Hi Guilin,
 
I updated the PR: https://github.com/smyslov/ikev2-downgrade-prevention/pull/22
 
Regards,
Valery.
 
From: Wang Guilin <[email protected]> 
Sent: Sunday, March 1, 2026 7:17 AM
To: Keegan Dasilva Barbosa <[email protected]>; 
[email protected]; [email protected]; 
[email protected]; Wang Guilin <[email protected]>
Subject: [IPsec] Re: WG Last Call: 
draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-downgrade-prevention-01 (Ends 2026-03-02)
 
This half sentence seems a little weird: 

"Since the attacker is presumed to be incapable of forging a signature of the 
responder’s long-term private key, "
 
I would like to suugest eitheir of the followings as a replacement. 
 
 
"Since the attacker is presumed to be incapable of forging a valid signature on 
behalf of the responder, "
 
OR
 
"Since the attacker is presumed to be incapable of forging a valid signature 
with respect to the responder's public key, "
 
The techincal point is that to forge a valid signature, it is not always 
neccessary to compromise the private key of a victim. 
 
Guilin
 
 
发件人:Keegan Dasilva Barbosa <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
收件人:[email protected] 
<[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> 
>;[email protected] <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> 
>;[email protected] <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
时 间:2026-02-28 04:01:40
主 题:[IPsec] Re: WG Last Call: draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-downgrade-prevention-01 
(Ends 2026-03-02)
 
Hello,

I have read through the draft and believe it is very close to completion. 
Section 5 can be improved slightly, as it is light on details with respect to 
the sentence "Thus, if at least one non-compromised key is used in the IKE SA 
establishing, then any modification of the IKE_SA_INIT messages will be 
detected." I think it would be worthwhile to provide details as to why this is 
the case from the perspective of the attack models outlined within the draft. I 
have included some suggested text below.

"In both attack models, it is necessary that the attacker forward the 
responder’s signed octets. Since the attacker is presumed to be incapable of 
forging a signature of the responder’s long-term private key, an attempt by the 
attacker to remove the responder’s commitment to this extension would 
invalidate the signature in the AUTH payload. Consequently, while an attacker 
could strip support for this extension from the initiator, it could not do so 
from the responder."

I would recommend an explanation such as the above be placed before the 
sentence "In essence" in the final paragraph of section 5.

I would also recommend the requirement in section 6 use normative language. 
Namely, s/"If the responder supports this extension then it also includes"/"If 
the responder supports this extension then it MUST include". This further 
enforces that it is the responder’s configuration and commitment that is 
pivotal to preventing this misbinding from an on-path attacker.

Best,
 
Keegan Dasilva Barbosa
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security
 
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 12:24 PM Christopher Patton 
<[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
Thanks, Panos! We'll take care of these:
https://github.com/smyslov/ikev2-downgrade-prevention/issues/17
 
Chris P.
 
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 8:01 AM Kampanakis, Panos 
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > 
wrote:
Hi Chris, 
 
I think it is ready, but I have some nits/suggestions:

- s/ that are not common, but still not unrealistic/ that are not common, but 
still plausible/
- s/ break authentication algorithm used by one of the peers in real time/ 
break the authentication algorithm used by one of the peers in real time/
- s/ has a long-term authentication key for the responder./ has the responder’s 
long-term authentication key./
- s/ authentication key of initiator A./ authentication key of a different 
initiator, A./
- Last paragraph of section 4. Mention that this attack used to be less 
relevant when cryptographic algorithms were considered secure or insecure 
because peers would disable the insecure ones and not negotiate them. But now 
with any migration where algorithms co-exist and peers do not know if their 
peer supports the “strong” algorithm, it becomes more relevant. Or something to 
that effect. You mention it in Security Consideration, but I think it is 
important to be in the motivation too. 
- s/ at least one non-compromised authentication key is used by the peers/ at 
least one peer’s authentication key is not compromised/
- s/ then the protocol runs as defined in [RFC7296 
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-downgrade-prevention-01.html#RFC7296>
 ]./ then the IKEv2 negotiation runs as defined in [RFC7296 
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-downgrade-prevention-01.html#RFC7296>
 ].
- s/ in the IKE SA establishing,/ in the IKE SA establishment,/
- For clarity, add a sentence in Section 7 to mention that subsequent messages 
like CREATE_CHILD_SA IKE_FOLLOW_UP do not apply to the new signed octets 
because they follow IKE_AUTH. 
- s/ It is therefore necessary for each of the peers to mandate the use of a 
pre-shared key (and abort the connection if negotiation fails)./ It is 
therefore necessary for peers configured to use a pre-shared key with another 
peer to abort the connection if the peer does not negotiate the USE_PPK 
extension./
 
 
 
 
From: Christopher Patton <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > 
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2026 1:55 PM
To: Tero Kivinen <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >
Cc: [email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> ; 
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ; [email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> 
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [IPsec] Re: WG Last Call: 
draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-downgrade-prevention-01 (Ends 2026-03-02)
 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click 
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Hi all, I just wanted to add that we implemented this feature in our internal 
implementation of IKEv2 and have confirmed interop with strongswan's 
experimental branch:
 
git clone --depth 1 --branch downgrade-prevention 
https://github.com/strongswan/strongswan.git
 
One thing we noticed is that the draft doesn't explicitly specify how to handle 
a malformed IKE_SA_INIT_FULL_TRANSCRIPT_AUTH notification (i.e., one that has a 
non-empty payload, a non-zero Protocol ID, or a non-zero SPI Size [1]). Our 
responder handles this case by sending an INVALID_SYNTAX error. (We don't 
implement an initiator.) My understanding is that this behavior is allowed by 
IKEv2, but other behaviors are allowed as well. If my understanding is correct, 
then I don't see a need to make the behavior explicit.
 
Apart from that, I have no more changes for the WG to consider and I think this 
is ready to go. We look forward to getting a codepoint!
 
Best,
Chris P.
 
[1] 
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-downgrade-prevention-01.html#section-6-1
 
 
On Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 9:49 AM Tero Kivinen via Datatracker <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
This message starts a WG Last Call for:
draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-downgrade-prevention-01

This Working Group Last Call ends on 2026-03-02

Abstract:
   This document describes an extension to the Internet Key Exchange
   protocol version 2 (IKEv2) that aims to prevent some kinds of
   downgrade attacks on this protocol by having the peers confirm they
   have participated in the same conversation.

File can be retrieved from:

Please review and indicate your support or objection to proceed with the
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Thank you.

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/bcp78/
[2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/bcp79/
[3] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6701/

The IETF datatracker status page for this Internet-Draft is:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-downgrade-prevention/

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