URI and Transforms
is similar to that of [XML-DSIG].
However, there is a difference between signature and encryption
processing. In [XML-DSIG] both
generation and validation processing start with the same source
data and perform that transform in the same order. In encryption,
the decryptor has only the cipher data and the specified
transforms are enumerated for the decryptor, in the order
necessary to obtain the octets. Consequently, because it has
different semantics Transforms is in the
&xenc; namespace.
For example, if the relevant cipher value is captured within a
CipherValue element within a different XML document,
the CipherReference might look as follows:
<CipherReference URI="http://www.example.com/CipherValues.xml">
<Transforms>
<ds:Transform
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116">
<ds:XPath xmlns:rep="http://www.example.org/repository">
self::text()[parent::rep:CipherValue[@Id="example1"]]
</ds:XPath>
</ds:Transform>
<ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#base64"/>
</Transforms>
</CipherReference>
Implementations MUST support the CipherReference
feature and the same URI encoding, dereferencing, scheme, and
HTTP response codes as that of
[XML-DSIG]. The
Transform feature and particular transform
algorithms are OPTIONAL.
Schema Definition: <element name='CipherReference' type='xenc:CipherReferenceType'/> <complexType name='CipherReferenceType'> <sequence> <element name='Transforms' type='xenc:TransformsType' minOccurs='0'/> </sequence> <attribute name='URI' type='anyURI' use='required'/> </complexType> <complexType name='TransformsType'> <sequence> <element ref='ds:Transform' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType>
EncryptedData
ElementThe EncryptedData element is the core element in
the syntax. Not only does its CipherData child
contain the encrypted data, but it's also the element that
replaces the encrypted element, or serves as the new document
root.
Schema Definition: <element name='EncryptedData' type='xenc:EncryptedDataType'/> <complexType name='EncryptedDataType'> <complexContent> <extension base='xenc:EncryptedType'> </extension> </complexContent> </complexType>
ds:KeyInfo
ElementThere are three ways that the keying material needed to
decrypt CipherData can be provided:
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey
element specify the associated keying material via a child of
ds:KeyInfo. All of the child elements of
ds:KeyInfo specified in
[XML-DSIG] MAY be used as
qualified:
ds:KeyValue is
OPTIONAL and may be used to transport public keys, such as
Diffie-Hellman Key Values
(section 5.5.1). (Including the plaintext decryption key,
whether a private key or a secret key, is obviously NOT
RECOMMENDED.)ds:KeyName to refer to an
EncryptedKey CarriedKeyName is
RECOMMENDED.ds:RetrievalMethod is REQUIRED.In addition, we provide two additional child elements:
applications MUST support
EncryptedKey
(section 3.5.1) and MAY support
AgreementMethod
(section 5.5).
ds:KeyInfo)
EncryptedKey element can specify the
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey to
which its decrypted key will apply via a
DataReference
or
KeyReference
(section 3.6).EncryptedKey
Element
Type="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#EncryptedKey"
(This can be used within a ds:RetrievalMethod
element to identify the referent's type.)
The EncryptedKey element is used to transport
encryption keys from the originator to a known recipient(s). It
may be used as a stand-alone XML document, be placed within an
application document, or appear inside an
EncryptedData element as a child of a
ds:KeyInfo element. The key value is always
encrypted to the recipient(s). When EncryptedKey is
decrypted the resulting octets are made available to the
EncryptionMethod algorithm without any additional
processing.
Schema Definition: <element name='EncryptedKey' type='xenc:EncryptedKeyType'/> <complexType name='EncryptedKeyType'> <complexContent> <extension base='xenc:EncryptedType'> <sequence> <element ref='xenc:ReferenceList' minOccurs='0'/> <element name='CarriedKeyName' type='string' minOccurs='0'/> </sequence> <attribute name='Recipient' type='string' use='optional'/> </extension> </complexContent> </complexType>
ReferenceList is an optional element containing
pointers to data and keys encrypted using this key. The reference
list may contain multiple references to EncryptedKey
and EncryptedData elements. This is done using
KeyReference and DataReference elements
respectively. These are defined below.
CarriedKeyName is an optional element for
associating a user readable name with the key value. This may
then be used to reference the key using the
ds:KeyName element within ds:KeyInfo.
The same CarriedKeyName label, unlike an ID type,
may occur multiple times within a single document. The value of
the key is to be the same in all EncryptedKey
elements identified with the same CarriedKeyName
label within a single XML document. Note that because whitespace
is significant in the value of the ds:KeyName
element, whitespace is also significant in the value of the
CarriedKeyName element.
Recipient is an optional attribute that contains
a hint as to which recipient this encrypted key value is intended
for. Its contents are application dependent.
The Type attribute inheritted from
EncryptedType can be used to further specify the
type of the encrypted key if the EncryptionMethod
Algorithm does not define a unambiguous
encoding/representation. (Note, all the algorithms in this
specification have an unambigous representation for their
associated key structures.)
ds:RetrievalMethod
ElementThe ds:RetrievalMethod
[XML-DSIG]with a
Type of
'http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#EncryptedKey'
provides a way to express a link to an EncryptedKey
element containing the key needed to decrypt the
CipherData associated with an
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey element.
