80 FR 60363 - National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Domain Name System-Based Security (DNS) for Electronic Mail Building Block

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Institute of Standards and Technology

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 193 (October 6, 2015)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) invites organizations to provide products and technical expertise to support and demonstrate security platforms for the Domain Name System- Based (DNS) Security for Electronic Mail Building Block. This notice is the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) in collaborating with technology companies to address cybersecurity challenges identified under the Domain Name System-Based Security for Electronic Mail Building Block. Participation in this building block is open to all interested organizations.

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 193 (Tuesday, October 6, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 60363-60365]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-25304]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No. 150917865-5865-01]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Domain Name 
System-Based Security (DNS) for Electronic Mail Building Block

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of 
Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 
invites organizations to provide products and technical expertise to 
support and demonstrate security platforms for the Domain Name System-
Based (DNS) Security for Electronic Mail Building Block. This notice is 
the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence 
(NCCoE) in collaborating with technology companies to address 
cybersecurity challenges identified under the Domain Name System-Based 
Security for Electronic Mail Building Block. Participation in this 
building block is open to all interested organizations.

DATES: Interested parties must contact NIST to request a letter of 
interest template to be completed and submitted to NIST that identifies 
the organization requesting participation in the Domain Name System-
Based Security for Electronic Mail Building Block and the capabilities 
and components that are being offered to the collaborative effort. 
Letters of interest will be accepted on a first come, first served 
basis. Collaborative activities will commence as soon as enough 
completed and signed letters of interest have been returned to address 
all the necessary components and capabilities, but no earlier than 
November 5, 2015. When the building block has been completed, NIST will 
post a notice on the Domain Name System-Based Security for Electronic 
Mail Building Block Web site at http://nccoe.nist.gov/DNSSecuredEmail 
announcing the completion of the building block and informing the 
public that it will no longer accept letters of interest for this 
building block.

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD 
20850. Letters of interest must be submitted to [email protected] or via hardcopy to National Institute of Standards and 
Technology, NCCoE; 9600 Gudelsky Drive; Rockville, MD 20850. 
Organizations whose letters of interest are accepted in accordance with 
the process set forth in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this 
notice will be asked to sign a Cooperative Research and Development 
Agreement (CRADA) with NIST. A CRADA template can be found at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/node/138.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William C. Barker via email to [email protected]; by telephone 301-975-3655; or by mail to National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9600 Gudelsky Drive; 
Rockville, MD 20850. Additional details about the Domain Name System-
Based Security for Electronic Mail Building Block are available at 
http://nccoe.nist.gov/DNSSecuredEmail.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Background: The NCCoE, part of NIST, is a public-private 
collaboration for accelerating the widespread adoption of integrated 
cybersecurity tools and technologies. The NCCoE brings together experts 
from industry, government, and academia under one roof to develop 
practical, interoperable cybersecurity approaches that address the 
real-world needs of complex Information Technology (IT) systems. By 
accelerating dissemination and use of these integrated tools and 
technologies for protecting IT assets, the NCCoE will enhance trust in 
U.S. IT communications, data, and storage systems; reduce risk for 
companies and individuals using IT systems; and encourage development 
of innovative, job-creating cybersecurity products and services.
    Process: NIST is soliciting responses from all sources of relevant 
security capabilities (see below) to enter into a Cooperative Research 
and Development Agreement (CRADA) to provide products and technical 
expertise to support and demonstrate security platforms for the Domain 
Name System-Based Security for Electronic Mail Building Block. The full 
building block description can be viewed at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/DNSSecuredEmail.
    Interested parties should contact NIST using the information 
provided in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this notice. 
NIST will then provide each interested party with a letter of interest 
template, which the party must complete, certify that it is accurate, 
and submit to NIST and which identifies the organization requesting 
participation in the Domain Name System-Based Security for Electronic 
Mail Building Block and the capabilities and components that are being 
offered to the collaborative effort. NIST will contact interested 
parties if there are questions regarding the responsiveness of the 
letters of interest to the building block objective or requirements 
identified below and to obtain additional information. NIST will select 
participants who have submitted complete letters of interest on a first 
come, first served basis within each category of product components or 
capabilities listed below up to the number of participants in each 
category necessary to carry out the Domain Name System-Based Security 
for Electronic Mail Building Block. However, there may be continuing 
opportunity to participate even after initial activity commences. 
Selected participants will be required to enter into a consortium CRADA 
with NIST (for reference, see ADDRESSES section above). NIST published 
a notice in the Federal Register on October 19, 2012 (77 FR 64314) 
inviting U.S. companies to enter into National Cybersecurity Excellence 
Partnerships (NCEPs) in furtherance of the NCCoE. For this 
demonstration project, NCEP partners will not be given priority for 
participation.

