1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
|
Network Working Group F. Andreasen
Request for Comments: 5027 D. Wing
Updates: 3312 Cisco Systems
Category: Standards Track October 2007
Security Preconditions for
Session Description Protocol (SDP) Media Streams
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This document defines a new security precondition for the Session
Description Protocol (SDP) precondition framework described in RFCs
3312 and 4032. A security precondition can be used to delay session
establishment or modification until media stream security for a
secure media stream has been negotiated successfully.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Notational Conventions ..........................................2
3. Security Precondition Definition ................................2
4. Examples ........................................................6
4.1. SDP Security Descriptions Example ..........................6
4.2. Key Management Extension for SDP Example ...................9
5. Security Considerations ........................................11
6. IANA Considerations ............................................13
7. Acknowledgements ...............................................13
8. Normative References ...........................................13
9. Informative References .........................................14
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 1]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
1. Introduction
The concept of a Session Description Protocol (SDP) [RFC4566]
precondition is defined in [RFC3312] as updated by [RFC4032]. A
precondition is a condition that has to be satisfied for a given
media stream in order for session establishment or modification to
proceed. When a (mandatory) precondition is not met, session
progress is delayed until the precondition is satisfied or the
session establishment fails. For example, RFC 3312 defines the
Quality-of-Service precondition, which is used to ensure availability
of network resources prior to establishing (i.e., alerting) a call.
Media streams can either be provided in cleartext and with no
integrity protection, or some kind of media security can be applied,
e.g., confidentiality and/or message integrity. For example, the
Audio/Video profile of the Real-Time Transfer Protocol (RTP)
[RFC3551] is normally used without any security services whereas the
Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) [SRTP] is always used with
security services. When media stream security is being negotiated,
e.g., using the mechanism defined in SDP Security Descriptions
[SDESC], both the offerer and the answerer [RFC3264] need to know the
cryptographic parameters being used for the media stream; the offerer
may provide multiple choices for the cryptographic parameters, or the
cryptographic parameters selected by the answerer may differ from
those of the offerer (e.g., the key used in one direction versus the
other). In such cases, to avoid media clipping, the offerer needs to
receive the answer prior to receiving any media packets from the
answerer. This can be achieved by using a security precondition,
which ensures the successful negotiation of media stream security
parameters for a secure media stream prior to session establishment
or modification.
2. Notational Conventions
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 [RFC2119].
3. Security Precondition Definition
The semantics for a security precondition are that the relevant
cryptographic parameters (cipher, key, etc.) for a secure media
stream are known to have been negotiated in the direction(s)
required. If the security precondition is used with a non-secure
media stream, the security precondition is by definition satisfied.
A secure media stream is here defined as a media stream that uses
some kind of security service (e.g., message integrity,
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 2]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
confidentiality, or both), regardless of the cryptographic strength
of the mechanisms being used.
As an extreme example of this, Secure RTP (SRTP) using the NULL
encryption algorithm and no message integrity would be considered
a secure media stream whereas use of plain RTP would not. Note
though, that Section 9.5 of [SRTP] discourages the use of SRTP
without message integrity.
Security preconditions do not guarantee that an established media
stream will be secure. They merely guarantee that the recipient of
the media stream packets will be able to perform any relevant
decryption and integrity checking on those media stream packets.
Please refer to Section 5 for further security considerations.
The security precondition type is defined by the string "sec" and
hence we modify the grammar found in RFC 3312 as follows:
precondition-type = "sec" / "qos" / token
RFC 3312 defines support for two kinds of status types, namely
segmented and end-to-end. The security precondition-type defined
here MUST be used with the end-to-end status type; use of the
segmented status type is undefined.
A security precondition can use the strength-tag "mandatory",
"optional", or "none".
When a security precondition with a strength-tag of "mandatory" is
received in an offer, session establishment or modification MUST be
delayed until the security precondition has been met, i.e., the
relevant cryptographic parameters (cipher, key, etc.) for a secure
media stream are known to have been negotiated in the direction(s)
required. When a mandatory security precondition is offered, and the
answerer cannot satisfy the security precondition (e.g., because the
offer was for a secure media stream, but it did not include the
necessary parameters to establish the secure media stream keying
material for example), the offered media stream MUST be rejected as
described in RFC 3312.
