Secure Payment Confirmation

if (!window.PublicKeyCredential) { /* Client not capable. Handle error. */ }

const publicKey = {
  // The challenge should be created by the bank server and sent to the iframe.
  challenge: new Uint8Array([21,31,105 /* 29 more random bytes generated by the server */]),

  // Relying Party:
  rp: {
    name: "Fancy Bank",
  },

  // User:
  user: {
    // Part of WebAuthn. This information is not required by SPC
    // but may be used by the bank server to identify this user in
    // future transactions. Inconsistent values for the same user
    // can result in the creation of multiple credentials for the user
    // and thus potential UX friction due to credential selection.
    id: Uint8Array.from(window.atob("MIIBkzCCATigAwIBAjCCAZMwggE4oAMCAQIwggGTMII="), c=>c.charCodeAt(0)),
    name: "jane.doe@example.com",
    displayName: "Jane Doe",
  },

  // In this example the Relying Party accepts either an ES256 or RS256
  // credential, but prefers an ES256 credential.
  pubKeyCredParams: [
    {
      type: "public-key",
      alg: -7 // "ES256"
    },
    {
      type: "public-key",
      alg: -257 // "RS256"
    }
  ],

  authenticatorSelection: {
    userVerification: "required",
    residentKey: "required",
    authenticatorAttachment: "platform",
  },

  timeout: 360000,  // 6 minutes

  // Indicate that this is an SPC credential. This is currently required so
  // that the browser knows this credential relates to SPC. It also enables
  // credential creation in a cross-origin iframe, which is required for this
  // example.
  //
  // A future version of the spec may remove the need for this extension.
  extensions: {
    "payment": {
      isPayment: true,
    }
  }
};

// Note: The following call will cause the authenticator to display UI.
navigator.credentials.create({ publicKey })
  .then(function (newCredentialInfo) {
    // Send new credential info to server for verification and registration.
  }).catch(function (err) {
    // No acceptable authenticator or user refused consent. Handle appropriately.
  });

1.2.2. Authentication on merchant site

This is the flow when a user with an already registered credential is performing a transaction and the issuing bank and merchant wish to use Secure Payment Confirmation.

1. The user visits merchant.com, selects an item to purchase, and proceeds to the checkout flow. They enter their payment instrument details, and indicate that they wish to pay (e.g., by pressing a "Pay" button).

2. The merchant communicates out-of-band with the issuing bank of the payment instrument (e.g., using another protocol). The issuing bank requests verification of the user, and at the same time informs the merchant that it accepts SPC by providing the information necessary to use the API. This information includes a challenge and any credential IDs associated with this user and payment instrument(s).

3. The merchant runs the example code shown below.

4. The user agrees to the payment-specific information displayed in the SPC UX, and performs a subsequent WebAuthn authentication ceremony. The signed cryptogram is returned to the merchant.

5. The merchant communicates the signed cryptogram to the issuing bank out-of-band. The issuing bank verifies the cryptogram, and knows that the user is valid, what payment-specific information has been displayed, and that the user has consented to the transaction. The issuing bank authorizes the transaction and the merchant finishes the checkout process for the user.

The sample code for authenticating the user follows. Note that the example code presumes access to await/async, for easier to read promise handling.

if (!window.PaymentRequest) { /* PaymentRequest not available; merchant should fallback to traditional flows */ }

const request = new PaymentRequest([{
  supportedMethods: "secure-payment-confirmation",
  data: {
    // List of credential IDs obtained from the bank.
    credentialIds,

    rpId: "fancybank.com",

    // The challenge is also obtained from the bank.
    challenge: new Uint8Array([21,31,105 /* 29 more random bytes generated by the bank */]),

    instrument: {
      displayName: "Fancy Card ****1234",
      icon: "https://fancybank.com/card-art.png",
    },

    payeeName: "Merchant Shop",
    payeeOrigin: "https://merchant.com",

    timeout: 360000,  // 6 minutes
  }], {
    total: {
      label: "Total",
      amount: {
        currency: "USD",
        value: "5.00",
      },
    },
  });

  /* canMakePayment indicates whether the browser supports SPC. */
  /* canMakePayment does not indicate whether the user has a credential */
  /* ready to go on this device. */

try {
  const canMakePayment = await request.canMakePayment();
  if (!canMakePayment) { throw new Error('Cannot make payment'); }

  const response = await request.show();
  await response.complete('success');

  // response.data is a PublicKeyCredential, with a clientDataJSON that
  // contains the transaction data for verification by the issuing bank.