The ds:RetrievalMethod with this type is always a
child of the ds:KeyInfo element and may appear
multiple times. If there is more than one instance of a
ds:RetrievalMethod in a ds:KeyInfo of
this type, then the EncryptedKey objects referred to
must contain the same key value, possibly encrypted in different
ways or for different recipients.
Schema Definition:
<!--
<attribute name='Type' type='anyURI' use='optional'
fixed='http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#EncryptedKey' />
-->
ReferenceList
Element
ReferenceList is an element that contains
pointers from a key value of an EncryptedKey to
items encrypted by that key value (EncryptedData or
EncryptedKey elements).
Schema Definition:
<element name='ReferenceList'>
<complexType>
<choice minOccurs='1' maxOccurs='unbounded'>
<element name='DataReference' type='xenc:ReferenceType'/>
<element name='KeyReference' type='xenc:ReferenceType'/>
</choice>
</complexType>
</element>
<complexType name='ReferenceType'>
<sequence>
<any namespace='##other' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/>
</sequence>
<attribute name='URI' type='anyURI' use='required'/>
</complexType>
DataReference elements are used to refer to
EncryptedData elements that were encrypted using the
key defined in the enclosing EncryptedKey element.
Multiple DataReference elements can occur if
multiple EncryptedData elements exist that are
encrypted by the same key.
KeyReference elements are used to refer to
EncryptedKey elements that were encrypted using the
key defined in the enclosing EncryptedKey element.
Multiple KeyReference elements can occur if multiple
EncryptedKey elements exist that are encrypted by
the same key.
For both types of references one may optionally specify child
elements to aid the recipient in retrieving the
EncryptedKey and/or EncryptedData
elements. These could include information such as XPath
transforms, decompression transforms, or information on how to
retrieve the elements from a document storage facility. For
example:
<ReferenceList>
<DataReference URI="#invoice34">
<ds:Transforms>
<ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116">
<ds:XPath xmlns:xenc="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#">
self::xenc:EncryptedData[@Id="example1"]
</ds:XPath>
</ds:Transform>
</ds:Transforms>
</DataReference>
</ReferenceList>
EncryptionProperties
Element
Type="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#EncryptionProperties"
(This can be used within a ds:Reference
element to identify the referent's type.)
Additional information items concerning the generation of the
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey can be
placed in an EncryptionProperty element (e.g.,
date/time stamp or the serial number of cryptographic hardware
used during encryption). The Target attribute
identifies the EncryptedType structure being
described. anyAttribute permits the inclusion of
attributes from the XML namespace to be included (i.e.,
xml:space, xml:lang, and
xml:base).
Schema Definition:
<element name='EncryptionProperties' type='xenc:EncryptionPropertiesType'/>
<complexType name='EncryptionPropertiesType'>
<sequence>
<element ref='xenc:EncryptionProperty' maxOccurs='unbounded'/>
</sequence>
<attribute name='Id' type='ID' use='optional'/>
</complexType>
<element name='EncryptionProperty' type='xenc:EncryptionPropertyType'/>
<complexType name='EncryptionPropertyType' mixed='true'>
<choice maxOccurs='unbounded'>
<any namespace='##other' processContents='lax'/>
</choice>
<attribute name='Target' type='anyURI' use='optional'/>
<attribute name='Id' type='ID' use='optional'/>
<anyAttribute namespace="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace"/>
</complexType>
This section describes the operations to be performed as part of encryption and decryption processing by implementations of this specification. The conformance requirements are specified over the following roles:
For each data item to be encrypted as an
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey (elements
derived from EncryptedType), the
encryptor must:
ds:KeyInfo as approriate (e.g.,
ds:KeyName, ds:KeyValue,
ds:RetrievalMethod, etc.)EncryptedKey element by recursively applying
this encryption process. The result may then be a child of
ds:KeyInfo, or it may exist elsewhere and may
be identified in the preceding step.The definition of this type as bound to an identifier
specifies how to obtain and interpret the plaintext
octets after decryption. For example, the idenifier could
indicate that the data is an instance of another
application (e.g., some XML compression application) that
must be further processed. Or, if the data is a simple
octet sequence it MAY be described with the
MimeType and Encoding
attributes. For example, the data might be an XML
document (MimeType="text/xml"), sequence of
characters (MimeType="text/plain"), or
binary image data
(MimeType="image/png").
EncryptedType
(EncryptedData or EncryptedKey)
structure:
An EncryptedType structure represents all of
the information previously discussed including the type of
the encrypted data, encryption algorithm, parameters, key,
type of the encrypted data, etc.
CipherData element within
the EncryptedType, then the encrypted octet
sequence is base64 encoded and inserted as the content of a
CipherValue element.EncryptedType structure,
then store or return the encrypted octet sequence, and
represent the URI and transforms (if any) required for the
decryptor to retrieve the encrypted octet sequence within a
CipherReference element.Type of the encrypted data is
'
element' or element
'
content', then the encryptor MUST be
able to return the EncryptedData element to
the application. The
application MAY use this as the
top-level element in a new XML document or insert it into
another XML document, which may require a re-encoding.