The delay of session establishment defined here implies that alerting
of the called party MUST NOT occur and media for which security is
being negotiated MUST NOT be exchanged until the precondition has
been satisfied. In cases where secure media and other non-media data
is multiplexed on a media stream (e.g., when Interactive Connectivity
Establishment [ICE] is being used), the non-media data is allowed to
be exchanged prior to the security precondition being satisfied.
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 3]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
When a security precondition with a strength-tag of "optional" is
received in an offer, the answerer MUST generate its answer SDP as
soon as possible. Since session progress is not delayed in this
case, the answerer does not know when the offerer is able to process
secure media stream packets and hence clipping may occur. If the
answerer wants to avoid clipping and delay session progress until he
knows the offerer has received the answer, the answerer MUST increase
the strength of the security precondition by using a strength-tag of
"mandatory" in the answer. Note that use of a mandatory precondition
in an offer requires the presence of a SIP "Require" header field
containing the option tag "precondition": Any SIP UA that does not
support a mandatory precondition will consequently reject such
requests (which also has unintended ramifications for SIP forking
that are known as the Heterogeneous Error Response Forking Problem
(see e.g., [HERFP]). To get around this, an optional security
precondition and the SIP "Supported" header field containing the
option tag "precondition" can be used instead.
When a security precondition with a strength-tag of "none" is
received, processing continues as usual. The "none" strength-tag
merely indicates that the offerer supports the following security
precondition - the answerer MAY upgrade the strength-tag in the
answer as described in [RFC3312].
The direction tags defined in RFC 3312 are interpreted as follows:
* send: Media stream security negotiation is at a stage where it is
possible to send media packets to the other party and the other
party will be able to process them correctly from a security point
of view, i.e., decrypt and/or integrity check them as necessary.
The definition of "media packets" includes all packets that make
up the media stream. In the case of Secure RTP for example, it
includes SRTP as well as SRTCP. When media and non-media packets
are multiplexed on a given media stream (e.g., when ICE is being
used), the requirement applies to the media packets only.
* recv: Media stream security negotiation is at a stage where it is
possible to receive and correctly process media stream packets
sent by the other party from a security point of view.
The precise criteria for determining when the other party is able to
correctly process media stream packets from a security point of view
depend on the secure media stream protocol being used as well as the
mechanism by which the required cryptographic parameters are
negotiated.
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 4]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
We here provide details for SRTP negotiated through SDP security
descriptions as defined in [SDESC]:
* When the offerer requests the "send" security precondition, it
needs to receive the answer before the security precondition is
satisfied. The reason for this is twofold. First, the offerer
needs to know where to send the media. Secondly, in the case
where alternative cryptographic parameters are offered, the
offerer needs to know which set was selected. The answerer does
not know when the answer is actually received by the offerer
(which in turn will satisfy the precondition), and hence the
answerer needs to use the confirm-status attribute [RFC3312].
This will make the offerer generate a new offer showing the
updated status of the precondition.
* When the offerer requests the "recv" security precondition, it
also needs to receive the answer before the security precondition
is satisfied. The reason for this is straightforward: The answer
contains the cryptographic parameters that will be used by the
answerer for sending media to the offerer; prior to receipt of
these cryptographic parameters, the offerer is unable to
authenticate or decrypt such media.
When security preconditions are used with the Key Management
Extensions for the Session Description Protocol (SDP) [KMGMT], the
details depend on the actual key management protocol being used.
After an initial offer/answer exchange in which the security
precondition is requested, any subsequent offer/answer sequence for
the purpose of updating the status of the precondition for a secure
media stream SHOULD use the same key material as the initial
offer/answer exchange. This means that the key-mgmt attribute lines
[KMGMT], or crypto attribute lines [SDESC] in SDP offers, that are
sent in response to SDP answers containing a confirm-status field
[RFC3312] SHOULD repeat the same data as that sent in the previous
SDP offer. If applicable to the key management protocol or SDP
security description, the SDP answers to these SDP offers SHOULD
repeat the same data in the key-mgmt attribute lines [KMGMT] or
crypto attribute lines [SDESC] as that sent in the previous SDP
answer.
