VE 07KeyMgmt

This is a draft document

(*s indicate points needing reviewers' attention.)

Key Management

1. The SSL2.0 and SSL3.0 specification details how public key certificates are exchanged over the network.
2. The Certificate Download [Communicator 4.0] specification details how X509 v3 CA , user, and S/MIME certificates can be downloaded and installed over the network. *
3. The Netscape* Extensions for User Key Generation Communicator 4.0 Version specification details the extensions that cause RSA and DSA keys to be generated.
4. Our private key and certificate databases [for both client and server products] is a B-tree (DBM) indexed flat file [regular file].
5. The private key is stored encrypted using DES-EDE3 [triple-DES] [in all cases -- export or domestic, FIPS or non-FIPS].
6. The private keys are not stored in plain text.
7. In non-internal cryptographic service providers [see PKCS#11 specification], the CSP provides its own implementation of key storage -- this document describes just the internal CSPs provided in Netscape products.
8. The X509v3 certificates are stored DER encoding in the DBM file.
9. The certificates are not encrypted, but are digitally signed by the Certification Authority [CA] that created them.
10. PKCS#12 (or previously known as PFX) defines a protocol for wrapping (encrypting) and unwrapping (decrypting) private key material and related certificates for import/export.
11. The exported private key is encrypted with a DES-EDE3 [triple-DES] key derived from a user provided password -- see PKCS#5 below.
12. No passwords (e.g., the export password for PKCS#12, or the private key database password) are stored on disk in plain text.
13. PKCS#5 is used to convert a users password to a DES-EDE3 [triple-DES] key that is used to encrypted a known plain-text to determine if it matches the password stored in the database, or in the case of exported private key.
14. Prior to exiting the Cryptographic Module, all plain text session ids (for SSL), passwords entered by users, and private key (stored on disk) are zeroed from memory.
15. PKCS#12 can be used to archive a wrapped (encrypted) private key for recovery purposes.
16. Our use of DES and DES-EDE3, as called out in PKCS#12, are FIPS 46-2 validated.
17. See DES Certificate Number 6, indicates that Netscape's DES implementation conforms to FIPS 46-2.
18. See DES-EDE3 Certificate Number 10, indicates that Netscape's triple-DES implementation also conforms to FIPS 46-2.
19. See SHA-1 Certificate Number 3, indicates that Netscape's SHA-1 implementation conforms to FIPS 180-1. *
20. See DSA Certificate Number 3, indicates that Netscape's DSA implementation conforms to FIPS 186. *
21. All key/certificate management operations of the Netscape software cryptogrpahic service provides (CSPs) are FIPS 140-1 validated.