Building Block Objective

    Both public and private sector business operations are heavily 
reliant on electronic mail (email) exchanges. The need to protect 
business plans and tactics, the integrity of transactions, financial 
and other proprietary information, and privacy of employees and clients 
are only four of the factors that motivate organizations to secure 
their email exchanges. Whether the security service desired is 
authentication of the source of an email message, assurance that the 
message has not been altered by an unauthorized party, or 
confidentiality of message contents, cryptographic functions are 
usually employed in providing the service. Economies of scale and a 
need for uniform security implementation drive most enterprises to rely 
on mail

[[Page 60364]]

servers to provide security to the members of an enterprise rather than 
end-to-end security mechanisms operated by individual users. Most 
current server-based email security mechanisms are vulnerable to, and 
have been defeated by, attacks on the integrity of the cryptographic 
implementations on which they depend. The consequences frequently 
involve unauthorized parties being able to read or modify supposedly 
secure information, or to use email as a vector for inserting malware 
into the system that is intended to deny access to critical information 
or processes or to damage or destroy system components and/or 
information. Improved email security can help protect organizations and 
individuals against these consequences and also serve as a marketing 
discriminator for email service providers as well as improve the 
trustworthiness of enterprise email exchanges.
    Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) for the Domain Name 
System (DNS) are technical mechanisms employed by internet service 
providers to protect against unauthorized modification to network 
management information and connections to devices operated by 
untrustworthy parties. DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities 
(DANE) is a protocol that securely associates domain names with 
cryptographic certificates and related security information so that 
they can't be fraudulently modified or replaced to breach the security 
of Internet exchanges. In spite of the dangers of failure to 
authenticate the identities of network devices, adoption of DNSSEC has 
been slow. Demonstration of DANE-supported applications such as 
reliably secure email may support increased user demand for domain name 
system security. Follow-on projects might include HTTPS, IOT, IPSEC 
keys in DNS, and DNS service discovery.
    The current project will demonstrate a proof of concept security 
platform composed of off the shelf components that provides trustworthy 
mail server-to-mail server email exchanges across organizational 
boundaries. The DANE protocol will be used to authenticate servers and 
certificates in two roles in the DNS-Based Security for Email Project: 
(1) By binding the X.509 certificates used for Transport Layer Security 
(TLS) to DNS names verified by DNSSEC and supporting the use of these 
certificates in the mail server-to-mail server communication; and (2) 
by binding the X.509 certificates used for Secure Secure/Multipurpose 
Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) to email addresses encoded as DNS 
names verified by DNSSEC. These bindings support trust in the use of S/
MIME certificates in the end-to-end email communication. The resulting 
building block will encrypt email traffic between servers, allow 
individual email users to digitally sign and/or encrypt email messages 
to other end users, and allow individual email users to obtain other 
users' certificates in order to validate signed email or send encrypted 
email. The project will include an email sending policy consistent with 
a stated privacy policy that can be parsed by receiving servers so that 
receiving servers can apply the correct security checks and report back 
the correctness of the email stream. Documentation of the resulting 
platform will include statements of the security and privacy policies 
and standards (e.g., Executive Orders, NIST standards and guidelines, 
IETF RFCs) supported, technical specifications for hardware and 
software, implementation requirements, and a mapping of implementation 
requirements to the applicable policies, standards, and best practices.
    The secure email project will involve composition of a variety of 
components that will be provided by a number of different vendors. 
Client systems, DNS/DNSSEC services, mail transfer agents, and 
certificate providers (CAs) are generally involved. Collaborators are 
being sought to provide components and expertise for DNS resolvers 
(stub and recursive) for DNSSEC, authoritative DNS servers for DNSSEC 
signed zones, mail servers and mail security components, extended 
validation and domain validation TLS certificates.
    This project will result in one or more demonstration prototype 
DNS-based secure email platforms, a publicly available NIST 
Cybersecurity Practice Guide that explains how to employ the 
platform(s) to meet security and privacy requirements, and platform 
documentation necessary to compose a DNS-based email security platform 
from off the shelf components.
    A detailed description of the Domain Name System-Based Security for 
Electronic Mail Building Block is available at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/DNSSecuredEmail.
    Requirements: Each responding organization's letter of interest 
should identify which security platform component(s) or capability(ies) 
it is offering. Letters of interest should not include company 
proprietary information, and all components and capabilities must be 
commercially available. Components are listed in section eight of the 
Domain Name System-Based Security for Electronic Mail Building Block 
description (for reference, please see the link in the PROCESS section 
above) and include, but are not limited to:

 Client systems
 DNS/DNSSEC services
 Mail transfer agents
 DNS resolvers (stub and recursive) for DNSSEC validation
 Authoritative DNS servers for DNSSEC signed zones
 Mail server/mail security systems
 S/MIME certificates
 Extended validation and domain validation TLS certificates

    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how their product(s) address one or more of the desired solution 
characteristics in section five of the Domain Name System-Based 
Security for Electronic Mail Building Block description (for reference, 
please see the link in the PROCESS section above).
    Additional details about the Domain Name System-Based Security for 
Electronic Mail Building Block are available at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/DNSSecuredEmail.
    NIST cannot guarantee that all of the products proposed by 
respondents will be used in the demonstration. Each prospective 
participant will be expected to work collaboratively with NIST staff 
and other project participants under the terms of the consortium CRADA 
in the development of the Domain Name System-Based Security for 
Electronic Mail Building Block. Prospective participants' contribution 
to the collaborative effort will include assistance in establishing the 
necessary interface functionality, connection and set-up capabilities 
and procedures, demonstration harnesses, environmental and safety 
conditions for use, integrated platform user instructions, and 
demonstration plans and scripts necessary to demonstrate the desired 
capabilities. Each participant will train NIST personnel, as necessary, 
to operate its product in capability demonstrations. Following 
successful demonstrations, NIST will publish a description of the 
security platform and its performance characteristics sufficient to 
permit other organizations to develop and deploy security platforms 
that meet the security objectives of the Domain Name System-Based 
Security for Electronic Mail Building Block. These descriptions will be 
public information.
    Under the terms of the consortium CRADA, participants will commit 
to providing:

1. Access for all participants' project teams to component interfaces 
and

[[Page 60365]]

the organization's experts necessary to make functional connections 
among security platform components
2. Support for development and demonstration of the Domain Name System-
Based Security for Electronic Mail Building Block in NCCoE facilities 
which will be conducted in a manner consistent with Federal 
requirements (e.g., FIPS 200, FIPS 201, SP 800-53, and SP 800-63)

    In addition, NIST will support development of interfaces among 
participants' products by providing IT infrastructure, laboratory 
facilities, office facilities, collaboration facilities, and staff 
support to component composition, security platform documentation, and 
demonstration activities.
    The dates of the demonstration of the Domain Name System-Based 
Security for Electronic Mail Building Block capability will be 
announced on the NCCoE Web site at least two weeks in advance at http://nccoe.nist.gov/. The expected outcome of the demonstration is to 
improve domain name system-based security for electronic mail within 
the enterprise. Participating organizations will gain from the 
knowledge that their products are interoperable with other 
participants' offerings.
    For additional information on the NCCoE governance, business 
processes, and NCCoE operational structure, visit the NCCoE Web site 
http://nccoe.nist.gov/.

Richard Cavanagh,
Acting Associate Director for Laboratory Programs.
[FR Doc. 2015-25304 Filed 10-5-15; 8:45 am]
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