Amazon

richanna@amazon.com

Coinbase

marius.scurtescu@coinbase.com

Security Security Events Working Group Internet-Draft Security events communicated within Security Event Tokens may support a variety of identifiers to identify subjects related to the event. This specification formalizes the notion of subject identifiers as structured information that describe a subject, and named formats that define the syntax and semantics for encoding subject identifiers as JSON objects. It also defines a registry for defining and allocating names for such formats, as well as the sub_id JSON Web Token (JWT) claim.

As described in Section 1.2 of SET , subjects related to security events may take a variety of forms, including but not limited to a JWT principal, an IP address, a URL, etc. Different types of subjects may need to be identified in different ways. (e.g., a host might be identified by an IP or MAC address, while a user might be identified by an email address) Furthermore, even in the case where the type of the subject is known, there may be multiple ways by which a given subject may be identified. For example, an account may be identified by an opaque identifier, an email address, a phone number, a JWT iss claim and sub claim, etc., depending on the nature and needs of the transmitter and receiver. Even within the context of a given transmitter and receiver relationship, it may be appropriate to identify different accounts in different ways, for example if some accounts only have email addresses associated with them while others only have phone numbers. Therefore it can be necessary to indicate within a SET the mechanism by which a subject is being identified. To address this problem, this specification defines Subject Identifiers - JSON objects containing information identifying a subject - and Identifier Formats - named sets of rules describing how to encode different kinds of subject identifying information (e.g., an email address, or an issuer and subject pair) as a Subject Identifier. Below is a non-normative example of a Subject Identifier that identifies a subject by email address, using the Email Identifier Format.

Subject Identifiers are intended to be a general purpose mechanism for identifying subjects within JSON objects and their usage need not be limited to SETs. Below is a non-normative example of a JWT that uses a Subject Identifier in the sub_id claim (defined in this specification) to identify the JWT Subject.

Usage of Subject Identifiers also need not be limited to identifying JWT Subjects. They are intended as a general purpose means of expressing identifying information in an unambiguous manner. Below is a non-normative example of a SET containing a hypothetical security event describing the interception of a message, using Subject Identifiers to identify the sender, intended recipient, and interceptor.

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in .

This specification utilizes terminology defined in , , and . Within this specification, the terms “Subject” and “subject” refer generically to anything being identified via one or more pieces of information. The term “JWT Subject” refers specifically to the to the subject of a JWT. (i.e., the subject that the JWT asserts claims about)

A Subject Identifier is a JSON object whose contents may be used to identify a subject within some context. An Identifier Format is a named definition of a set of information that may be used to identify a subject, and the rules for encoding that information as a Subject Identifier; they define the syntax and semantics of Subject Identifiers. A Subject Identifier MUST conform to a specific Identifier Format, and MUST contain a format member whose value is the name of that Identifier Format. Every Identifier Format MUST have a unique name registered in the IANA “Security Event Identifier Formats” registry established by , or a Collision-Resistant Name as defined in . Identifier Formats that are expected to be used broadly by a variety of parties SHOULD be registered in the “Security Event Identifier Formats” registry. An Identifier Format MAY describe more members than are strictly necessary to identify a subject, and MAY describe conditions under which those members are required, optional, or prohibited. The format member is reserved for use as described in this specification; Identifier Formats MUST NOT declare any rules regarding the format member. Every member within a Subject Identifier MUST match the rules specified for that member by this specification or by Subject Identifier’s Identifier Format. A Subject Identifier MUST NOT contain any members prohibited or not described by its Identifier Format, and MUST contain all members required by its Identifier Format.

Identifier Formats define how to encode identifying information for a subject. They do not define the type or nature of the subject itself. E.g., While the email Identifier Format declares that the value of the email member is an email address, a subject in a Security Event that is identified by an email Subject Identifier could be an end user who controls that email address, the mailbox itself, or anything else that the transmitter and receiver both understand to be associated with that email address. Consequently Subject Identifiers remove ambiguity around how a subject is being identified, and how to parse an identifying structure, but do not remove ambiguity around how to resolve that identifier to a subject. For example, consider a directory management API that allows callers to identify users and groups through both opaque unique identifiers and email addresses. Such an API could use Subject Identifiers to disambiguate between which of these two types of identifiers is in use. However, the API would have to determine whether the subject is a user or group via some other means, such as by querying a database, interpreting other parameters in the request, or inferring the type from the API contract.