The encryptor SHOULD be able to
replace the unencrypted 'element' or 'content' with the
EncryptedData element. When an
application requires an XML element or
content to be replaced, it supplies the XML document
context in addition to identifying the element or content
to be replaced. The encryptor removes
the identified element or content and inserts the
EncryptedData element in its place.
(Note: If the Type is "content" the
document resulting from decryption will not be
well-formed if (a) the original plaintext was not
well-formed (e.g., PCDATA by itself is not well-formed)
and (b) the EncryptedData element was
previously the root element of the document)
Type of the encrypted data is
not
'
element' or element
'
content', then the encryptor MUST
always return the EncryptedData element to the
application. The
application MAY use this as the top-level
element in a new XML document or insert it into another XML
document, which may require a re-encoding.For each EncryptedType derived element, (i.e.,
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey), to be
decrypted, the decryptor must:
ds:KeyInfo element to be used. If some
information is omitted, the application MUST
supply it.ds:KeyInfo element, which may contain one or more
children elements. These children have no implied processing
order. If the data encryption key is encrypted, locate the
corresponding key to decrypt it. (This may be a recursive step
as the key-encryption key may itself be encrypted.) Or, one
might retrieve the data encryption key from a local store using
the provided attributes or implicit binding.CipherData
element.
CipherValue child element is present,
then the associated text value is retrieved and base64
decoded so as to obtain the encrypted octet sequence.CipherReference child element is
present, the URI and transforms (if any) are used to
retrieve the encrypted octet sequence.Type
'
element' or element
'
content'.
Type and the UTF-8 encoded XML
character data. The decryptor is NOT
REQUIRED to perform validation on the serialized XML.EncryptedData element with
the decrypted
'
element' or element
'
content' represented by the UTF-8 encoded characters.
The decryptor is NOT REQUIRED to perform
validation on the result of this replacement operation.
The application supplies the XML document context and
identifies the EncryptedData element being
replaced. If the document into which the replacement is
occurring is not UTF-8, the decryptor
MUST transcode the UTF-8 encoded characters into the
target encoding.
Type is unspecified or
is not
'
element' or element
'
content'.
Type, MimeType, and
Encoding attribute values when specified.
MimeType and Encoding are
advisory. The Type value is normative as it
may contain information necessary for the processing or
interpration of the data by the application.EncryptedKey. The cleartext octet sequence
represents a key value and is used by the application in
decrypting other EncryptedType
element(s).Encryption and decryption operations are transforms on octets. The application is responsible for the marshalling XML such that it can be serialized into an octet sequence, encrypted, decrypted, and be of use to the recipient.
For example, if the application wishes to canonicalize its
data or encode/compress the data in an XML packaging format, the
application needs to marshal the XML accordingly and identify the
resulting type via the EncryptedData
Type attribute. The likelihood of successful
decryption and subsequent processing will be dependent on the
recipient's support for the given type. Also, if the data is
intended to be processed both before encryption and after
decryption (e.g., XML Signature
[XML-DSIG] validation or an XSLT
transform) the encrypting application must be careful to preserve
information necessary for that process's success.
For interoperability purposes, the following types MUST be implemented such that an implementation will be able to take as input and yield as output data matching the production rules 39 and 43 from [XML]:
EmptyElemTag
|
STag
content
ETag"CharData
?
((
element |
Reference |
CDSect
|
PI
|
Comment)
CharData
?)*"The following sections contain specifications for decrypting,
replacing, and serializing XML content (i.e., Type
'element'
or element
'content')
using the [XPath] data model. These
sections are non-normative and OPTIONAL to implementors of this
specification, but they may be normatively referenced by and
MANDATORY to other specifications that require a consistent
processing for applications, such as
[XML-DSIG-Decrypt].
Where P is the context in which the serialized XML should be parsed (a document node or element node) and O is the octet sequence representing UTF-8 encoded characters resulting from step 4.3 in the Decryption Processing (section 4.2). Y is node-set representing the decrypted content obtained by the following steps:
Where X is the [XPath] node
set corresponding to an XML document and e is an
EncryptedData element node in X.
EncryptedData element type. In which case:
In Encrypting XML (section 4.1, step 3.1), when serializing an XML fragment special care SHOULD be taken with respect to default namespaces. If the data will be subsequently decrypted in the context of a parent XML document then serialization can produce elements in the wrong namespace. Consider the following fragment of XML:
<Document xmlns="http://example.org/">
<ToBeEncrypted xmlns="" />
</Document>
Serialization of the element ToBeEncrypted
fragment via [XML-C14N] would result
in the characters
"<ToBeEncrypted></ToBeEncrypted>" as an
octet stream. The resulting encrypted document would be:
<Document xmlns="http://example.org/">
<EncryptedData xmlns="...">
<!-- Containing the encrypted
"<ToBeEncrypted></ToBeEncrypted>" -->
</EncryptedData>
</Document>
Decrypting and replacing the EncryptedData within
this document would produce the following incorrect result:
<Document xmlns="http://example.org/">
<ToBeEncrypted/>
</Document>
This problem arises because most XML serializations assume
that the serialized data will be parsed directly in a context
where there is no default namespace declaration. Consequently,
they do not redundantly declare the empty default namespace with
an xmlns="". If, however, the serialized data is
parsed in a context where a default namespace declaration is in
scope (e.g., the parsing context of a A Decrypt Implementation (section
4.3.1)), then it may affect the interpretation of the serialized
data.