Of course, this duplication of key exchange during precondition
establishment is not to be interpreted as a replay attack. This
issue may be solved if, e.g., the SDP implementation recognizes that
the key management protocol data is identical in the second
offer/answer exchange and avoids forwarding the information to the
security layer for further processing.
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 5]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
Offers with security preconditions in re-INVITEs or UPDATEs follow
the rules given in Section 6 of RFC 3312, i.e.:
"Both user agents SHOULD continue using the old session parameters
until all the mandatory preconditions are met. At that moment,
the user agents can begin using the new session parameters."
At that moment, we furthermore require that user agents MUST start
using the new session parameters for media packets being sent. The
user agents SHOULD be prepared to process media packets received with
either the old or the new session parameters for a short period of
time to accommodate media packets in transit. Note that this may
involve iterative security processing of the received media packets
during that period of time. Section 8 in [RFC3264] lists several
techniques to help alleviate the problem of determining when a
received media packet was generated according to the old or new
offer/answer exchange.
4. Examples
4.1. SDP Security Descriptions Example
The call flow of Figure 1 shows a basic session establishment using
the Session Initiation Protocol [SIP] and SDP security descriptions
[SDESC] with security descriptions for the secure media stream (SRTP
in this case).
A B
| |
|-------------(1) INVITE SDP1--------------->|
| |
|<------(2) 183 Session Progress SDP2--------|
| |
|----------------(3) PRACK SDP3------------->|
| |
|<-----------(4) 200 OK (PRACK) SDP4---------|
| |
|<-------------(5) 180 Ringing---------------|
| |
| |
| |
Figure 1: Security Preconditions with SDP Security
Descriptions Example
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 6]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
The SDP descriptions of this example are shown below - we have
omitted the details of the SDP security descriptions as well as any
SIP details for clarity of the security precondition described here:
SDP1: A includes a mandatory end-to-end security precondition for
both the send and receive direction in the initial offer as well as a
"crypto" attribute (see [SDESC]), which includes keying material that
can be used by A to generate media packets. Since B does not know
any of the security parameters yet, the current status (see RFC 3312)
is set to "none". A's local status table (see RFC 3312) for the
security precondition is as follows:
Direction | Current | Desired Strength | Confirm
-----------+----------+------------------+----------
send | no | mandatory | no
recv | no | mandatory | no
and the resulting offer SDP is:
m=audio 20000 RTP/SAVP 0
c=IN IP4 192.0.2.1
a=curr:sec e2e none
a=des:sec mandatory e2e sendrecv
a=crypto:foo...
SDP2: When B receives the offer and generates an answer, B knows the
(send and recv) security parameters of both A and B. From a security
perspective, B is now able to receive media from A, so B's "recv"
security precondition is "yes". However, A does not know any of B's
SDP information, so B's "send" security precondition is "no". B's
local status table therefore looks as follows:
Direction | Current | Desired Strength | Confirm
-----------+----------+------------------+----------
send | no | mandatory | no
recv | yes | mandatory | no
B requests A to confirm when A knows the security parameters used in
the send and receive direction (it would suffice for B to ask for
confirmation of A's send direction only) and hence the resulting
answer SDP becomes:
m=audio 30000 RTP/SAVP 0
c=IN IP4 192.0.2.4
a=curr:sec e2e recv
a=des:sec mandatory e2e sendrecv
a=conf:sec e2e sendrecv
a=crypto:bar...
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 7]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
SDP3: When A receives the answer, A updates its local status table
based on the rules in RFC 3312. A knows the security parameters of
both the send and receive direction and hence A's local status table
is updated as follows:
Direction | Current | Desired Strength | Confirm
-----------+----------+------------------+----------
send | yes | mandatory | yes
recv | yes | mandatory | yes
Since B requested confirmation of the send and recv security
preconditions, and both are now satisfied, A immediately sends an
updated offer (3) to B showing that the security preconditions are
satisfied:
m=audio 20000 RTP/SAVP 0
c=IN IP4 192.0.2.1
a=curr:sec e2e sendrecv
a=des:sec mandatory e2e sendrecv
a=crypto:foo...