  /* send response.data to the issuing bank for verification */
} catch (err) {
  /* SPC cannot be used; merchant should fallback to traditional flows */
}

2. Terminology

SPC Credential

A WebAuthn credential that can be used for the behaviors defined in this specification. When an SPC Credential is to be used by a party other than the Relying Party, the Relying Party must explicitly opt in by declaring the credential for SPC at creation time.

This specification does not intend to limit how SPC credentials may (or may not) be used by a Relying Party for other authentication flows (e.g., login).

Note: The current version of this specification requires the Relying Party to explicitly opt in for a credential to be used in either a first-party or third-party context. Longer-term, our intention is that all WebAuthn credentials will be usable for SPC in a first-party context (e.g., on the Relying Party’s domain) and opt-in will only be required to allow a credential to be used by a third-party.

Steps to silently determine if a credential is SPC-enabled

An as-yet undefined process by which a user agent can, given a Relying Party Identifier and a credential ID, silently (i.e., without user interaction) determine if the credential represented by that ID is an SPC Credential.

NOTE: See WebAuthn issue 1667.

Steps to silently determine if a credential is available for the current device

An as-yet undefined process by which a user agent can, given a Relying Party Identifier and a credential ID, silently (i.e., without user interaction) determine if the credential represented by that credential ID is available for the current device (i.e., could be successfully used as part of a WebAuthn Get call).

This allows the user agent to only conditionally display the transaction UX to the user if there is some chance that they can successfully complete the transaction.

NOTE: This property will likely require that SPC Credentials be discoverable; as such this specification currently encodes that as a requirement.

NOTE: This property is very similar to that which is required for the WebAuthn Conditional UI Proposal. It is likely that both it and SPC could be supported by the same underlying API.

3. Registration

To register a user for Secure Payment Confirmation, relying parties should call navigator.credentials.create(), with the payment WebAuthn Extension specified.

Note: In this specification we define an extension in order to allow (1) credential creation in a cross-origin iframe (which WebAuthn does not yet allow) and (2) the browser to cache SPC credentials in the absence of Conditional UI. If these capabilities are available in future versions of WebAuthn, we may remove the requirement for the extension from SPC. Note that SPC credentials (with the extension) are otherwise full-fledged WebAuthn credentials.

4. Authentication

To authenticate a payment via Secure Payment Confirmation, this specification defines a new payment method, "secure-payment-confirmation". This payment method confirms the transaction with the user and then performs an authentication ceremony to authenticate the user and create a signed blob representing the authentication ceremony.

At a high level, authentication for Secure Payment Confirmation is similar to [webauthn-3], with one major conceptual shift. Secure Payment Confirmation allows a third-party (e.g., the merchant) to trigger an authentication ceremony on behalf of the Relying Party, passing in credentials that it has obtained from the Relying Party on some other unspecified channel. See § 1.1.3 Merchant control of authentication.

4.1. Payment Method: Secure Payment Confirmation

This specification defines a new payment handler, the Secure Payment Confirmation payment handler, which handles requests to authenticate a given payment.

NOTE: To quickly support an initial SPC experiment, this API was designed atop existing implementations of the Payment Request and Payment Handler APIs. There is now general agreement to explore a design of SPC independent of Payment Request. We therefore expect (without a concrete timeline) that SPC will move away from its Payment Request origins. For developers, this should improve feature detection, invocation, and other aspects of the API.

4.1.1. Payment Method Identifier

The standardized payment method identifier for the Secure Payment Confirmation payment handler is "secure-payment-confirmation".

4.1.2. Monkey-patch to [payment-method-id]

Add the following to the registry of standardized payment methods in [payment-method-id]:

"secure-payment-confirmation"

The Secure Payment Confirmation specification.

