NIST SP 800-56A Rev. 3 — Pair-Wise Key Establishment
NIST specifies finite-field and elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman/MQV key-establishment schemes, key assurances, validation, derivation, context binding, and key confirmation.
The publication's key lesson is that raw DH is one step inside a complete scheme. It specifies domain parameters, key-pair generation, private/public-key assurances, full and partial public-key validation, shared-secret computation, KDF inputs, role and identifier binding, and optional unilateral or bilateral key confirmation for multiple static/ephemeral configurations.
Rev. 3 remains the complete published recommendation as of this ingestion, but NIST announced in January 2026 that it plans an update, including alignment with SP 800-186. Readers should check the publication page before compliance decisions.
Visual audit #
All 152 physical pages were rendered and inspected. Process diagrams for key agreement, key transport, key derivation, and confirmation plus many requirement tables are information-bearing. GTK retains no page images; the applicable protocol stages and validation boundary are synthesized into the DH and ECC entries.