To solve this problem, a canonicalization algorithm MAY be augmented as follows for use as an XML encryption serializer:
xmlns="") SHOULD be emitted where it would
normally be suppressed by the canonicalization algorithm.While the result may not be in proper canonical form, this is
harmless as the resulting octet stream will not be used directly
in a [XML-Signature] signature value
computation. Returning to the preceding example with our new
augmentation, the ToBeEncrypted element would be
serialized as follows:
<ToBeEncrypted xmlns=""></ToBeEncrypted>
When processed in the context of the parent document, this serialized fragment will be parsed and interpreted correctly.
This augmentation can be retroactively applied to an existing
canonicalization implementation by canonicalizing each apex node
and its descendants from the node set, inserting
xmlns="" at the appropriate points, and
concatenating the resulting octet streams.
Similar attention between the relationship of a fragment and
the context into which it is being inserted should be given to
the xml:base, xml:lang, and
xml:space attributes as mentioned in the
Security
Considerations of
[XML-exc-C14N]. For example, if
the element:
<Bongo href="example.xml"/>
is taken from a context and serialized with no
xml:base [XML-Base]
attribute and parsed in the context of the element:
<Baz xml:base="http://example.org/"/>
the result will be:
<Baz xml:base="http://example.org/"><Bongo href="example.xml"/></Baz>
Bongo's href is subsequently
interpreted as "http://example.org/example.xml". If
this is not the correct URI, Bongo should have been
serialized with its own xml:base attribute.
Unfortunately, the recommendation that an empty value be
emitted to divorce the default namespace of the fragment from the
context into which it is being inserted can not be made for
the attributes xml:base, and
xml:space. (Error 41
of the XML 1.0
Second Edition Specification Errata clarifies that an empty
string value of the attribute xml:lang is
considered as if, "there is no language information available,
just as if xml:lang had not been
specified".)The interpretation of an empty value for the
xml:base or xml:space attributes is
undefined or maintains the contextual value. Consequently,
applications SHOULD ensure (1) fragments that are to be encrypted
are not dependent on XML attributes, or (2) if they are dependent
and the resulting document is intended to be valid
[XML], the fragment's definition permits
the presence of the attributes and that the attributes have
non-empty values.
This section specifies the process for wrapping text in a given parsing context. The process is based on the proposal by Richard Tobin [Tobin] for constructing the infoset [XML-Infoset] of an external entity.
The process consists of the following steps:
dummy element start-tag with namespace
declaration attributes declaring all the namespaces in the
parsing context.dummy element end-tag.In the above steps, the document type declaration and
dummy element tags MUST be encoded in UTF-8.
Consider the following document containing an
EncryptedData element:
<!DOCTYPE Document [
<!ENTITY dsig "http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
]>
<Document xmlns="http://example.org/">
<foo:Body xmlns:foo="http://example.org/foo">
<EncryptedData xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#"
Type="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Element">
...
</EncryptedData>
</foo:Body>
</Document>
If the EncryptedData element is fed is
decrypted to the text
"<One><foo:Two/></One>", then the
wrapped form is as follows:
<!DOCTYPE dummy [
<!ENTITY dsig "http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
]>
<dummy xmlns="http://example.org/"
xmlns:foo="http://example.org/foo"><One><foo:Two/></One></dummy>
This section discusses algorithms used with the XML Encryption
specification. Entries contain the identifier to be used as the
value of the Algorithm attribute of the
EncryptionMethod element or other element
representing the role of the algorithm, a reference to the formal
specification, definitions for the representation of keys and the
results of cryptographic operations where applicable, and general
applicability comments.
All algorithms listed below have implicit parameters depending on their role. For example, the data to be encrypted or decrypted, keying material, and direction of operation (encrypting or decrypting) for encryption algorithms. Any explicit additional parameters to an algorithm appear as content elements within the element. Such parameter child elements have descriptive element names, which are frequently algorithm specific, and SHOULD be in the same namespace as this XML Encryption specification, the XML Signature specification, or in an algorithm specific namespace. An example of such an explicit parameter could be a nonce (unique quantity) provided to a key agreement algorithm.
This specification defines a set of algorithms, their URIs, and requirements for implementation. Levels of requirement specified, such as "REQUIRED" or "OPTIONAL", refere to implementation, not use. Furthermore, the mechanism is extensible, and alternative algorithms may be used.
The table below lists the categories of algorithms. Within each category, a brief name, the level of implementation requirement, and an identifying URI are given for each algorithm.
Block encryption algorithms are designed for encrypting and
decrypting data in fixed size, multiple octet blocks. Their
identifiers appear as the value of the Algorithm
attributes of EncryptionMethod elements that are
children of EncryptedData.