4.1.3. SecurePaymentConfirmationRequest Dictionary

dictionary SecurePaymentConfirmationRequest {
    required BufferSource challenge;
    required USVString rpId;
    required FrozenArray<BufferSource> credentialIds;
    required PaymentCredentialInstrument instrument;
    unsigned long timeout;
    DOMString payeeName;
    USVString payeeOrigin;
    AuthenticationExtensionsClientInputs extensions;
};

The SecurePaymentConfirmationRequest dictionary contains the following members:

challenge member, of type BufferSource

A random challenge that the relying party generates on the server side to prevent replay attacks.

rpId member, of type USVString

The Relying Party Identifier of the credentials.

credentialIds member, of type FrozenArray<BufferSource>

The list of credential identifiers for the given instrument.

instrument member, of type PaymentCredentialInstrument

The description of the instrument name and icon to display during registration and to be signed along with the transaction details.

timeout member, of type unsigned long

The number of milliseconds before the request to sign the transaction details times out. At most 1 hour.

payeeName member, of type DOMString

The display name of the payee that this SPC call is for (e.g., the merchant). Optional, may be provided alongside or instead of payeeOrigin.

payeeOrigin member, of type USVString

The origin of the payee that this SPC call is for (e.g., the merchant). Optional, may be provided alongside or instead of payeeName.

extensions member, of type AuthenticationExtensionsClientInputs

Any WebAuthn extensions that should be used for the passed credential(s). The caller does not need to specify the payment extension; it is added automatically.

4.1.4. Payment Method additional data type

The payment method additional data type for this payment method is SecurePaymentConfirmationRequest.

4.1.5. Steps to validate payment method data

The steps to validate payment method data for this payment method, for an input SecurePaymentConfirmationRequest data, are:

1. If data["credentialIds"] is empty, throw a RangeError.

2. For each id in data["credentialIds"]:

   1. If id is empty, throw a RangeError.

3. If data["challenge"] is null or empty, throw a TypeError.

4. If data["instrument"]["displayName"] is empty, throw a TypeError.

5. If data["instrument"]["icon"] is empty, throw a TypeError.

6. Run the URL parser on data["instrument"] ["icon"]. If this returns failure, throw a TypeError.

7. If data["rpId"] is not a valid domain, throw a TypeError.

8. If both data["payeeName"] and data["payeeOrigin"] are omitted, throw a TypeError.

9. If either of data["payeeName"] or data["payeeOrigin"] is present and empty, throw a TypeError.

10. If data["payeeOrigin"] is present:

    1. Let parsedURL be the result of running the URL parser on data["payeeOrigin"].

    2. If parsedURL is failure, then throw a TypeError.

    3. If parsedURL’s scheme is not "https", then throw a TypeError.

4.1.6. Steps to check if a payment can be made

The steps to check if a payment can be made for this payment method, for an input SecurePaymentConfirmationRequest data, are:

1. If data["payeeOrigin"] is present:

   1. Let parsedURL be the result of running the URL parser on data["payeeOrigin"].

   2. Assert that parsedURL is not failure.

   3. Assert that parsedURL’s scheme is "https".

   NOTE: These pre-conditions were previously checked in the steps to validate payment method data.

   1. Set data["payeeOrigin"] to the serialization of parsedURL’s origin.

2. Fetch the image resource for the icon, passing «["src" → data["instrument"]["icon"]]» for image. If this fails:

   1. If data["instrument"]["iconMustBeShown"] is true, then return false.

   2. Otherwise, set data["instrument"]["icon"] to an empty string.

      Note: This lets the RP know that the specified icon was not shown, as the output instrument will have an empty icon string.

   Note: The image resource must be fetched whether or not any credential matches, to defeat attempts to probe for credential existence.

3. For each id in data["credentialIds"]:

   1. Run the steps to silently determine if a credential is available for the current device and the steps to silently determine if a credential is SPC-enabled, passing in data["rpId"] and id. If the result of either of these is false, remove id from data["credentialIds"].

4. If data["credentialIds"] is now empty, return false. The user agent must maintain authentication ceremony privacy and not leak this lack of matching credentials to the caller, by:

   1. Not allowing the caller to perform a timing attack on this outcome versus the user declining to authenticate on the transaction confirmation UX, e.g., by presenting an alternative interstitial that the user must interact with.