The following Identifier Formats are registered in the IANA “Security Event Identifier Formats” registry established by .

The Account Identifier Format identifies a subject using an account at a service provider, identified with an acct URI as defined in . Subject Identifiers in this format MUST contain a uri member whose value is the acct URI for the subject. The uri member is REQUIRED and MUST NOT be null or empty. The Account Identifier Format is identified by the name account. Below is a non-normative example Subject Identifier for the Account Identifier Format:

The Aliases Identifier Format describes a subject that is identified with a list of different Subject Identifiers. It is intended for use when a variety of identifiers have been shared with the party that will be interpreting the Subject Identifier, and it is unknown which of those identifiers they will recognize or support. Subject Identifiers in this format MUST contain an identifiers member whose value is a JSON array containing one or more Subject Identifiers. Each Subject Identifier in the array MUST identify the same entity. The identifiers member is REQUIRED and MUST NOT be null or empty. It MAY contain multiple instances of the same Identifier Format (e.g., multiple Email Subject Identifiers), but SHOULD NOT contain exact duplicates. This format is identified by the name aliases. alias Subject Identifiers MUST NOT be nested; i.e., the identifiers member of an alias Subject Identifier MUST NOT contain a Subject Identifier in the aliases format. Below is a non-normative example Subject Identifier in the Aliases Identifier Format:

The Decentralized Identifier Format identifies a subject using a Decentralized Identifier (DID) URL as defined in . Subject Identifiers in this format MUST contain a url member whose value is a DID URL for the DID Subject being identified. The value of the url member MUST be a valid DID URL and MAY be a bare DID. The url member is REQUIRED and MUST NOT be null or empty. The Decentralized Identifier Format is identified by the name did. Below are non-normative example Subject Identifiers for the Decentralized Identifier Format:

The Email Identifier Format identifies a subject using an email address. Subject Identifiers in this format MUST contain an email member whose value is a string containing the email address of the subject, formatted as an addr-spec as defined in Section 3.4.1 of . The email member is REQUIRED and MUST NOT be null or empty. The value of the email member SHOULD identify a mailbox to which email may be delivered, in accordance with . The Email Identifier Format is identified by the name email. Below is a non-normative example Subject Identifier in the Email Identifier Format:

Many email providers will treat multiple email addresses as equivalent. While the domain portion of an email address is consistently treated as case-insensitive per , some providers treat the local part of the email address as case-insensitive as well, and consider “user@example.com”, “User@example.com”, and “USER@example.com” as the same email address. This has led users to view these strings as equivalent, driving service providers to implement proprietary email canonicalization algorithms to ensure that email addresses entered by users resolve to the same canonical string. When receiving an Email Subject Identifier, the recipient SHOULD use their implementation’s canonicalization algorithm to resolve the email address to the same string used in their system.

The Issuer and Subject Identifier Format identifies a subject using a pair of iss and sub members, analagous to how subjects are identified using the iss and sub claims in OpenID Connect ID Tokens. These members MUST follow the formats of the iss member and sub member defined by , respectively. Both the iss member and the sub member are REQUIRED and MUST NOT be null or empty. The Issuer and Subject Identifier Format is identified by the name iss_sub. Below is a non-normative example Subject Identifier in the Issuer and Subject Identifier Format:

The Opaque Identifier Format describes a subject that is identified with a string with no semantics asserted beyond its usage as an identifier for the subject, such as a UUID or hash used as a surrogate identifier for a record in a database. Subject Identifiers in this format MUST contain an id member whose value is a JSON string containing the opaque string identifier for the subject. The id member is REQUIRED and MUST NOT be null or empty. The Opaque Identifier Format is identified by the name opaque. Below is a non-normative example Subject Identifier in the Opaque Identifier Format:

The Phone Number Identifier Format identifies a subject using a telephone number. Subject Identifiers in this format MUST contain a phone_number member whose value is a string containing the full telephone number of the subject, including international dialing prefix, formatted according to E.164. The phone_number member is REQUIRED and MUST NOT be null or empty. The Phone Number Identifier Format is identified by the name phone_number. Below is a non-normative example Subject Identifier in the Email Identifier Format:

The sub JWT Claim is defined in Section 4.1.2 of as containing a string value, and therefore cannot contain a Subject Identifier (which is a JSON object) as its value. This document defines the sub_id JWT Claim, in accordance with Section 4.2 of , as a common claim that identifies the JWT Subject using a Subject Identifier. When present, the value of this claim MUST be a Subject Identifier that identifies the subject of the JWT. The sub_id claim MAY be included in a JWT, whether or not the sub claim is present. When both the sub and sub_id claims are present in a JWT, they MUST identify the same subject, as a JWT has one and only one JWT Subject. When processing a JWT with both sub and sub_id claims, implementations MUST NOT rely on both claims to determine the JWT Subject. An implementation MAY attempt to determine the JWT Subject from one claim and fall back to using the other if it determines it does not understand the format of the first claim. For example, an implementation may attempt to use sub_id, and fall back to using sub upon finding that sub_id contains a Subject Identifier whose format is not recognized by the implementation. Below are non-normative examples of JWTs containing the sub_id claim:

The sub_id claim MAY contain an iss_sub Subject Identifier. In this case, the JWT’s iss claim and the Subject Identifier’s iss member MAY be different. For example, in OpenID Connect client may construct such a JWT when sending JWTs back to its OpenID Connect Identity Provider, in order to identify the JWT Subject using an identifier known to be understood by both parties. Similarly, the JWT’s sub claim and the Subject Identifier’s sub member MAY be different. For example, this may be used by an OpenID Connect client to communicate the JWT Subject’s local identifier at the client back to its Identity Provider. Below are non-normative examples of a JWT where the iss claim and iss member within the sub_id claim are the same, and a JWT where they are different.

Identifier Format definitions MUST NOT make assertions or declarations regarding the subject being identified by the Subject Identifier (e.g., an Identifier Format cannot be defined as specifically identifying human end users), as such statements are outside the scope of Identifier Formats and Subject Identifiers, and expanding that scope for some Identifier Formats but not others would harm interoperability, as applications that depend on this expanded scope to disambiguate the subject type would be unable to use Identifier Formats that do not provide such rules.

The act of presenting two or more identifiers for a single subject together (e.g., within an aliases Subject Identifier, or via the sub and sub_id JWT claims) may communicate more information about the subject than was intended. For example, the entity to which the identifiers are presented now knows that both identifiers relate to the same subject, and may be able to correlate additional data based on that. When transmitting Subject Identifiers, the transmitter SHOULD take care that they are only transmitting multiple identifiers together when it is known that the recipient already knows that the identifiers are related (e.g., because they were previously sent to the recipient as claims in an OpenID Connect ID Token), or when correlation is essential to the use case. The considerations described in Section 6 of also apply when Subject Identifiers are used within SETs. The considerations described in Section 12 of also apply when Subject Identifiers are used within JWTs.

This specification does not define any mechanism for ensuring the confidentiality or integrityi of a Subject Identifier. Where such properties are required, implementations MUST use mechanisms provided by the containing format (e.g., integrity protecting SETs or JWTs using JWS ), or at the transport layer or other layer in the application stack (e.g., using TLS ). Further considerations regarding confidentiality and integrity of SETs can be found in Section 5.1 of .

This document defines Identifier Formats, for which IANA is asked to create and maintain a new registry titled “Security Event Identifier Formats”. Initial values for the Security Event Identifier Formats registry are given in . Future assignments are to be made through the Expert Review registration policy and shall follow the template presented in . It is suggested that multiple Designated Experts be appointed who are able to represent the perspectives of different applications using this specification, in order to enable broadly informed review of registration decisions. In cases where a registration decision could be perceived as creating a conflict of interest for a particular Expert, that Expert should defer to the judgment of the other Experts.

(This section to be removed by the RFC Editor before publication as an RFC.) The authors recommend that the Identifier Formats registry be located at https://www.iana.org/assignments/secevent/.