Note that we here use PRACK [RFC3262] instead of UPDATE [RFC3311]
since the precondition is satisfied immediately, and the original
offer/answer exchange is complete.
SDP4: Upon receiving the updated offer, B updates its local status
table based on the rules in RFC 3312, which yields the following:
Direction | Current | Desired Strength | Confirm
-----------+----------+------------------+----------
send | yes | mandatory | no
recv | yes | mandatory | no
B responds with an answer (4) that contains the current status of the
security precondition (i.e., sendrecv) from B's point of view:
m=audio 30000 RTP/SAVP 0
c=IN IP4 192.0.2.4
a=curr:sec e2e sendrecv
a=des:sec mandatory e2e sendrecv
a=crypto:bar...
B's local status table indicates that all mandatory preconditions
have been satisfied, and hence session establishment resumes; B
returns a 180 (Ringing) response (5) to indicate alerting.
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 8]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
4.2. Key Management Extension for SDP Example
The call flow of Figure 2 shows a basic session establishment using
the Session Initiation Protocol [SIP] and Key Management Extensions
for SDP [KMGMT] with security descriptions for the secure media
stream (SRTP in this case):
A B
| |
|-------------(1) INVITE SDP1--------------->|
| |
|<------(2) 183 Session Progress SDP2--------|
| |
|----------------(3) PRACK SDP3------------->|
| |
|<-----------(4) 200 OK (PRACK) SDP4---------|
| |
|<-------------(5) 180 Ringing---------------|
| |
| |
| |
Figure 2: Security Preconditions with Key Management
Extensions for SDP Example
The SDP descriptions of this example are shown below - we show an
example use of MIKEY [MIKEY] with the Key Management Extensions,
however we have omitted the details of the MIKEY parameters as well
as any SIP details for clarity of the security precondition described
here:
SDP1: A includes a mandatory end-to-end security precondition for
both the send and receive direction in the initial offer as well as a
"key-mgmt" attribute (see [KMGMT]), which includes keying material
that can be used by A to generate media packets. Since B does not
know any of the security parameters yet, the current status (see RFC
3312) is set to "none". A's local status table (see RFC 3312) for
the security precondition is as follows:
Direction | Current | Desired Strength | Confirm
-----------+----------+------------------+----------
send | no | mandatory | no
recv | no | mandatory | no
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 9]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
and the resulting offer SDP is:
m=audio 20000 RTP/SAVP 0
c=IN IP4 192.0.2.1
a=curr:sec e2e none
a=des:sec mandatory e2e sendrecv
a=key-mgmt:mikey AQAFgM0X...
SDP2: When B receives the offer and generates an answer, B knows the
(send and recv) security parameters of both A and B. B generates
keying material for sending media to A, however, A does not know B's
keying material, so the current status of B's "send" security
precondition is "no". B does know A's SDP information, so B's "recv"
security precondition is "yes". B's local status table therefore
looks as follows:
Direction | Current | Desired Strength | Confirm
-----------+----------+------------------+----------
send | no | mandatory | no
recv | yes | mandatory | no
B requests A to confirm when A knows the security parameters used in
the send and receive direction and hence the resulting answer SDP
becomes:
m=audio 30000 RTP/SAVP 0
c=IN IP4 192.0.2.4
a=curr:sec e2e recv
a=des:sec mandatory e2e sendrecv
a=conf:sec e2e sendrecv
a=key-mgmt:mikey AQAFgM0X...
Note that the actual MIKEY data in the answer differs from that in
the offer; however, we have only shown the initial and common part of
the MIKEY value in the above.