   2. Rejecting the show() promise with a "NotAllowedError" DOMException.

5. Return true.

4.1.7. Displaying a transaction confirmation UX

To avoid restricting User Agent implementation choice, this specification does not require a User Agent to display a particular user interface when PaymentRequest.show() is called and the Secure Payment Confirmation payment handler is selected. However, so that a Relying Party can trust the information included in CollectedClientPaymentData, the User Agent MUST ensure that the following is communicated to the user and that the user’s consent is collected for the authentication:

• The payeeName if it is present.

• The payeeOrigin if it is present.

• The total, that is the currency and value of the transaction.

• The instrument details, that is the payment instrument displayName and icon. If an image resource could not be fetched or decoded from the input icon, then the User Agent may show no icon or a generic payment instrument icon in its place.

  NOTE: If the specified icon could not be fetched or decoded, then iconMustBeShown must be false here as otherwise the the steps to check if a payment can be made would have failed previously.

If the current transaction automation mode is not "none", the user agent should first verify that it is in an automation context (see WebDriver’s Security considerations). The user agent should then bypass the above communication of information and gathering of user consent, and instead do the following based on the value of the current transaction automation mode:

"autoaccept"

Act as if the user has seen the transaction details and accepted the authentication.

"autoreject"

Act as if the user has seen the transaction details and rejected the authentication.

4.1.8. Steps to respond to a payment request

The steps to respond to a payment request for this payment method, for a given PaymentRequest request and SecurePaymentConfirmationRequest data, are:

1. Let topOrigin be the top-level origin of the relevant settings object of request.

2. Let payment be a new a AuthenticationExtensionsPaymentInputs dictionary, whose fields are:

   isPayment

   The boolean value true.

   rp

   data["rpId"]

   topOrigin

   topOrigin

   payeeName

   data["payeeName"] if it is present, otherwise omitted.

   payeeOrigin

   data["payeeOrigin"] if it is present, otherwise omitted.

   total

   request.[[details]]["total"]

   instrument

   data["instrument"]

3. Let extensions be a new AuthenticationExtensionsClientInputs dictionary whose payment member is set to payment, and whose other members are set from data["extensions"].

4. Let publicKeyOpts be a new PublicKeyCredentialRequestOptions dictionary, whose fields are:

   challenge

   data["challenge"]

   timeout

   data["timeout"]

   rpId

   data["rpId"]

   userVerification

   required

   extensions

   extensions

   Note: This algorithm hard-codes "required" as the value for userVerification, because that is what Chrome’s initial implementation supports. The current limitations may change. The Working Group invites implementers to share use cases that would benefit from support for other values (e.g., "preferred" or "discouraged").

5. For each id in data["credentialIds"]:

   1. Let descriptor be a new PublicKeyCredentialDescriptor dictionary, whose fields are:

      type

      public-key

      id

      id

      transports

      A sequence of length 1 whose only member is internal.

   2. Append descriptor to publicKeyOpts["allowCredentials"].

6. Let outputCredential be the result of running the algorithm to Request a Credential, passing «["publicKey" → publicKeyOpts]».

   Note: Chrome’s initial implementation does not pass the full data.credentialIds list to Request a Credential. Instead, it chooses one credential in the list that matches the current device and passes only that in.

   Note: This triggers [webauthn-3]'s Get behavior

7. Return outputCredential.

5. WebAuthn Extension - "payment"

This client registration extension and authentication extension indicates that a credential is either being created for or used for Secure Payment Confirmation, respectively.

For registration, this extension relaxes the WebAuthn requirements to allow credential creation in a cross-origin iframe, and also allows the browser to identify and cache Secure Payment Confirmation credentials. For authentication, this extension allows a third-party to perform an authentication ceremony on behalf of the Relying Party, and also adds transaction information to the signed cryptogram.

Notably, a website should not call navigator.credentials.get() with this extension directly; for authentication the extension can only be accessed via PaymentRequest with a "secure-payment-confirmation" payment method.

Extension identifier

payment

Operation applicability

Registration and authentication

Client extension input

partial dictionary AuthenticationExtensionsClientInputs {
  AuthenticationExtensionsPaymentInputs payment;
};

dictionary AuthenticationExtensionsPaymentInputs {
  boolean isPayment;

  // Only used for authentication.
  USVString rp;
  USVString topOrigin;
  DOMString payeeName;
  USVString payeeOrigin;
  PaymentCurrencyAmount total;
  PaymentCredentialInstrument instrument;
};

isPayment member, of type boolean

Indicates that the extension is active.