The name of the Identifier Format, as described in . The name MUST be an ASCII string consisting only of lower-case characters (“a” - “z”), digits (“0” - “9”), underscores (“_”), and hyphens (“-“), and SHOULD NOT exceed 20 characters in length. A brief description of the Identifier Format. For formats defined in documents published by the IETF or its working groups, list “IETF”. For all other formats, list the name of the party responsible for the registration. Contact information such as mailing address, email address, or phone number may also be provided. A reference to the document or documents that define the Identifier Format. The definition MUST specify the name, format, and meaning of each member that may occur within a Subject Identifier of the defined format, as well as whether each member is optional, required, prohibited, or the circumstances under which the member may be optional, required, or prohibited. URIs that can be used to retrieve copies of each document SHOULD be included.

Format Name: account Format Description: Subject identifier based on acct URI. Change Controller: IETF Defining Document(s): of this document.

Format Name: aliases Format Description: Subject identifier that groups together multiple different subject identifiers for the same subject. Change Controller: IETF Defining Document(s): of this document.

Format Name: did Format Description: Subject identifier based on a Decentralized Identifier (DID) URL. Change Controller: IETF Defining Document(s): of this document.

Format Name: email Format Description: Subject identifier based on email address. Change Controller: IETF Defining Document(s): of this document.

Format Name: iss_sub Format Description: Subject identifier based on an issuer and subject. Change Controller: IETF Defining Document(s): of this document.

Format Name: opaque Format Description: Subject identifier based on an opaque string. Change Controller: IETF Defining Document(s): of this document.

Format Name: phone_number Format Description: Subject identifier based on an phone number. Change Controller: IETF Defining Document(s): of this document.

The Expert Reviewer is expected to review the documentation referenced in a registration request to verify its completeness. The Expert Reviewer must base their decision to accept or reject the request on a fair and impartial assessment of the request. If the Expert Reviewer has a conflict of interest, such as being an author of a defining document referenced by the request, they must recuse themselves from the approval process for that request. In the case where a request is rejected, the Expert Reviewer should provide the requesting party with a written statement expressing the reason for rejection, and be prepared to cite any sources of information that went into that decision. Identifier Formats need not be generally applicable and may be highly specific to a particular domain; it is expected that formats may be registered for niche or industry-specific use cases. The Expert Reviewer should focus on whether the format is thoroughly documented, and whether its registration will promote or harm interoperability. In most cases, the Expert Reviewer should not approve a request if the registration would contribute to confusion, or amount to a synonym for an existing format.

This document defines the sub_id JWT Claim, which IANA is asked to register in the “JSON Web Token Claims” registry IANA JSON Web Token Claims Registry established by .

Claim Name: “sub_id” Claim Description: Subject Identifier Change Controller: IESG Specification Document(s): of this document.

Many protocols make use of points of extensibility that use constants to identify various protocol parameters. To ensure that the values in these fields do not have conflicting uses and to promote interoperability, their allocations are often coordinated by a central record keeper. For IETF protocols, that role is filled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).To make assignments in a given registry prudently, guidance describing the conditions under which new values should be assigned, as well as when and how modifications to existing values can be made, is needed. This document defines a framework for the documentation of these guidelines by specification authors, in order to assure that the provided guidance for the IANA Considerations is clear and addresses the various issues that are likely in the operation of a registry.This is the third edition of this document; it obsoletes RFC 5226. International Telecommunication Union IANA World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) This specification defines the Security Event Token (SET) data structure. A SET describes statements of fact from the perspective of an issuer about a subject. These statements of fact represent an event that occurred directly to or about a security subject, for example, a statement about the issuance or revocation of a token on behalf of a subject. This specification is intended to enable representing security- and identity-related events. A SET is a JSON Web Token (JWT), which can be optionally signed and/or encrypted. SETs can be distributed via protocols such as HTTP. JSON Web Token (JWT) is a compact, URL-safe means of representing claims to be transferred between two parties. The claims in a JWT are encoded as a JSON object that is used as the payload of a JSON Web Signature (JWS) structure or as the plaintext of a JSON Web Encryption (JWE) structure, enabling the claims to be digitally signed or integrity protected with a Message Authentication Code (MAC) and/or encrypted. JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a lightweight, text-based, language-independent data interchange format. It was derived from the ECMAScript Programming Language Standard. JSON defines a small set of formatting rules for the portable representation of structured data.This document removes inconsistencies with other specifications of JSON, repairs specification errors, and offers experience-based interoperability guidance. In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. This document defines the 'acct' Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme as a way to identify a user's account at a service provider, irrespective of the particular protocols that can be used to interact with the account. This document specifies the Internet Message Format (IMF), a syntax for text messages that are sent between computer users, within the framework of "electronic mail" messages. This specification is a revision of Request For Comments (RFC) 2822, which itself superseded Request For Comments (RFC) 822, "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages", updating it to reflect current practice and incorporating incremental changes that were specified in other RFCs. [STANDARDS-TRACK] This document is a specification of the basic protocol for Internet electronic mail transport. It consolidates, updates, and clarifies several previous documents, making all or parts of most of them obsolete. It covers the SMTP extension mechanisms and best practices for the contemporary Internet, but does not provide details about particular extensions. Although SMTP was designed as a mail transport and delivery protocol, this specification also contains information that is important to its use as a "mail submission" protocol for "split-UA" (User Agent) mail reading systems and mobile environments. [STANDARDS-TRACK] Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. Ping Identity Microsoft Google Salesforce This RFC is the revised basic definition of The Domain Name System. It obsoletes RFC-882. This memo describes the domain style names and their used for host address look up and electronic mail forwarding. It discusses the clients and servers in the domain name system and the protocol used between them. JSON Web Signature (JWS) represents content secured with digital signatures or Message Authentication Codes (MACs) using JSON-based data structures. Cryptographic algorithms and identifiers for use with this specification are described in the separate JSON Web Algorithms (JWA) specification and an IANA registry defined by that specification. Related encryption capabilities are described in the separate JSON Web Encryption (JWE) specification. This document specifies version 1.3 of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. TLS allows client/server applications to communicate over the Internet in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery.This document updates RFCs 5705 and 6066, and obsoletes RFCs 5077, 5246, and 6961. This document also specifies new requirements for TLS 1.2 implementations.

