| Internet-Draft | Use of ML-DSA in TLS 1.3 | September 2025 |
| Hollebeek, et al. | Expires 30 March 2026 | [Page] |
This memo specifies how the post-quantum signature scheme ML-DSA (FIPS 204) is used for authentication in TLS 1.3.¶
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.¶
The latest revision of this draft can be found at https://tlswg.github.io/tls-mldsa/draft-ietf-tls-mldsa.html. Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-mldsa/.¶
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Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/tlswg/tls-mldsa.¶
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ML-DSA is a post-quantum module-lattice-based digital signature algorithm standardised by NIST in [FIPS204].¶
This memo specifies how ML-DSA can be negotiated for authentication in TLS 1.3
via the signature_algorithms and signature_algorithms_cert extensions.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
As defined in [RFC8446], the SignatureScheme namespace is used for
the negotiation of signature scheme for authentication via the
signature_algorithms and signature_algorithms_cert extensions.
This document adds three new SignatureScheme values for the three
ML-DSA parameter sets from [FIPS204] as follows.¶
| SignatureScheme | FIPS 204 | Certificate AlgorithmIdentifier |
|---|---|---|
| mldsa44(0x0904) | ML-DSA-44 | id-ML-DSA-44 |
| mldsa65(0x0905) | ML-DSA-65 | id-ML-DSA-64 |
| mldsa87(0x0906) | ML-DSA-87 | id-ML-DSA-87 |
Note that these are different from the HashML-DSA pre-hashed variants defined in Section 5.4 of [FIPS204].¶
For the purpose of signalling support for signatures on certificates as per Section 4.2.4 of [RFC8446], these values indicate support for signing using the given AlgorithmIdentifier shown in Table 1 as defined in [MLDSACERTS].¶
When one of those SignatureScheme values is used in a CertificateVerify message, then the signature MUST be computed and verified as specified in Section 4.4.3 of [RFC8446], and the corresponding end-entity certificate MUST use the corresponding AlgorithmIdentifier from Table 1.¶
The context parameter defined in [FIPS204] Algorithm 2 and 3 MUST be the empty string.¶
The security considerations of [RFC8446] (eg. appendix C.2) and [FIPS204] (Section 3.6) apply.¶
This document requests new entries to the TLS SignatureScheme registry, according to the procedures in Section 6 of [TLSIANA].¶
| Value | Description | Recommended | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0904 | mldsa44 | N | This document. |
| 0x0905 | mldsa65 | N | This document. |
| 0x0906 | mldsa87 | N | This document. |
Thanks to Alicja Kario, John Mattsson, Rebecca Guthrie, Alexander Bokovoy, Niklas Block, Ryan Appel, and Loganaden Velvindron for their review and feedback.¶