TODO: Find a better way to do this. Needed currently because other members are auth-time only.

rp member, of type USVString

The Relying Party id of the credential(s) being used. Only used at authentication time; not registration.

topOrigin member, of type USVString

The origin of the top-level frame. Only used at authentication time; not registration.

payeeName member, of type DOMString

The payee name, if present, that was displayed to the user. Only used at authentication time; not registration.

payeeOrigin member, of type USVString

The payee origin, if present, that was displayed to the user. Only used at authentication time; not registration.

total member, of type PaymentCurrencyAmount

The transaction amount that was displayed to the user. Only used at authentication time; not registration.

instrument member, of type PaymentCredentialInstrument

The instrument details that were displayed to the user. Only used at authentication time; not registration.

Client extension processing (registration)

Note: Reading [webauthn-3] literally, these steps don’t work; extensions are injected at step 12 of [[Create]] and cannot really modify anything. However other extensions ignore that entirely and assume they can modify any part of any WebAuthn algorithm!

When creating a new credential:

1. Modify step 2 (the check for sameOriginWithAncestors) as follows:

   • If sameOriginWithAncestors is false:

     • If the relevant global object, as determined by the calling create() implementation, does not have transient activation:

       • Return a DOMException whose name is "SecurityError", and terminate this algorithm.

     • Consume user activation of the relevant global object.

     Tests

     • enrollment-in-iframe.sub.https.html (live test) (source)

   Note: This allows for creating SPC credentials in a cross-origin iframe, as long as the correct permission policy is set (see § 7 Permissions Policy integration). A transient activation is also required in this case to mitigate privacy risks; see § 11.1 Registration in a Cross-Origin iframe.

2. After step 3, insert the following step:

   • If any of the following are true:

     • options["authenticatorSelection"]["authenticatorAttachment"] is not "platform".

     • options["authenticatorSelection"]["residentKey"] is not "required" or "preferred".

     • options["authenticatorSelection"]["userVerification"] is not "required".

     then return a TypeError.

     Note: These values are hard-coded as that is what Chrome’s initial implementation supports. The current limitations may change. The Working Group invites implementers to share use cases that would benefit from support for other values.

     Tests

     • enrollment.https.html (live test) (source)

Client extension processing (authentication)

When making an assertion with a AuthenticationExtensionsPaymentInputs extension_inputs:

1. If not in a "secure-payment-confirmation" payment handler, return a "NotAllowedError" DOMException.

   Tests

   • authentication-cannot-bypass-spc.https.html (live test) (source)

   Note: This guards against websites trying to access the extended powers of SPC without going through the transaction UX.

2. During [[DiscoverFromExternalSource]](origin, options, sameOriginWithAncestors):

   1. Skip step 6.1, which compares options.rpId to effectiveDomain

   Tests

   • authentication-cross-origin.sub.https.html (live test) (source)

   Note: This enables cross-domain authentication ceremonies; see § 1.1.3 Merchant control of authentication.

   1. In step 9, instead of creating a CollectedClientData, instead create a CollectedClientPaymentData with:

      1. type set to "payment.get"

      2. payment set to a new CollectedClientAdditionalPaymentData whose fields are:

         rp

         extension_inputs["rp"]

         topOrigin

         extension_inputs["topOrigin"]

         payeeName

         extension_inputs["payeeName"] if it is present, otherwise omitted.

         payeeOrigin

         extension_inputs["payeeOrigin"] if it is present, otherwise omitted.

         total

         extension_inputs["total"]

         instrument

         extension_inputs["instrument"]

      3. All other fields set as per the original step 9.

      Tests

      • authentication-accepted.https.html (live test) (source)

Client extension output

None

Authenticator extension processing

None

5.1. CollectedClientPaymentData Dictionary

dictionary CollectedClientPaymentData : CollectedClientData {
    required CollectedClientAdditionalPaymentData payment;
};

The CollectedClientPaymentData dictionary inherits from CollectedClientData. It contains the following additional field:

payment member, of type CollectedClientAdditionalPaymentData

The additional payment information to sign.