The authors would like to thank the members of the IETF Security Events working group, as well as those of the OpenID Shared Signals and Events Working Group, whose work provided the original basis for this document.

(This section to be removed by the RFC Editor before publication as an RFC.) Draft 00 - AB - First draft Draft 01 - AB: Added reference to RFC 5322 for format of email claim. Renamed iss_sub type to iss-sub. Renamed id_token_claims type to id-token-claims. Added text specifying the nature of the subjects described by each type. Draft 02 - AB: Corrected format of phone numbers in examples. Updated author info. Draft 03 - AB: Added account type for acct URIs. Replaced id-token-claims type with aliases type. Added email canonicalization guidance. Updated semantics for email, phone, and iss-sub types. Draft 04 - AB: Added sub_id JWT Claim definition, guidance, examples. Added text prohibiting aliases nesting. Added privacy considerations for identifier correlation. Draft 05 - AB: Renamed the phone type to phone-number and its phone claim to phone_number. Draft 06 - AB: Replaced usage of the word “claim” to describe members of a Subject Identifier with the word “member”, in accordance with terminology in RFC7159. Renamed the phone-number type to phone_number and iss-sub to iss_sub. Added normative requirements limiting the use of both sub and sub_id claims together when processing a JWT. Clarified that identifier correlation may be acceptable when it is a core part of the use case. Replaced references to OIDF with IETF in IANA Considerations. Recommended the appointment of multiple Designated Experts, and a location for the Subject Identifier Types registry. Added “_” to list of allowed characters in the Type Name for Subject Identifier Types. Clarified that Subject Identifiers don’t provide confidentiality or integrity protection. Added references to SET, JWT privacy and security considerations. Added section describing the difference between subject identifier type and principal type that hopefully clarifies things and doesn’t just muddy the water further. Draft 07 - AB: Emphasized that the spec is about identifiers, not the things they identify: Renamed “Subject Identifier Type” to “Identifier Format”. Renamed subject_type to format. Renamed “Security Event Subject Identifier Type Registry” to “Security Event Identifier Format Registry”. Added new section with guidance for specs defining Identifier Formats, with normative prohibition on formats that describe the subject itself, rather than the identifier. Clarified the meaning of “subject”: Defined “subject” as applying generically and “JWT Subject” as applying specifically to the subject of a JWT. Replaced most instances of the word “principal” with “subject”. Added opaque Identifier Format Draft 08 - JR, AB: * Added did Identifier Format * Alphabetized identifier format definitions * Replaced “type” with “format” in places that had been missed in the -07 change. (mostly IANA Considerations) * Miscellaneous editorial fixes