Evidence Encoding for Hardware Security Modules

This document specifies a vendor-agnostic format for Evidence produced and verified within a PKIX context. The Evidence produced this way includes claims collected about a cryptographic module, such as a Hardware Security Module (HSM), and elements found within it such as cryptographic keys. One scenario envisaged is that the state information about the cryptographic module can be securely presented to a remote operator or auditor in a vendor-agnostic verifiable format. A more complex scenario would be to submit this Evidence to a Certification Authority to aid in determining whether the storage properties of this key meet the requirements of a given certificate profile. This specification also offers a format for requesting a cryptographic module to produce Evidence tailored for expected use.