5.2. CollectedClientAdditionalPaymentData Dictionary

dictionary CollectedClientAdditionalPaymentData {
    required USVString rp;
    required USVString topOrigin;
    DOMString payeeName;
    USVString payeeOrigin;
    required PaymentCurrencyAmount total;
    required PaymentCredentialInstrument instrument;
};

The CollectedClientAdditionalPaymentData dictionary contains the following fields:

rp member, of type USVString

The id of the Relying Party that created the credential.

topOrigin member, of type USVString

The origin of the top level context that requested to sign the transaction details.

payeeName member, of type DOMString

The name of the payee, if present, that was displayed to the user.

payeeOrigin member, of type USVString

The origin of the payee, if present, that was displayed to the user.

total member, of type PaymentCurrencyAmount

The PaymentCurrencyAmount of the [payment-request] total field.

instrument member, of type PaymentCredentialInstrument

The instrument information that was displayed to the user.

Note that there is no paymentRequestOrigin field in CollectedClientAdditionalPaymentData, because the origin of the calling frame is already included in CollectedClientData of [webauthn-3].

6. Common Data Structures

The following data structures are shared between registration and authentication.

6.1. PaymentCredentialInstrument Dictionary

dictionary PaymentCredentialInstrument {
    required DOMString displayName;
    required USVString icon;
    boolean iconMustBeShown = true;
};

The PaymentCredentialInstrument dictionary contains the information to be displayed to the user and signed together with the transaction details. It contains the following members:

displayName member, of type DOMString

The name of the payment instrument to be displayed to the user.

NOTE: For discussion about internationalization of the displayName, see issue 93.

icon member, of type USVString

The URL of the icon of the payment instrument.

NOTE: The icon URL may either identify an image on an internet-accessible server (e.g., https://bank.com/card.png), or directly encode the icon data via a Data URL [RFC2397]. Between the two types of URLs, Data URLs offer several benefits to the Relying Party. They can improve reliability (e.g., in the case that the icon hosting server may be unavailable). They can also enhance validation because the Relying Party has cryptographic evidence of what the browser displayed to the user: the icon URL is signed as part of the CollectedClientAdditionalPaymentData structure.

NOTE: See related accessibility considerations.

iconMustBeShown member, of type boolean, defaulting to true

Indicates whether the specified icon must be successfully fetched and shown for the request to succeed.

7. Permissions Policy integration

This specification uses the "payment" policy-identifier string from [payment-request] to control access to both registration and authentication. This extends the WebAuthn Permission Policy.

Note: Algorithms specified in [CREDENTIAL-MANAGEMENT-1] perform the actual permissions policy evaluation. This is because such policy evaluation needs to occur when there is access to the current settings object. The [[Create]](origin, options, sameOriginWithAncestors) and [[DiscoverFromExternalSource]](origin, options, sameOriginWithAncestors) internal methods do not have such access since they are invoked in parallel (by algorithms specified in [CREDENTIAL-MANAGEMENT-1]).

8. SPC Relying Party Operations

8.1. Verifying an Authentication Assertion

In order to perform an authentication ceremony for Secure Payment Confirmation, the Relying Party MUST proceed as follows:

1. Let credential be a PublicKeyCredential returned from a successful invocation of the Secure Payment Confirmation payment handler by the SPC caller.

   Note: As SPC is designed to enable merchant control of authentication, the entity that invokes SPC may not be the Relying Party. This first step presumes that the SPC caller has returned a credential obtained via SPC to the Relying Party.

2. Perform steps 3-21 as specified in WebAuthn, with the following changes:

   1. In step 5, verify that credential.id identifies one of the public key credentials provided to the SPC caller by the Relying Party.

   2. In step 11, verify that the value of C["type"] is the string payment.get.

   3. In step 12, verify that the value of C["challenge"] equals the base64url encoding of the challenge provided to the SPC caller by the Relying Party.

   4. In step 13, verify that the value of C["origin"] matches the origin that the Relying Party expects SPC to have been called from.

   5. After step 13, insert the following steps:

      • Verify that the value of C["payment"]["rp"] matches the Relying Party's origin.

