TLS 1.2 Officially Frozen: No New Features, Only Security Fixes
RFC 9851: TLS 1.2 is in Feature Freeze
RFC 9851 declares TLS 1.2 in feature freeze, allowing only urgent security fixes, new exporter labels, and ALPN IDs. This move, driven by TLS 1.3's growing adoption and superior security, also means no post-quantum cryptography will be specified for TLS 1.2. The IETF's TLS working group now focuses exclusively on TLS 1.3 and later, signaling a clear end-of-life for TLS 1.2 enhancements.
Put bluntly, PQC for TLS 1.2 will not be specified at any time; anyone wishing to deploy PQC should expect to use TLS 1.3.
- mcpherrinm
This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, as TLS 1.3 has been out for many years and is widely adopted.
I haven’t paid too much attention to the TLS WG lately (for obvious reasons if you look at their mailing list), but I assume this is mostly a “if you want Post-Quantum cryptography, you need 1.3”.
- pavon
I assume this is in contest with RFC10015 which proposes "Deprecating Obsolete Key Exchange Methods in TLS 1.2 and DTLS 1.2"[1]. Both are Proposed Standards submitted in July, by the same author. HN discussion[2]
- alex_akimov
This makes sense, especially given that everyone should be already migrating to TLS 1.3 as fast as possible. However, as we see from past industry examples, migrations to every new standard often take decades.... Maybe the recent security incidents with AI will accelerate TLS 1.3 adoption everywhere.