OAuth Working Group M.B. Jones Internet-Draft Self-Issued Consulting Updates: 7521, 7522, 7523, 9126 (if approved) B. Campbell Intended status: Standards Track Ping Identity Expires: 23 January 2026 C. Mortimore Disney F. Skokan Okta 22 July 2025 Updates to OAuth 2.0 JSON Web Token (JWT) Client Authentication and Assertion-Based Authorization Grants draft-ietf-oauth-rfc7523bis-03 Abstract This specification updates the requirements for audience values in OAuth 2.0 Client Assertion Authentication and Assertion-based Authorization Grants to address a security vulnerability identified in the previous requirements for those audience values in multiple OAuth 2.0 specifications. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on 23 January 2026. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 1] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Updates to RFC 7521 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Updates to RFC 7522 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Updates to RFC 7523 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1. Client Authentication JWT Example . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5. Updates to RFC 9126 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 7.1. Media Type Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 7.1.1. Registry Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 7.2. OAuth Token Endpoint Authentication Methods . . . . . . . 9 7.2.1. Registry Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 7.3. OAuth URI Registration Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Appendix A. Document History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 1. Introduction Multiple OAuth 2.0 specifications use tokens (also known as "assertions") that are sent to authorization servers. These tokens contain an audience value or values intended to identify the recipients that the token is intended for. When the token is a JSON Web Token (JWT) [JWT], the audience value(s) are contained in the aud (audience) claim. Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 2] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 When performing a security analysis of a pre-final version of the OpenID Federation specification [OpenID.Federation], University of Stuttgart security researchers Pedram Hosseyni, Dr. Ralf Küsters, and Tim Würtele discovered a vulnerability affecting multiple OpenID and OAuth specifications caused by ambiguities in the audience values of tokens sent to authorization servers. The vulnerability was disclosed to the OAuth working group in an interim meeting in January 2025 called for that purpose, including providing a description of the vulnerability [private_key_jwt.Disclosure]. A paper they published describing the attack is [Audience.Injection]. This specification updates the affected OAuth specifications to address the security vulnerability identified. Specifically, it eliminates former ambiguities in the audience values of tokens sent to OAuth 2.0 authorization servers. A general description of the updates made is to require that the issuer identifier URL of the authorization server, as defined in [RFC8414], be used as the sole value of the audience of the JWT client authentication assertion. Furthermore, the authorization server rejects any JWT client authentication assertion that does not contain its own issuer identifier as the sole audience value. An explicit type for each affected kind of token, as defined in [RFC8725], is also defined to facilitate distinguishing between tokens produced in accordance with specifications published prior to these updates and those incorporating them. Specific updates made to each affected specification follow. 1.1. Notational Conventions The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. 1.2. Terminology All terms are as defined in the following specifications: "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework" [RFC6749], "Assertion Framework for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7521], and "JSON Web Token (JWT)" [JWT]. 2. Updates to RFC 7521 This section updates "Assertion Framework for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7521] to tighten its audience requirements. Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 3] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 The description of the Audience parameter in Section 5.1 of [RFC7521] (Assertion Metamodel) is replaced by: Audience A value that identifies the party intended to process the assertion. The issuer identifier of the authorization server, as defined in [RFC8414], can be used to indicate that the authorization server is a valid intended audience of the assertion. 3. Updates to RFC 7522 This section updates "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7522]. It tightens its audience requirements for SAML authorization grants and it deprecates the use of SAML assertions for client authentication. The text and example in Section 2.2 of [RFC7522] (Using SAML Assertions for Client Authentication) is replaced by: It is RECOMMENDED that SAML Bearer Assertions not be used for client authentication. The description of the Audience element in Item 2 of Section 3 of [RFC7522] (Assertion Format and Processing Requirements) is replaced by: The Assertion MUST contain a element with an element with an element that identifies the authorization server as the intended audience. The client is responsible for ensuring that the audience of the Assertion is appropriate for the authorization server to which it is sent. This MAY be the issuer identifier of the authorization server, the token endpoint URL of the authorization server, or a SAML Entity ID. Section 2.5.1.4 of "Assertions and Protocols for the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) V2.0" [OASIS.saml-core-2.0-os] defines the and elements. The authorization server MUST reject any assertion that does not contain its own identity as the intended audience. 