Security Policies for the Federal Public Key Infrastructure Noel A. Nazario Security Technology Group National Institute of Standards and Technology Abstract This document discusses provisions for the handling of security policies in the proposed Federal Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Federal PKI policies deal with the generation, deactivation, and dissemination of public key certificates, the integrity of the infrastructure, maintenance of records, identification of certificate holders, and the establishment of trust relationships between Certification Authorities (CAs). The verification of a digital signature is not sufficient indication of the trustworthiness of an electronic message or data file. The verifier needs to factor the trustworthiness of the CAs involved in the certification of the sender. To accomplish this, the verifier needs to examine the certificate policy for those CAs. The Federal PKI Technical Security Policy establishes guidelines for the operation of Federal CAs and the identification of the parties requesting certification. It also defines Policy Approving Authorities (PAA) responsible for assessing the policies and operational practices of all Federal CAs within a domain and assigning them corresponding Federal Assurance Levels. These assurance levels may be used in lieu of a certificate policy when making an on-line determination of the trustworthiness of a certificate. Key words Certificate policy, Federal Assurance Levels, PAA, PKI, Policy Approving Authority, public key infrastructure, security policy. SECURITY POLICIES FOR THE FEDERAL PUBLIC KEY INFRASTRUCTURE Noel A. Nazario NIST North, Room 426 820 West Diamond Avenue Gaithersburg, MD 20899
[email protected] Introduction and Background This paper discusses provisions for the handling of security policies in the proposed Federal Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).