      • Verify that the value of C["payment"]["topOrigin"] matches the top-level origin that the Relying Party expects.

      • Verify that the value of C["payment"]["payeeName"] matches the name of the payee that should have been displayed to the user, if any.

      • Verify that the value of C["payment"]["payeeOrigin"] matches the origin of the payee that should have been displayed to the user, if any.

      • Verify that the value of C["payment"]["total"] matches the transaction amount that should have been displayed to the user.

      • Verify that the value of C["payment"]["instrument"] matches the payment instrument details that should have been displayed to the user.

9. User Agent Automation

For the purposes of user agent automation and website testing, this document defines the below [WebDriver] extension commands. Interested parties should also consult the equivalent automation section in [webauthn-3].

9.1. Set SPC Transaction Mode

The Set SPC Transaction Mode WebDriver extension command instructs the user agent to place Secure Payment Confirmation into a mode where it will automatically simulate a user either accepting or rejecting the transaction confirmation UX.

The current transaction automation mode tracks what TransactionAutomationMode is currently active for SPC. It defaults to "none".

enum TransactionAutomationMode {
  "none",
  "autoaccept",
  "autoreject"
};

The remote end steps are:

1. If parameters is not a JSON Object, return a WebDriver error with WebDriver error code invalid argument.

2. Let mode be the result of getting a property named "mode" from parameters.

3. If mode is undefined or is not a member of TransactionAutomationMode, return a WebDriver error with WebDriver error code invalid argument.

4. Set the current transaction automation mode to mode.

5. Return success with data null.

10. Security Considerations

As this specification builds on top of WebAuthn, the WebAuthn Security Considerations are applicable. The below subsections comprise the current Secure Payment Confirmation-specific security considerations, where this specification diverges from WebAuthn.

10.1. Cross-origin authentication ceremony

A significant departure that Secure Payment Confirmation makes from WebAuthn is in allowing a third-party to initiate an authentication ceremony using credentials for a different Relying Party, and returning the assertion to the third party. This feature can expose Relying Parties to both login and payment attacks, which are discussed here.

10.1.1. Login Attack

As credentials created for Secure Payment Confirmation are valid WebAuthn credentials, it is possible that a Relying Party may wish to use the same credential for a given user for both login and payment. This allows a potential attack on the Relying Party’s login system, if they do not carefully verify the assertion they receive.

The attack is as follows:

1. The user visits attacker.com, which is or pretends to be a merchant site.

2. attacker.com obtains credentials for the user from relyingparty.com, either legitimately or by stealing them from relyingparty.com or another party with whom relyingparty.com had shared the credentials.

3. attacker.com initiates SPC authentication, and the user agrees to the transaction (which may or may not be legitimate).

4. attacker.com takes the payment assertion that they received from the API call, and sends it to the login endpoint for relyingparty.com, e.g. by sending a POST to https://relyingparty.com/login.

5. relyingparty.com is employing faulty assertion validation code, which checks the signature but fails to validate the necessary fields (see below), and believes the login attempt to be legitimate.

6. relyingparty.com returns e.g. a login cookie to attacker.com. The user’s account at relyingparty.com has now been compromised.

Relying Parties can guard against this attack in two ways.

Firstly, a Relying Party must always follow the correct assertion validation steps either for WebAuthn login or SPC payment as appropriate. In particular, the following fields can all be used to detect an inappropriate use of a credential:

• CollectedClientData["type"]- "webauthn.get" for login, "payment.get" for SPC.

• CollectedClientData["challenge"] - this value should be provided by the Relying Party server to the site ahead of any call to either WebAuthn or SPC, and should be verified as matching an expected, appropriate, previously-provided value.

• CollectedClientData["origin"] - if SPC is being performed cross-origin, this value will contain the origin of the caller (e.g. attacker.com in the above example).

Secondly, a Relying Party can consider keeping their payment and login credentials separate. If doing this, the Relying Party should only register credentials for Secure Payment Confirmation on a subdomain (e.g. https//payment.relyingparty.com), and should keep payment credentials and login credentials separate in their database.

10.1.2. Payment Attack

A Secure Payment Confirmation assertion is essentially useless unless it is part of an ongoing online transaction.