Block encryption algorithms take, as implicit arguments, the data to be encrypted or decrypted, the keying material, and their direction of operation. For all of these algorithms specified below, an initialization vector (IV) is required that is encoded with the cipher text. For user specified block encryption algorithms, the IV, if any, could be specified as being with the cipher data, as an algorithm content element, or elsewhere.
The IV is encoded with and before the cipher text for the algorithms below for ease of availability to the decryption code and to emphasize its association with the cipher text. Good cryptographic practice requires that a different IV be used for every encryption.
Since the data being encrypted is an arbitrary number of
octets, it may not be a multiple of the block size. This is
solved by padding the plain text up to the block size before
encryption and unpadding after decryption. The padding algorithm
is to calculate the smallest non-zero number of octets, say
N, that must be suffixed to the plain text to bring
it up to a multiple of the block size. We will assume the block
size is B octets so N is in the range
of 1 to B. Pad by suffixing the plain text with
N-1 arbitrary pad bytes and a final byte whose value
is N. On decryption, just take the last byte and,
after sanity checking it, strip that many bytes from the end of
the decrypted cipher text.
For example, assume an 8 byte block size and plain text of
0x616263. The padded plain text would then be
0x616263????????05 where the "??" bytes can be any
value. Similarly, plain text of 0x2122232425262728
would be padded to
0x2122232425262728??????????????08.
ANSI X9.52 [TRIPLEDES] specifies three sequential FIPS 46-3 [DES] operations. The XML Encryption TRIPLEDES consists of a DES encrypt, a DES decrypt, and a DES encrypt used in the Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode with 192 bits of key and a 64 bit Initialization Vector (IV). Of the key bits, the first 64 are used in the first DES operation, the second 64 bits in the middle DES operation, and the third 64 bits in the last DES operation.
Note: Each of these 64 bits of key contain 56 effective bits and 8 parity bits. Thus there are only 168 operational bits out of the 192 being transported for a TRIPLEDES key. (Depending on the criterion used for analysis, the effective strength of the key may be thought to be 112 bits (due to meet in the middle attacks) or even less.)
The resulting cipher text is prefixed by the IV. If included in XML output, it is then base64 encoded. An example TRIPLEDES EncryptionMethod is as follows:
<EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#tripledes-cbc"/>
[AES] is used in the Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode with a 128 bit initialization vector (IV). The resulting cipher text is prefixed by the IV. If included in XML output, it is then base64 encoded. An example AES EncryptionMethod is as follows:
<EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#aes128-cbc"/>
Simple stream encryption algorithms generate, based on the
key, a stream of bytes which are XORed with the plain text data
bytes to produce the cipher text on encryption and with the
cipher text bytes to produce plain text on decryption. They are
normally used for the encryption of data and are specified by the
value of the Algorithm attribute of the
EncryptionMethod child of an
EncryptedData element.
NOTE: It is critical that each simple stream encryption key (or key and initialization vector (IV) if an IV is also used) be used once only. If the same key (or key and IV) is ever used on two messages then, by XORing the two cipher texts, you can obtain the XOR of the two plain texts. This is usually very compromising.
No specific stream encryption algorithms are specified herein but this section is included to provide general guidelines.
Stream algorithms typically use the optional
KeySize explicit parameter. In cases where the key
size is not apparent from the algorithm URI or key source, as in
the use of key agreement methods, this parameter sets the key
size. If the size of the key to be used is apparent and disagrees
with the KeySize parameter, an error MUST be
returned. Implementation of any stream algorithms is optional.
The schema for the KeySize parameter is as follows:
Schema Definition:
<simpleType name='KeySizeType'>
<restriction base="integer"/>
</simpleType>
Key Transport algorithms are public key encryption algorithms
especially specified for encrypting and decrypting keys. Their
identifiers appear as Algorithm attributes to
EncryptionMethod elements that are children of
EncryptedKey. EncryptedKey is in turn
the child of a ds:KeyInfo element. The type of key
being transported, that is to say the algorithm in which it is
planned to use the transported key, is given by the
Algorithm attribute of the
EncryptionMethod child of the
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey parent of
this ds:KeyInfo element.
(Key Transport algorithms may optionally be used to encrypt
data in which case they appear directly as the
Algorithm attribute of an
EncryptionMethod child of an
EncryptedData element. Because they use public key
algorithms directly, Key Transport algorithms are not efficient
for the transport of any amounts of data significantly larger
than symmetric keys.)
The RSA v1.5 Key Transport algorithm given below are those used in conjunction with TRIPLEDES and the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) of S/MIME [CMS-Algorithms]. The RSA v2 Key Transport algorithm given below is that used in conjunction with AES and CMS [AES-WRAP].
The RSAES-PKCS1-v1_5 algorithm, specified in RFC 2437
[PKCS1], takes no explicit parameters.
