XMPP E2E Security
This page aims to provide an overview, comparison and evaluation of existing and proposed end-to-end security solutions for XMPP, after providing the characteristings of the XMPP setting with regard to communication and the security of it.
Security properties
Proposals
XEP-0384: OMEMO Encryption (Signal / Text Secure)
Recommendation: Implement.
OMEMO is based on the Signal double ratchet and provides forward secrecy, compatibility with history retrieval for devices that are already part of the ratchet, and a number of other benefits over legacy encryption mechanisms. It has had an independent third party audit (see https://conversations.im/omemo/audit.pdf).
XEP-0027 (PGP)
Recommendation: implement only if compatibility with legacy clients is required.
One of the first proposals for end-to-end security is based on PGP and described in XEP-0027.
The way XEP-0027 uses PGP, it doesn't provide protection from replay attacks. It also only encrypts messages and doesn't sign them, so they could be replaced with different correctly encrypted messages on the wire.(Source: chat in xsf@m.x.o) Thus it has been obsoleted by the XMPP Council in it's meeting on 2014-03-12.
OTR (Off-the-record Messaging)
Recommendation: implement only if compatibility with legacy clients is required.
OTR is a crypto protocol, specifically designed to secure instant messaging conversations.
SCIMP ( Silent Circle Instant Messaging Protocol)
Recommendation: not standardized, do not implement.
SCIMP is the cryptographic protocol used by Silent Text, which enables private conversations over standard XMPP.
Comparative Overview
Proposal | Security property | Communication patterns | Compatibility with XMPP | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Authenticity | Integrity | Encryption | Forward secrecy | Malleable encryption | One-to-One | Groupchat | Online chats | Offline messages | Multiple resources | Discovery of support | |
XEP-0027 | No (messages only encrypted, not signed) | No | Yes | No | N/A | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes (if same keypair at all resources) | No |
RFC 3923 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
XEP-0200 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes (XEP-0116/XEP-217) | Yes (XEP-0187) | No | Yes |
XTLS | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
miller-e2e | Optional (Nesting signature/encryption) | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Possible | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
OTR | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
TS | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
SCIMP | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Related Documents
Discussion
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