SDP3: When A receives the answer, A updates its local status table
based on the rules in RFC 3312. A now knows all the security
parameters of both the send and receive direction and hence A's local
status table is updated as follows:
Direction | Current | Desired Strength | Confirm
-----------+----------+------------------+----------
send | yes | mandatory | yes
recv | yes | mandatory | yes
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 10]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
Since B requested confirmation of the send and recv security
preconditions, and both are now satisfied, A immediately sends an
updated offer (3) to B showing that the security preconditions are
satisfied:
m=audio 20000 RTP/SAVP 0
c=IN IP4 192.0.2.1
a=curr:sec e2e sendrecv
a=des:sec mandatory e2e sendrecv
a=key-mgmt:mikey AQAFgM0X...
SDP4: Upon receiving the updated offer, B updates its local status
table based on the rules in RFC 3312, which yields the following:
Direction | Current | Desired Strength | Confirm
-----------+----------+------------------+----------
send | yes | mandatory | no
recv | yes | mandatory | no
B responds with an answer (4) that contains the current status of the
security precondition (i.e., sendrecv) from B's point of view:
m=audio 30000 RTP/SAVP 0
c=IN IP4 192.0.2.4
a=curr:sec e2e sendrecv
a=des:sec mandatory e2e sendrecv
a=key-mgmt:mikey AQAFgM0X...
B's local status table indicates that all mandatory preconditions
have been satisfied, and hence session establishment resumes; B
returns a 180 (Ringing) response (5) to indicate alerting.
5. Security Considerations
In addition to the general security considerations for preconditions
provided in RFC 3312, the following security issues should be
considered.
Security preconditions delay session establishment until
cryptographic parameters required to send and/or receive media for a
media stream have been negotiated. Negotiation of such parameters
can fail for a variety of reasons, including policy preventing use of
certain cryptographic algorithms, keys, and other security
parameters. If an attacker can remove security preconditions or
downgrade the strength-tag from an offer/answer exchange, the
attacker can thereby cause user alerting for a session that may have
no functioning media. This is likely to cause inconvenience to both
the offerer and the answerer. Similarly, security preconditions can
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 11]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
be used to prevent clipping due to race conditions between an
offer/answer exchange and secure media stream packets based on that
offer/answer exchange. If an attacker can remove or downgrade the
strength-tag of security preconditions from an offer/answer exchange,
the attacker can cause clipping to occur in the associated secure
media stream.
Conversely, an attacker might add security preconditions to offers
that do not contain them or increase their strength-tag. This in
turn may lead to session failure (e.g., if the answerer does not
support it), heterogeneous error response forking problems, or a
delay in session establishment that was not desired.
Use of signaling integrity mechanisms can prevent all of the above
problems. Where intermediaries on the signaling path (e.g., SIP
proxies) are trusted, it is sufficient to use only hop-by-hop
integrity protection of signaling, e.g., IPSec or TLS. In all other
cases, end-to-end integrity protection of signaling (e.g., S/MIME)
MUST be used. Note that the end-to-end integrity protection MUST
cover not only the message body, which contains the security
preconditions, but also the SIP "Supported" and "Require" headers,
which may contain the "precondition" option tag. If only the message
body were integrity protected, removal of the "precondition" option
tag could lead to clipping (when a security precondition was
otherwise to be used), whereas addition of the option tag could lead
to session failure (if the other side does not support
preconditions).
As specified in Section 3, security preconditions do not guarantee
that an established media stream will be secure. They merely
guarantee that the recipient of the media stream packets will be able
to perform any relevant decryption and integrity checking on those
media stream packets.
Current SDP [RFC4566] and associated offer/answer procedures
[RFC3264] allows only a single type of transport protocol to be
negotiated for a given media stream in an offer/answer exchange.
Negotiation of alternative transport protocols (e.g., plain and
secure RTP) is currently not defined. Thus, if the transport
protocol offered (e.g., secure RTP) is not supported, the offered
media stream will simply be rejected. There is however work in
progress to address that. For example, the SDP Capability
Negotiation framework [SDPCN] defines a method for negotiating the
use of a secure or a non-secure transport protocol by use of SDP and
the offer/answer model with various extensions.