An example of an RSA Version 1.5 EncryptionMethod
element is:
<EncryptionMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#rsa-1_5"/>
The CipherValue for such an encrypted key is the
base64 [MIME] encoding of the octet
string computed as per RFC 2437 [PKCS1,
section 7.2.1: Encryption operation]. As specified in the
EME-PKCS1-v1_5 function RFC 2437 [PKCS1,
section 9.1.2.1], the value input to the key transport function
is as follows:
CRYPT ( PAD ( KEY ))
where the padding is of the following special form:
02 | PS* | 00 | key
where "|" is concatenation, "02" and "00" are fixed octets of the corresponding hexadecimal value, PS is a string of strong pseudo-random octets [RANDOM] at least eight octets long, containing no zero octets, and long enough that the value of the quantity being CRYPTed is one octet shorter than the RSA modulus, and "key" is the key being transported. The key is 192 bits for TRIPLEDES and 128, 192, or 256 bits for AES. Support of this key transport algorithm for transporting 192 bit keys is MANDATORY to implement. Support of this algorithm for transporting other keys is OPTIONAL. RSA-OAEP is RECOMMENDED for the transport of AES keys.
The resulting base64 [MIME] string is
the value of the child text node of the CipherData
element, e.g.
<CipherData> IWijxQjUrcXBYoCei4QxjWo9Kg8D3p9tlWoT4
t0/gyTE96639In0FZFY2/rvP+/bMJ01EArmKZsR5VW3rwoPxw=
</CipherData>
The RSAES-OAEP-ENCRYPT algorithm, as specified in RFC
2437 [PKCS1], takes three parameters.
The two user specified parameters are a MANDATORY message digest
function and an OPTIONAL encoding octet string
OAEPparams. The message digest function is indicated
by the Algorithm attribute of a child
ds:DigestMethod element and the mask generation
function, the third parameter, is always MGF1 with SHA1
(mgf1SHA1Identifier). Both the message digest and mask generation
functions are used in the EME-OAEP-ENCODE operation as part of
RSAES-OAEP-ENCRYPT. The encoding octet string is the base64
decoding of the content of an optional OAEPparams
child element . If no OAEPparams child is provided,
a null string is used.
Schema Definition:
<!-- use these element types as children of EncryptionMethod
when used with RSA-OAEP -->
<element name='OAEPparams' minOccurs='0' type='base64Binary'/>
<element ref='ds:DigestMethod' minOccurs='0'/>
An example of an RSA-OAEP element is:
<EncryptionMethod
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#rsa-oaep-mgf1p">
<OAEPparams> 9lWu3Q== </OAEPparams>
<ds:DigestMethod
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1"/>
<EncryptionMethod>
The CipherValue for an RSA-OAEP encrypted key is
the base64 [MIME] encoding of the octet
string computed as per RFC 2437 [PKCS1,
section 7.1.1: Encryption operation]. As described in the
EME-OAEP-ENCODE function RFC 2437
[PKCS1, section 9.1.1.1], the value
input to the key transport function is calculated using the
message digest function and string specified in the
DigestMethod and OAEPparams elements
and using the mask generator function MGF1 (with SHA1) specified
in RFC 2437. The desired output length for EME-OAEP-ENCODE is one
byte shorter than the RSA modulus.
The transported key size is 192 bits for TRIPLEDES and 128, 192, or 256 bits for AES. Implementations MUST implement RSA-OAEP for the transport of 128 and 256 bit keys. They MAY implement RSA-OAEP for the transport of other keys.
A Key Agreement algorithm provides for the derivation of a
shared secret key based on a shared secret computed from certain
types of compatible public keys from both the sender and the
recipient. Information from the originator to determine the
secret is indicated by an optional OriginatorKeyInfo
parameter child of an AgreementMethod element while
that associated with the recipient is indicated by an optional
RecipientKeyInfo. A shared key is derived from this
shared secret by a method determined by the Key Agreement
algorithm.
Note: XML Encryption does not provide an on-line key agreement
negotiation protocol. The AgreementMethod element
can be used by the originator to identify the keys and
computational procedure that were used to obtain a shared
encryption key. The method used to obtain or select the keys or
algorithm used for the agreement computation is beyond the scope
of this specification.
The AgreementMethod element appears as the
content of a ds:KeyInfo since, like other
ds:KeyInfo children, it yields a key. This
ds:KeyInfo is in turn a child of an
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey element.
The Algorithm attribute and KeySize
child of the EncryptionMethod element under this
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey element
are implicit parameters to the key agreement computation. In
cases where this EncryptionMethod algorithm URI is
insufficient to determine the key length, a KeySize
MUST have been included. In addition, the sender may place a
KA-Nonce element under AgreementMethod
to assure that different keying material is generated even for
repeated agreements using the same sender and recipient public
keys. For example:
<EncryptedData>
<EncryptionMethod Algorithm="Example:Block/Alg"
<KeySize>80</KeySize>
</EncryptionMethod>
<ds:KeyInfo xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
<AgreementMethod Algorithm="example:Agreement/Algorithm">
<KA-Nonce>Zm9v</KA-Nonce>
<ds:DigestMethod
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#sha1"/>
<OriginatorKeyInfo>
<ds:KeyValue>....</ds:KeyValue>
</OriginatorKeyInfo>
<RecipientKeyInfo>
<ds:KeyValue>....</ds:KeyValue>
</RecipientKeyInfo>
</AgreementMethod>
</ds:KeyInfo>
<CipherData>...</CipherData>
</EncryptedData>
If the agreed key is being used to wrap a key, rather than
data as above, then AgreementMethod would appear
inside a ds:KeyInfo inside an
EncryptedKey element.