4. Updates to RFC 7523 This section updates "JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7523] to tighten its audience requirements. Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 4] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 In Section 3 of [RFC7523] (JWT Format and Processing Requirements), Item 3, which describes the audience value, is replaced by: The JWT MUST contain an aud (audience) claim containing a value that identifies the authorization server as the intended audience. Two cases are differentiated: a. For the authorization grant, the client is responsible for ensuring that the audience of the JWT assertion is appropriate for the authorization server to which it is sent. An authorization server MAY be identified by either its issuer identifier or its token endpoint URL. b. For client authentication, the aud (audience) claim value MUST use the issuer identifier [RFC8414] of the authorization server as its sole value. The authorization server MUST have an issuer identifier to be used with this specification. Unlike the aud value specified in [RFC7523], there MUST be no value other than the issuer identifier of the intended authorization server used as the audience of the JWT; this includes that the token endpoint URL of the authorization server MUST NOT be used as an audience value. The authorization server MUST reject any JWT that does not contain its issuer identifier as its sole audience value. In the absence of an application profile specifying otherwise, applications MUST compare the audience values using the Simple String Comparison method defined in Section 6.2.1 of RFC 3986 [RFC3986]. In Section 3.2 of [RFC7523] (Client Authentication Processing), the following requirement is added: Client authentication JWTs SHOULD be explicitly typed by using the typ header parameter value client-authentication+jwt or another more specific explicit type value defined by a specification profiling this specification. In Section 4 of [RFC7523] (Authorization Grant Example), the sentence: The intended audience of the JWT is https://jwt-rp.example.net, which is an identifier with which the authorization server identifies itself. is replaced by: Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 5] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 The intended audience of the JWT is https://authz.example.net, which is the authorization server's issuer identifier. In the same section, the JWT Claims Set example is replaced by: { "aud": "https://authz.example.net", "iss": "https://jwt-idp.example.com", "sub": "mailto:mike@example.com", "iat": 1731721541, "exp": 1731725141, "http://claims.example.com/member": true } Figure 1: Example JWT Claims Set In the list of agreements required by participants in Section 5 of [RFC7523] (Interoperability Considerations), an agreement on "audience identifiers" is no longer needed for client authentication JWTs. The additional example in the following subsection is added after Section 4 of [RFC7523] 4.1. Client Authentication JWT Example The following example illustrates what a client authentication JWT and token request using it would look like. The example shows a JWT issued and signed by the OAuth client identified as https://client.example/. The intended audience of the JWT is https://authz.example.net, which is the authorization server's issuer identifier. The JWT is sent as part of a token request to the authorization server's token endpoint at https://authz.example.net/ token.oauth2. Below is an example JSON object that could be encoded to produce the JWT Claims Set for a client authentication JWT: { "aud": "https://authz.example.net", "iss": "https://client.example/", "sub": "https://client.example/", "iat": 1752702206, "exp": 1752705806 } Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 6] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 The following example JSON object, used as the header parameters of a JWT, declares that the JWT is a client authentication JWT, is signed with the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) P-256 with SHA-256, and was signed with a key identified by the kid value 16. { "typ": "client-authentication+jwt", "alg": "ES256", "kid": "16" } To present the JWT with the claims and header parameters shown above as part of an access token request, for example, the client might make the following HTTPS request (with extra line breaks for display purposes only): POST /token.oauth2 HTTP/1.1 Host: authz.example.net Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded grant_type=authorization_code& code=n0esc3NRze7LTCu7iYzS6a5acc3f0ogp4& client_assertion_type=urn%3Aietf%3Aparams%3Aoauth%3A