RFC 9788: Header Protection for Cryptographically Protected Email
Recent RFCs 2025-08-23
Summary:
S/MIME version 3.1 introduced a mechanism to provide end-to-end
cryptographic protection of email message headers. However, few
implementations generate messages using this mechanism, and several
legacy implementations have revealed rendering or security issues
when handling such a message.
This document updates the S/MIME specification (RFC 8551) to offer a
different mechanism that provides the same cryptographic protections
but with fewer downsides when handled by legacy clients. Furthermore,
it offers more explicit usability, privacy, and security guidance for
clients when generating or handling email messages with cryptographic
protection of message headers.
The Header Protection scheme defined here is also applicable to
messages with PGP/MIME (Pretty Good Privacy with MIME) cryptographic
protections.