The Schema for AgreementMethod is as follows:
Schema Definition:
<element name="AgreementMethod" type="xenc:AgreementMethodType"/>
<complexType name="AgreementMethodType" mixed="true">
<sequence>
<element name="KA-Nonce" minOccurs="0" type="base64Binary"/>
<!-- <element ref="ds:DigestMethod" minOccurs="0"/> -->
<any namespace="##other" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
<element name="OriginatorKeyInfo" minOccurs="0"
type="ds:KeyInfoType"/>
<element name="RecipientKeyInfo" minOccurs="0"
type="ds:KeyInfoType"/>
</sequence>
<attribute name="Algorithm" type="anyURI" use="required"/>
</complexType>
Diffie-Hellman keys can appear directly within
KeyValue elements or be obtained by
ds:RetrievalMethod fetches as well as appearing in
certificates and the like. The above identifier can be used as
the value of the Type attribute of
Reference or ds:RetrievalMethod
elements.
As specified in [ESDH], a DH public
key consists of up to six quantities, two large primes p and q, a
"generator" g, the public key, and validation parameters "seed"
and "pgenCounter". These relate as follows: The public key = (
g**x mod p ) where x is the corresponding private key; p = j*q +
1 where j >= 2. "seed" and "pgenCounter" are optional and can
be used to determine if the Diffie-Hellman key has been generated
in conformance with the algorithm specified in
[ESDH]. Because the primes and generator
can be safely shared over many DH keys, they may be known from
the application environment and are optional. The schema for a
DHKeyValue is as follows:
Schema:
<element name="DHKeyValue" type="xenc:DHKeyValueType"/>
<complexType name="DHKeyValueType">
<sequence>
<sequence minOccurs="0">
<element name="P" type="ds:CryptoBinary"/>
<element name="Q" type="ds:CryptoBinary"/>
<element name="Generator"type="ds:CryptoBinary"/>
</sequence>
<element name="Public" type="ds:CryptoBinary"/>
<sequence minOccurs="0">
<element name="seed" type="ds:CryptoBinary"/>
<element name="pgenCounter" type="ds:CryptoBinary"/>
</sequence>
</sequence>
</complexType>
The Diffie-Hellman (DH) key agreement protocol
[ESDH] involves the derivation of shared
secret information based on compatible DH keys from the sender
and recipient. Two DH public keys are compatible if they have the
same prime and generator. If, for the second one, Y = g**y
mod p, then the two parties can calculate the shared
secret ZZ = ( g**(x*y) mod p ) even though each
knows only their own private key and the other party's public
key. Leading zero bytes MUST be maintained in ZZ so
it will be the same length, in bytes, as p. The size
of p MUST be at least 512 bits and g at
least 160 bits. There are numerous other complex security
considerations in the selection of g,
p, and a random x as described in
[ESDH].
Diffie-Hellman key agreement is optional to implement. An
example of a DH AgreementMethod element is as
follows:
<AgreementMethod
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#dh"
ds:xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
<KA-Nonce>Zm9v</KA-Nonce>
<ds:DigestMethod
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1"/>
<OriginatorKeyInfo>
<ds:X509Data><ds:X509Certificate>
...
</ds:X509Certificate></ds:X509Data>
</OriginatorKeyInfo>
<RecipientKeyInfo><ds:KeyValue>
...
</ds:KeyValue></RecipientKeyInfo>
</AgreementMethod>
Assume the Diffie-Hellman shared secret is the octet sequence
ZZ. The shared keying material needed will then be
calculated as follows:
Keying Material = KM(1) | KM(2) | ...
where "|" is byte stream concatenation and
KM(counter) = DigestAlg ( ZZ | counter | EncryptionAlg |
KA-Nonce | KeySize )
DigestAlg
DigestMethod child of
AgreementMethod.EncryptionAlg
Algorithm attribute of the
EncryptionMethod child of the
EncryptedData or EncryptedKey
grandparent of AgreementMethod.KA-Nonce
KA-Nonce child of AgreementMethod, if
present. If the KA-Nonce element is absent, it is
null.Counter
KeySize
For example, the initial (KM(1)) calculation for
the EncryptionMethod of the
Key Agreement example
(section 5.5) would be as follows, where the binary one byte
counter value of 1 is represented by the two character UTF-8
sequence 01, ZZ is the shared secret,
and "foo" is the base64 decoding of
"Zm9v".
SHA-1 ( ZZ01Example:Block/Algfoo80 )
Assuming that ZZ is 0xDEADBEEF, that
would be
SHA-1( 0xDEADBEEF30314578616D706C653A426C6F636B2F416C67666F6F3830 )
whose value is
0x534C9B8C4ABDCB50038B42015A181711068B08C1
Each application of DigestAlg for successive
values of Counter will produce some additional
number of bytes of keying material. From the concatenated string
of one or more KM's, enough leading bytes are taken
to meet the need for an actual key and the remainder discarded.
For example, if DigestAlg is SHA-1 which produces 20
octets of hash, then for 128 bit AES the first 16 bytes from
KM(1) would be taken and the remaining 4 bytes
discarded. For 256 bit AES, all of KM(1) suffixed
with the first 12 bytes of KM(2) would be taken and the remaining
8 bytes of KM(2) discarded.
