The Evolving Federal PKI

1. The Evolving Federal PKI Richard Guida, P.E. Member, Government Information Technology Services Board Chair, Federal PKI Steering Committee Richard.Guida@cio.treas.gov; 202-622-1552 http://gits-sec.treas.gov

2. E-Transaction Landscape • Intra-agency • personnel matters, agency management • Interagency • payments, account reconciliation, litigation • Agency to trading partner • procurement, regulation • Agency to the public

3. E-Transactions Drivers • Long-term cost savings • Trading partner practices (e.g., banks) • Public expectations • Federal/State Statutes (e.g., GPEA) and policies • International competition

4. Challenges All Applications Face • Authentication of Users • Non-repudiation for transactions • Confidentiality (privacy) • Interoperability • Liability • Scalability/extensibility

5. Public Key Technology • Authentication • Technical non-repudiation • Data integrity • Confidentiality • Interoperability • Scalability/extensibility

6. How PK Technology Works • Two keys, mathematically linked • One is kept private, other is made public • Private not deducible from public • For digital signature: One key signs, the other validates • For confidentiality: One key encrypts, the other decrypts

7. Digital Signature (example) • Sender hashes document, signs hash with private key and sends with document • Recipient hashes document he or she received, creating “raw hash” • Recipient applies public key of sender to signed hash to get sender’s raw hash • If raw hashes are same, transaction validates

8. Confidentiality (example) • Sender generates symmetric encryption key and encrypts document with it • Sender encrypts symmetric key with public key of recipient, sends that and encrypted document to recipient • Recipient decrypts symmetric key with his or her private key • Recipient decrypts document with symmetric key

9. The Critical Questions • How can the recipient know with certainty the sender’s public key? (to validate a digital signature) • How can the sender know with certainty the recipient’s public key? (to send an encrypted message)

10. Public Key Certificate A document which - • is digitally signed by a trusted third party (called Certification Authority) • is based on identity-proofing done by a Registration Authority • contains the individual’s public key and some form of the individual’s identity • has a finite validity period

11. X.509 v3 Certificate

12. Public Key Infrastructure • Registration Authorities to identity proof users • Certification Authorities to issue certificates and CRLs • Repositories (publicly available data bases) to hold certificates and CRLs • Some mechanism to recover data when encryption keys are lost/compromised • Certificate Policy and related paper

13. Federal PKI Approach • Establish Federal PKI Policy Authority • Develop/deploy Bridge CA using COTS • Four levels of assurance (emulate Canada) • Prototype early 2000, production mid 2000 • Deal with directory issues in parallel • Border directory concept; “White Pages” • Use ACES for public transactions

14. Federal Policy Authority Overlay • Federal PKI Policy Authority facilitates interoperability through FBCA (e.g., determines cert policy mappings) • All agencies that interoperate through FBCA are voting members • FPKIPA members = FPKISC members • Interoperability through the FBCA is NOT required (but hopefully attractive)

15. FBCA Overview • Non-hierarchical hub for interagency interoperability • Ability to map levels of assurance in disparate certificate policies • Ultimate “bridge” to CAs external to Federal government • Directory contains only FBCA-issued certificates and ARLs

16. Policy/Political Boundary Conditions • Desire to use COTS if possible • Desire solution which is as fully “inclusive” for vendors as possible • Support four levels of assurance • Rudimentary, Basic, Medium, High • Analogous to Canadian PKI • FBCA use not mandatory • Requirements focus on agencies as certificate issuers, not relying parties

17. Current Status • Prototype FBCA: Entrust and Cybertrust (Baltimore) CAs • Began operation 2/8/00 • Used for EMA Challenge 4/6/00 • Migration from prototype to production FBCA will entail adding other CAs inside the membrane • GSA/FTS has responsibility to execute

18. Schedule • Draft Bridge Certificate Policy: late 1999 (done - CIO Council reviewing) • Draft FPKIPA Charter/CONOPS: late 1999 (done - CIO Council reviewing) • Prototype Bridge: early 2000 (done - 2/8) • Operational Bridge: late 2000

19. FBCA DSA Border DSA 1 Border DSA 2 LDAP Server X.500 DSA FBCA Directory Concept Agency 3 PCA 1 Internal Directory Infrastructure PCA 3 PCA 2 FBCA Agency 2 Agency 1 LDAP X.500 - DSP Internal Directory Infrastructure chaining Query-Response Internal Directory Infrastructure

20. Access Certs for Electronic Services • “No-cost” certificates for the public • For business with Federal agencies only (but agencies may allow other uses on case basis) • On-line registration, vetting with legacy data; information protected under Privacy Act • Regular mail one-time PIN to get certificate • Agencies billed per-use and/or per-certificate

21. Access Certs for Electronic Services • RFP 1/99; bids received 4/99; first award 9/99 (DST), second award 10/99 (ORC), third award 10/99 (AT&T) • Contract has provisions for ACES-enabling applications • Potential use with state/local government • Certificates available very shortly

22. Electronic Signatures under GPEA • Government Paperwork Elimination Act (October 1998) • Technology neutral - agencies select based on specifics of applications (e.g., risk) • Gives electronic signature full legal effect • Focus: transactions with Federal agencies • Draft OMB Guidance 3/99; final 4/00

23. Organization

24. Federal PKI Steering Committee • Over 50 members from two dozen agencies • Three Working Groups • Business • Technical • Legal and Policy • Minutes/activities on the web • http://gits-sec.treas.gov

25. PKI Use and Implementation Issues • Misunderstanding what it can and can’t do • Requiring legacy fixes to implement • Waiting for standards to stabilize • High cost - a yellow herring • Interoperability woes - a red herring • Legal trepidation - the brightest red herring