diff --git a/SECURITY.md b/SECURITY.md index 9506eb9134..4682f7aacc 100644 --- a/SECURITY.md +++ b/SECURITY.md @@ -144,3 +144,22 @@ Policy](https://github.com/hacl-star/hacl-star/blob/main/SECURITY.md).) The Everest variant is only used when `MBEDTLS_ECDH_VARIANT_EVEREST_ENABLED` configuration option is defined. This option is off by default. + +#### Formatting of X.509 certificates and certificate signing requests + +When parsing X.509 certificates and certificate signing requests (CSRs), +Mbed TLS does not check that they are strictly compliant with X.509 and other +relevant standards. In the case of signed certificates, the signing party is +assumed to have performed this validation (and the certificate is trusted to +be correctly formatted as long as the signature is correct). +Similarly, CSRs are implicitly trusted by Mbed TLS to be standards-compliant. + +**Warning!** Mbed TLS must not be used to sign untrusted CSRs unless extra +validation is performed separately to ensure that they are compliant to the +relevant specifications. This makes Mbed TLS on its own unsuitable for use in +a Certificate Authority (CA). + +However, Mbed TLS aims to protect against memory corruption and other +undefined behavior when parsing certificates and CSRs. If a CSR or signed +certificate causes undefined behavior when it is parsed by Mbed TLS, that +is considered a security vulnerability.