Symmetric Key Wrap algorithms are shared secret key encryption
algorithms especially specified for encrypting and decrypting
symmetric keys. Their identifiers appear as
Algorithm attribute values to
EncryptionMethod elements that are children of
EncryptedKey which is in turn a child of
ds:KeyInfo which is in turn a child of
EncryptedData or another EncryptedKey.
The type of the key being wrapped is indicated by the
Algorithm attribute of EncryptionMethod
child of the parent of the ds:KeyInfo grandparent of
the EncryptionMethod specifying the symmetric key
wrap algorithm.
Some key wrap algorithms make use of a key checksum as defined in CMS [CMS-Wrap]. The algorithm that provides an integrity check value for the key being wrapped is:
XML Encryption implementations MUST support TRIPLEDES wrapping of 168 bit keys and may optionally support TRIPLEDES wrapping of other keys.
An example of a TRIPLEDES Key Wrap
EncryptionMethod element is as follows:
<EncryptionMethod
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#kw-tripledes"/>
The following algorithm wraps (encrypts) a key (the wrapped key, WK) under a TRIPLEDES key-encryption-key (KEK) as adopted from [CMS-Algorithms]:
WKCKS = WK || CKS, where || is
concatenation.TEMP2 = IV || TEMP1.TEMP2 and
call the result TEMP3.TEMP3 in CBC mode using the
KEK and an initialization vector of
0x4adda22c79e82105. The resulting cipher text is
the desired result. It is 40 octets long if a 168 bit key is
being wrapped.The following algorithm unwraps (decrypts) a key as adopted from [CMS-Algorithms]:
KEK and an initialization vector (IV) of
0x4adda22c79e82105. Call the output
TEMP3.TEMP2.TEMP1, the remaining octets.KEK and the IV found in the previous step. Call
the result WKCKS.WKCKS. CKS is the last
8 octets and WK, the wrapped key, are those octets
before the CKS.WK and
compare with the CKS extracted in the above step.
If they are not equal, return error.WK is the wrapped key, now extracted for use
in data decryption.Implementation of AES key wrap is described below, as
suggested by NIST. It provides for confidentiality and integrity.
This algorithm is defined only for inputs which are a multiple of
64 bits. The information wrapped need not actually be a key. The
algorithm is the same whatever the size of the AES key used in
wrapping, called the key encrypting key or KEK. The
implementation requirements are indicated below.
Assume that the data to be wrapped consists of N
64-bit data blocks denoted P(1), P(2),
P(3) ... P(N). The result of wrapping
will be N+1 64-bit blocks denoted C(0),
C(1), C(2), ... C(N). The
key encrypting key is represented by K. Assume
integers i, j, and t and
intermediate 64-bit register A, 128-bit register
B, and array of 64-bit quantities R(1)
through R(N).
"|" represents concatentation so x|y, where
x and y and 64-bit quantities, is the
128-bit quantity with x in the most significant bits
and y in the least significant bits.
AES(K)enc(x) is the operation of AES encrypting the
128-bit quantity x under the key K.
AES(K)dec(x) is the corresponding decryption
opteration. XOR(x,y) is the bitwise exclusive or of
x and y. MSB(x) and
LSB(y) are the most significant 64 bits and least
significant 64 bits of x and y respectively.
If N is 1, a single AES operation is performed
for wrap or unwrap. If N>1, then 6*N
AES operations are performed for wrap or unwrap.
The key wrap algorithm is as follows:
N is 1:
B=AES(K)enc(0xA6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6|P(1))C(0)=MSB(B)
C(1)=LSB(B)
N>1, perform the following steps:
A to
0xA6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6
i=1 to N,R(i)=P(i)
j=0 to 5,
i=1 to N,t= i + j*N
B=AES(K)enc(A|R(i))
A=XOR(t,MSB(B))
R(i)=LSB(B)
C(0)=A
i=1 to N,C(i)=R(i)
The key unwrap algorithm is as follows:
N is 1:
B=AES(K)dec(C(0)|C(1))
P(1)=LSB(B)
MSB(B) is
0xA6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6, return success. Otherwise,
return an integrity check failure error.N>1, perform the following steps:
A=C(0)
i=1 to N,R(i)=C(i)
j=5 to 0,
i=N to 1,t= i + j*N
B=AES(K)dec(XOR(t,A)|R(i))
A=MSB(B)
R(i)=LSB(B)
i=1 to N,P(i)=R(i)
A is 0xA6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6,
return success. Otherwise, return an integrity check
failure error.For example, wrapping the data
0x00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF with the
KEK 0x000102030405060708090A0B0C0D0E0F produces the
ciphertext of 0x1FA68B0A8112B447,
0xAEF34BD8FB5A7B82,
0x9D3E862371D2CFE5.
Message digest algorithms can be used in
AgreementMethod as part of the key derivation,
within RSA-OAEP encryption as a hash function, and in connection
with the HMAC message authentication code method as described in
[XML-DSIG].)
The SHA-1 algorithm [SHA] takes no explicit par