Trust on first use

Security model

Trust on first use (TOFU), or trust upon first use (TUFU), is an authentication scheme used by client software which needs to establish a trust relationship with an unknown or not-yet-trusted endpoint. In a TOFU model, the client will try to look up the endpoint's identifier, usually either the public identity key of the endpoint, or the fingerprint of said identity key, in its local trust database. If no identifier exists yet for the endpoint, the client software will either prompt the user to confirm they have verified the purported identifier is authentic, or if manual verification is not assumed to be possible in the protocol, the client will simply trust the identifier which was given and record the trust relationship into its trust database. If in a subsequent connection a different identifier is received from the opposing endpoint, the client software will consider it to be untrusted.

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