CFRG

CFRG stands for Crypto Forum Research Group, a research forum within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) dedicated to studying cryptographic algorithms and protocols and to providing guidance to IETF standards activities on cryptography. Its members include researchers and practitioners who review proposed algorithms for use in Internet standards and publish notes that influence protocol designs across TLS, IPsec, SSH, and other security protocols.

The group was established to coordinate cryptographic research input for Internet standards. Although CFRG is not a formal standards body itself, it produces design notes, draft recommendations, and occasional RFCs that inform IETF Working Groups’ choices of algorithms, curves, and signature schemes. CFRG discussions cover a range of topics, including elliptic-curve cryptography, digital signatures, key exchange, and related security considerations for Internet protocols.

Notable contributions attributed to CFRG include the broad adoption and standardization influence of elliptic-curve approaches such as Curve25519 for key exchange and Ed25519 for digital signatures. These contributions contributed to RFCs such as RFC 7748 (X25519 and X448) and RFC 8032 (Ed25519 and Ed448), which formalized widely used cryptographic primitives in Internet protocols. CFRG also reviews interoperability, security proofs, and practical deployment concerns of proposed cryptographic primitives.

Organization and process: CFRG operates mainly through periodic notes and Internet-Draft submissions on the IETF CFRG mailing list. Its work is advisory in nature, with findings and recommendations incorporated by IETF Working Groups and reflected in RFCs, rather than serving as a direct standards body itself.