cursive/releasenotes/notes/add-certificate-validation-...

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---
prelude: >
The cursive library supports the verification of digital signatures.
However, there is no way currently to validate the certificate used to
generate a given signature. Adding certificate validation improves the
security of signature verification when each is used together.
features:
- Adds a variety of certificate utility functions that inspect certificate
attributes and extensions for different settings.
- Adds the CertificateVerificationContext class which uses a set of
trusted certificates to conduct certificate validation, verifying that a
given certificate is part of a certificate chain rooted with a trusted
certificate.
- Adds a verify_certificate method that loads all certificates needed for
certificate validation from the key manager and uses them to create a
CertificateVerificationContext object. The context is then used to
determine if a certificate is valid.
upgrade:
- The addition of certificate validation as a separate operation from the
signature verification process preserves backwards compatibility.
Signatures previously verifiable with cursive will still be verifiable.
However, their signing certificates may not be valid. Each signing
certificate should be checked for validity before it is used to conduct
signature verification.
security:
- The usage of certificate validation with the signature verification
process improves the security of signature verification. A signature
should not be considered valid unless its corresponding certificate is
also valid.
other:
- The CertificateVerificationContext is built using a set of trusted
certificates. However, to conduct certificate verification the context
builds the full certificate chain, starting with the certificate to
validate and ending with the self-signed root certificate. If this
self-signed root certificate is not present in the context, or if one
of the intermediate certificates is not present in the context, the
certificate chain cannot be built and certificate validation will fail.