Such a mechanism introduces a number of security considerations in
general, however use of SDP Security Preconditions with such a
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 12]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
mechanism introduces the following security precondition specific
security considerations:
A basic premise of negotiating secure and non-secure media streams as
alternatives is that the offerer's security policy allows for non-
secure media. If the offer were to include secure and non-secure
media streams as alternative offers, and media for either alternative
may be received prior to the answer, then the offerer may not know if
the answerer accepted the secure alternative. An active attacker
thus may be able to inject malicious media stream packets until the
answer (indicating the chosen secure alternative) is received. From
a security point of view, it is important to note that use of
security preconditions (even with a mandatory strength-tag) would not
address this vulnerability since security preconditions would
effectively apply only to the secure media stream alternatives. If
the non-secure media stream alternative was selected by the answerer,
the security precondition would be satisfied by definition, the
session could progress and (non-secure) media could be received prior
to the answer being received.
6. IANA Considerations
IANA has registered an RFC 3312 precondition type called "sec" with
the name "Security precondition". The reference for this
precondition type is the current document.
7. Acknowledgements
The security precondition was defined in earlier versions of RFC
3312. RFC 3312 contains an extensive list of people who worked on
those earlier versions, which are acknowledged here as well. The
authors would additionally like to thank David Black, Mark Baugher,
Gonzalo Camarillo, Paul Kyzivat, and Thomas Stach for their comments
on this document.
8. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3312] Camarillo, G., Ed., Marshall, W., Ed., and J. Rosenberg,
"Integration of Resource Management and Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP)", RFC 3312, October 2002.
[RFC4032] Camarillo, G. and P. Kyzivat, "Update to the Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP) Preconditions Framework", RFC
4032, March 2005.
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 13]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
[SIP] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E. Schooler,
"SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261, June 2002.
[RFC4566] Handley, M., Jacobson, V., and C. Perkins, "SDP: Session
Description Protocol", RFC 4566, July 2006.
[RFC3264] Rosenberg, J. and H. Schulzrinne, "An Offer/Answer Model
with Session Description Protocol (SDP)", RFC 3264, June
2002.
9. Informative References
[SDESC] Andreasen, F., Baugher, M., and D. Wing, "Session
Description Protocol (SDP) Security Descriptions for Media
Streams", RFC 4568, July 2006.
[RFC3551] Schulzrinne, H. and S. Casner, "RTP Profile for Audio and
Video Conferences with Minimal Control", STD 65, RFC 3551,
July 2003.
[SRTP] Baugher, M., McGrew, D., Naslund, M., Carrara, E., and K.
Norrman, "The Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP)",
RFC 3711, March 2004.
[ICE] Rosenberg, J., "Interactive Connectivity Establishment
(ICE): A Methodology for Network Address Translator (NAT)
Traversal for Multimedia Session Establishment Protocols",
Work in Progress, September 2007.
[KMGMT] Arkko, J., Lindholm, F., Naslund, M., Norrman, K., and E.
Carrara, "Key Management Extensions for Session Description
Protocol (SDP) and Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)",
RFC 4567, July 2006.
[MIKEY] Arkko, J., Carrara, E., Lindholm, F., Naslund, M., and K.
Norrman, "MIKEY: Multimedia Internet KEYing", RFC 3830,
August 2004.
[RFC3262] Rosenberg, J. and H. Schulzrinne, "Reliability of
Provisional Responses in Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP)", RFC 3262, June 2002.
[RFC3311] Rosenberg, J., "The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
UPDATE Method", RFC 3311, October 2002.
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 14]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
[HERFP] Mahy, R., "A Solution to the Heterogeneous Error Response
Forking Problem (HERFP) in the Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP)", Work in Progress, March 2006.
[SDPCN] Andreasen, F., "SDP Capability Negotiation", Work in
Progress, July 2007.
Authors' Addresses
Flemming Andreasen
Cisco Systems, Inc.
499 Thornall Street, 8th Floor
Edison, New Jersey 08837 USA
EMail: fandreas@cisco.com
Dan Wing
Cisco Systems, Inc.
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134 USA
EMail: dwing@cisco.com
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 15]
^L
RFC 5027 Security Preconditions October 2007
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND
THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Intellectual Property
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at
ietf-ipr@ietf.org.
Andreasen & Wing Standards Track [Page 16]
^L
|