5. Security Considerations

The security of cryptographic systems depends on the strength of both the cryptographic algorithms chosen and the keys used with those algorithms. The security also depends on the engineering of the protocol used by the system to ensure that there are no non-cryptographic ways to bypass the security of the overall system.

This document concerns itself with the selection of cryptographic algorithms for the use of DNSSEC, specifically with the selection of "mandatory-to-implement" algorithms. In this document, the algorithms identified as MUST or RECOMMENDED to implement are not known to be broken at the current time, and cryptographic research so far leads us to believe that they are likely to remain adequately secure unless significant and unexpected discovery is made. However, this isn't necessarily forever, and it is expected that future documents will be issued from time to time to reflect the current best practices in this area.

Retiring an algorithm too soon would result in a zone signed with the retired algorithm being downgraded to the equivalent of an unsigned zone. Therefore, algorithm deprecation must be done only after careful consideration and ideally slowly when possible.