Public-Key Cryptography Standards
The Public-Key Cryptography Standards ( PKCS ), German standards for asymmetric cryptography , designate a collection of specifications for asymmetric cryptosystems . These standards were developed by RSA Security together with others from 1991 to accelerate the spread of asymmetric cryptosystems. Some of the documents were incorporated into the IETF and PKIX standardization processes .
Overview of PKCS standards
The table below shows the fifteen parts from RSA Laboratories. From the second column you will find information on the successor document and version number.
| version | Surname | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PKCS # 1 | 2.2 | RSA Cryptography Specifications | Defines the format of the RSA encryption. Described in RFC 8017 . |
| PKCS # 2 | - | withdrawn | No longer active. Included the encryption of RSA message digests, was merged with PKCS # 1. |
| PKCS # 3 | 1.4 | Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement Standard | Standardization of Diffie-Hellman key exchange . |
| PKCS # 4 | - | withdrawn | no longer active, was merged with PKCS # 1 |
| PKCS # 5 | 2.0 | Password-based encryption standard | Described in RFC 2898 . |
| PKCS # 6 | 1.5 | Extended Certificate Syntax Standard | Defines extensions to the old v1 X.509 certificate specification . Has become obsolete with v3. |
| PKCS # 7 | 1.5 | Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) | Forms the basis for S / MIME and is used to sign and / or encrypt messages from a PKI . Described in RFC 5652 . |
| PKCS # 8 | 1.2 | Private-Key Information Syntax Standard | Described in RFC 5208 . |
| PKCS # 9 | 2.0 | Selected Attribute Types | RFC 2985 (PKCS # 9: Selected Object Classes and Attribute Types Version 2.0) |
| PKCS # 10 | 1.7 | Certification Request Standard | Described in RFC 2986 . Format of messages that a certification body (certification authority) are sent to the certification to request a key pair. |
| PKCS # 11 | 2.40 | Cryptographic Token Interface (Cryptoki) | Originally described on RSA Labs' PKCS # 11 page . In 2013, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) took over the standardization. An API that specifies a generic interface to cryptographic tokens. |
| PKCS # 12 | 1.1 | Personal Information Exchange Syntax Standard | Described in RFC 7292 . Defines a file format that is used to store private keys with the associated certificate in a password-protected manner. |
| PKCS # 13 | - | Elliptic Curve Cryptography Standard | Treats a new method of encryption that is more secure even with smaller keys. |
| PKCS # 14 | - | Pseudo Random Number Generation (PRNG) | (still in development) |
| PKCS # 15 | 1.1 | Cryptographic Token Information Format Standard | obsolete - will be replaced by ISO / IEC 7816-15 |
File extensions
The following file extensions are available for PKCS # 7 :
| * .p7b and * .p7c | PKCS # 7 certificate |
| * .p7m | PKCS # 7 MIME message (often with embedded original document) |
| * .p7s | PKCS # 7 signature |
PKCS # 12 files usually have the file extension “.p12” or “.pfx”.
See also
Web links
- RSA Labs' PKCS page