client-assertion-type%3Ajwt-bearer& client_assertion=eyJ0eXAiOiJjbGllbnQtYXV0aGVudGljYXRpb24rand0IiwiYWx nIjoiRVMyNTYiLCJraWQiOiIxNiJ9.eyJhdWQiOiAiaHR0cHM6Ly9hdXRoei5leGFt cGxlLm5ldCIsImlzcyI6ICJodHRwczovL2NsaWVudC5leGFtcGxlLyIsInN1YiI6IC JodHRwczovL2NsaWVudC5leGFtcGxlLyIsImlhdCI6IDE3NTI3MDIyMDYsImV4cCI6 IDE3NTI3MDU4MDZ9.6KrSQUxdl9ehs[...omitted for brevity...]bwc0ZOJw 5. Updates to RFC 9126 This section updates "OAuth 2.0 Pushed Authorization Requests" [RFC9126] to tighten its audience requirements. The paragraph describing the audience value in Section 2 of [RFC9126] (Pushed Authorization Request Endpoint) is replaced by: Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 7] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 This update resolves the potential ambiguity regarding the appropriate audience value to use when employing JWT client assertion-based authentication (as defined in Section 2.2 of [RFC7523] and as updated by Section 4 with the private_key_jwt or client_secret_jwt authentication method names per Section 9 of [OpenID.Core]) that was described in [RFC9126]. To address that ambiguity, the issuer identifier URL of the authorization server according to [RFC8414] MUST be used as the sole value of the audience. The authorization server MUST reject any such JWT that does not contain its own issuer identifier as the sole audience value. The introduction of strong typing for JWTs (using explicit typ values) serves as a signal to distinguish between tokens produced in accordance with specifications published prior to these updates and those incorporating them. However, the primary security protection comes from the tightened audience requirements. Since strong typing alone does not prevent the attacks described in [private_key_jwt.Disclosure] and [Audience.Injection], the use of explicit typing is suggestion for clients enabling them to signal their intention of sending a JWT conforming to the requirements herein. This approach balances security signaling with practical deployment considerations, avoiding disruption to client deployments that already conform to the tightened audience requirements but have not yet adopted explicit typing. 6. Security Considerations The security considerations described within the following specifications are all applicable to this document: "Assertion Framework for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7521], "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7522], "JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants" [RFC7523], "OAuth 2.0 Pushed Authorization Requests" [RFC9126], "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework" [RFC6749], and "JSON Web Token (JWT)" [JWT]. This specification tightens token audience requirements to prevent attacks that could result from exploiting audience ambiguities previously allowed by [RFC7521], [RFC7522], [RFC7523], and [RFC9126]. These attacks are described in [private_key_jwt.Disclosure] and [Audience.Injection]. 7. IANA Considerations Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 8] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 7.1. Media Type Registration This section registers the following media type [RFC2046] in the "Media Types" registry [IANA.MediaTypes] in the manner described in [RFC6838]. 7.1.1. Registry Contents * Type name: application * Subtype name: client-authentication+jwt * Required parameters: n/a * Optional parameters: n/a * Encoding considerations: binary; A client authentication JWT is a JWT; JWT values are encoded as a series of base64url-encoded values (some of which may be the empty string) separated by period ('.') characters. * Security considerations: See Section 6 of this specification * Interoperability considerations: n/a * Published specification: Section 4 of this specification * Applications that use this media type: Applications that use this specification * Fragment identifier considerations: n/a * Additional information: Magic number(s): n/a File extension(s): n/a Macintosh file type code(s): n/a * Person & email address to contact for further information: Michael B. Jones, michael_b_jones@hotmail.com * Intended usage: COMMON * Restrictions on usage: none * Author: Michael B. Jones, michael_b_jones@hotmail.com * Change controller: IETF * Provisional registration? No 7.2. OAuth Token Endpoint Authentication Methods This section updates entries in the "OAuth Token Endpoint Authentication Methods" registry of [IANA.OAuthParameters] 7.2.1. Registry Contents * Token Endpoint Authentication Method Name: private_key_jwt * Change Controller: IETF * Reference: Section 9 of [OpenID.Core], [[this specification]] * Token Endpoint Authentication Method Name: client_secret_jwt * Change Controller: IETF Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 9] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 * Reference: Section 9 of [OpenID.Core], [[this specification]] 7.3. OAuth URI Registration Updates This section requests updates to the following entries in the "OAuth URI" registry of [IANA.OAuthParameters] to add [[this specification]] as an additional reference. * urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:jwt-bearer * urn:ietf:params:oauth:client-assertion-type:jwt-bearer * urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:saml2-bearer * urn:ietf:params:oauth:client-assertion-type:saml2-bearer 8. References 8.1. Normative References [JWT] Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web Token (JWT)", RFC 7519, DOI 10.17487/RFC7519, May 2015, . [OASIS.saml-core-2.0-os] Cantor, S., Kemp, J., Philpott, R., and E. Maler, "Assertions and Protocols for the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) V2.0", OASIS Standard saml-core- 2.0-os, March 2005, . [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005, . [RFC6749] Hardt, D., Ed., "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework", RFC 6749, DOI 10.17487/RFC6749, October 2012, . [RFC7521] Campbell, B., Mortimore, C., Jones, M., and Y. Goland, "Assertion Framework for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants", RFC 7521, DOI 10.17487/RFC7521, May 2015, . Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 10] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 [RFC7522] Campbell, B., Mortimore, C., and M. Jones, "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants", RFC 7522, DOI 10.17487/RFC7522, May 2015, . [RFC7523] Jones, M., Campbell, B., and C. Mortimore, "JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and Authorization Grants", RFC 7523, DOI 10.17487/RFC7523, May 2015, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . [RFC8414] Jones, M., Sakimura, N., and J. Bradley, "OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server Metadata", RFC 8414, DOI 10.17487/RFC8414, June 2018, . [RFC8725] Sheffer, Y., Hardt, D., and M. Jones, "JSON Web Token Best Current Practices", BCP 225, RFC 8725, DOI 10.17487/RFC8725, February 2020, . [RFC9126] Lodderstedt, T., Campbell, B., Sakimura, N., Tonge, D., and F. Skokan, "OAuth 2.0 Pushed Authorization Requests", RFC 9126, DOI 10.17487/RFC9126, September 2021, . 8.2. Informative References [Audience.Injection] Hosseyni, P., Küsters, R., and T. Würtele, "Audience Injection Attacks: A New Class of Attacks on Web-Based Authorization and Authentication Standards", Cryptology ePrint Archive Paper 2025/629, April 2025, . [IANA.MediaTypes] IANA, "Media Types", . [IANA.OAuthParameters] IANA, "OAuth Parameters", . Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 11] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 [OpenID.Core] Sakimura, N., Bradley, J., Jones, M.B., de Medeiros, B., and C. Mortimore, "OpenID Connect Core 1.0 incorporating errata set 2", 15 December 2023, . [OpenID.Federation] Hedberg, R., Jones, M. B., Solberg, A., Bradley, J., Marco, G. D., and V. Dzhuvinov, "OpenID Federation 1.0", 2 June 2025, . [private_key_jwt.Disclosure] OpenID Foundation, "OIDF Responsible Disclosure Notice on Security Vulnerability for private_key_jwt", 24 January 2025, . [RFC2046] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, DOI 10.17487/RFC2046, November 1996, . [RFC6838] Freed, N., Klensin, J., and T. Hansen, "Media Type Specifications and Registration Procedures", BCP 13, RFC 6838, DOI 10.17487/RFC6838, January 2013, . Appendix A. Document History [[ to be removed by the RFC Editor before publication as an RFC ]] -03 * Update OAuth Token Endpoint Authentication Methods IANA entries with reference to this specification * Relaxed client requirement to use strong typed JWTs. SHOULD instead of MUST. * Do not restrict the "aud" claim's type. Allow it to be an array with a single member. * Advise the client to ensure that the audience of an assertion authorization grant makes sense with respect to where it’s being sent. Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 12] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 * Updates to the abstract and introduction to (hopefully) better reflect the more targeted scope of the work. * Remove JWTs for Client Authentication example replacement (not worth it for including typ in the encoded JWT header). * Add request to update existing OAuth URI registrations to add reference to this specification for the four relevant URNs. * Fixup the new Client Authentication JWT Example. -02 * Added Filip Skokan as an author. * Applied Brian Campbell's suggestions made at IETF 122. Specifically: - Focused RFC 7523 updates on JWT client authentication case. - Described client responsibilities for the audience value of authorization grants. No longer mandate that the audience for authorization grants be the issuer identifier, so as to make a minimum of breaking changes. - Deprecated the use of SAML assertions for client authentication. -01 * Reworked to make updates to RFC 7523, rather than replacing it. * Removed updates to RFC 9101. * Added reference to the University of Stuttgart paper [Audience.Injection]. -00 * Initial working group draft, replacing draft-jones-oauth- rfc7523bis-00. Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 13] Internet-Draft JWT Client Auth Updates July 2025 Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following people to this specification: Brock Allen John Bradley, Ralph Bragg, Joseph Heenan, Pedram Hosseyni, Pieter Kasselman, Ralf Küsters, Martin Lindström, Aaron Parecki, Dean H. Saxe, Arndt Schwenkschuster, and Tim Würtele. Authors' Addresses Michael B. Jones Self-Issued Consulting Email: michael_b_jones@hotmail.com URI: https://self-issued.info/ Brian Campbell Ping Identity Email: bcampbell@pingidentity.com Chuck Mortimore Disney Email: charliemortimore@gmail.com Filip Skokan Okta Email: panva.ip@gmail.com Jones, et al. Expires 23 January 2026 [Page 14]