Cryptographic Token Interface Standard

PKCS#11


Elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman with cofactor key derivation

The elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) with cofactor key derivation mechanism, denoted CKM_ECDH1_COFACTOR_DERIVE, is a mechanism for key derivation based on the cofactor Diffie-Hellman version of the elliptic curve key agreement scheme, as defined in ANSI X9.63, where each party contributes one key pair all using the same EC domain parameters. Cofactor multiplication is computationally efficient and helps to prevent security problems like small group attacks.

It has a parameter, a CK_ECDH1_DERIVE_PARAMS structure.

This mechanism derives a secret value, and truncates the result according to the CKA_KEY_TYPE attribute of the template and, if it has one and the key type supports it, the CKA_VALUE_LEN attribute of the template. (The truncation removes bytes from the leading end of the secret value.) The mechanism contributes the result as the CKA_VALUE attribute of the new key; other attributes required by the key type must be specified in the template.

This mechanism has the following rules about key sensitivity and extractability:


RSA Security Inc. Public-Key Cryptography Standards - PKCS#11 - v220