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Ballot SMC018: Realignment of Multipurpose use cases

Summary:

This ballot implements the requirements of CCADB Policy Section 6.3 relating to cross-certificates into the S/MIME BR effective immediately.

The ballot also specifies that effective July 1, 2027 id-kp-emailProtection (mandatory) and the id-kp-clientAuth (optional) are the only extKeyUsage (EKU) permitted in both Subordinate CA Certificates and Subscriber Certificates. Finally, the ballot clarifies in the Definitions that Legacy Generation profiles were deprecated effective July 15, 2025.

This ballot is proposed by Stephen Davidson (DigiCert) and endorsed by Dustin Hollinback (Apple) and Ashish Dhiman (GlobalSign)

— Motion Begins —

This ballot modifies the “Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted S/MIME Certificates” (“S/MIME Baseline Requirements”), based on Version 1.0.15.

MODIFY the Baseline Requirements as specified in the following Redline: https://github.com/cabforum/smime/compare/9ad1d24fb86b8ddbe9068122136117a4930c4b44...326bc03807283b3af1b6f702968ec23707ecada5

— Motion Ends —

This ballot proposes a Final Maintenance Guideline. The procedure for approval of this ballot is as follows:

Discussion (at least 7 days)

Start time: August 11, 2026 at 13:00:00 UTC
End time: August 18, 2026 at 13:00:00 UTC

Latest releases

Server Certificate Requirements
SC098: Process RFC 8657 CAA Parameters - Jun 16, 2026

Code Signing Requirements
v3.8 - Aug 5, 2024

What’s Changed CSC-25: Import EV Guidelines to CS Baseline Requirements by @dzacharo in https://github.com/cabforum/code-signing/pull/38 Full Changelog: https://github.com/cabforum/code-signing/compare/v3.7...v3.8

S/MIME Requirements
v1.0.15 - Ballot SMC017v2 - Jul 30, 2026

This ballot increases the minimum RSA key size for Root and Subordinate CA certificates in the S/MIME BRs from 2048 to 4096 bits for keys created after September 15, 2026, while retaining the 2048-bit minimum for Subscriber certificates. The ballot further requires that by September 15, 2027, CAs SHALL NOT issue Subscriber certificates from any Sub-CA whose RSA key modulus is less than 3072 bits, effectively sunsetting issuance from legacy 2048-bit Sub-CAs. The ballot also includes minor typographic corrections. This ballot is proposed by Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo) and endorsed by Ben Wilson (Mozilla) and Stephen Davidson (DigiCert)

Network and Certificate System Security Requirements
Version 2.0.5 (Ballot NS-008) - Jul 9, 2025