A variety of mechanisms protect against an attack where a malicious third-party, instead of attempting to hijack a user account, initiates an unauthorized payment using Secure Payment Confirmation credentials (obtained either legitimately or otherwise):

• When the attacker initiates SPC, the user will be shown UI by the User Agent that clearly states the transaction details (including the payee and amount). The user is very likely to "cancel" in this scenario.

• If the user does agree to the transaction, and completes the subsequent WebAuthn authentication ceremony, the attacker now has a signed SPC assertion for the Relying Party.

• If the Relying Party is not expecting a transaction, it will reject the assertion.

• If the Relying Party is expecting a transaction, it will detect an unfamiliar challenge and reject the assertion.

10.2. Merchant-supplied authentication data

The bank can and should protect against spoofing by verifying the authentication assertion they receive to ensure it aligns with the transaction details provided by the merchant.

That is because a consequence of this specification’s third-party authentication ceremony is that even in a valid transaction (i.e. one that the Relying Party is expecting), a third-party provides the transaction details that are shown to the user:

• Transaction amount and currency

• Payment instrument name and icon

• Payee name and origin

This could lead to a spoofing attack, in which a merchant presents incorrect data to the user. For example, the merchant could tell the bank (in the backend) that it is initiating a purchase of $100, but then pass $1 to the SPC API (and thus show the user a $1 transaction to verify). Or the merchant could provide the correct transaction details but pass Secure Payment Confirmation credentials that don’t match what the Relying Party expects.

Secure Payment Confirmation actually makes defeating this kind of attack easier than it currently is on the web. In online payments today, the bank has to trust that the merchant showed the user the correct amount in their checkout flow (and any fraud discoveries are post-payment, when the user checks their account statement).

11. Privacy Considerations

As this specification builds on top of WebAuthn, the WebAuthn Privacy Considerations are applicable. The below subsections comprise the current Secure Payment Confirmation-specific privacy considerations, where this specification diverges from WebAuthn.

11.1. Registration in a Cross-Origin iframe

Unlike WebAuthn, this specification allows the creation of credentials in a cross-origin iframe (as long as the appropriate Permission Policy is set on the iframe). That is, if site A embeds an iframe from site B, with the "payment" policy set, then site B may initiate a credential creation for site B within that iframe.

NOTE: Allowing credential creation in cross-origin iframes is currently under discussion in the WebAuthn Working Group, and thus may move from this specification to WebAuthn in the future.

Allowing credential creation in a cross-origin iframe presents a risk that an iframe may attempt to trick a user into registering a credential. That credential could then be used for tracking (see WebAuthn issue 1336). To mitigate such an attack, this specification requires that a call to navigator.credentials.create() inside a cross-origin iframe may only be invoked when the iframe has transient activation (e.g., via a click or press from the user).

NOTE: Requiring user activation for WebAuthn APIs in general is under discussion in the WebAuthn WG too; see issue #1293.

11.2. Probing for credential ids

As per WebAuthn’s section on Authentication Ceremony Privacy, implementors of Secure Payment Confirmation must make sure not to enable malicious callers (who now may not even be the Relying Party) to distinguish between these cases:

• A credential is not available.

• A credential is available, but the user does not consent to use it.

If the above cases are distinguishable, information is leaked by which a malicious Relying Party could identify the user by probing for which credentials are available.

Section § 4.1.6 Steps to check if a payment can be made gives normative steps to mitigate this risk.

11.3. Joining different payment instruments

If a Relying Party uses the same credentials for a given user across multiple payment instruments, this might allow a merchant to join information about payment instruments that might otherwise not be linked. That is, across two different transactions that a user U performs with payment instruments P1 and P2 (either on the same merchant M, or two colluding merchants M1 and M2), the merchant(s) may now be able to learn that P1 and P2 are for the same user.

For many current online payment flows this may not be a significant risk, as the user often provides sufficient information to do this joining anyway (e.g., name, email address, shipping address).

However, if payment methods that involve less identifying information (e.g., tokenization) become commonplace, it is important that ecosystem stakeholders take steps to preserve user privacy. For example:

• Payment systems might establish rules that place limits on storage of credential ID(s) by third parties.

• When a Relying Party assigns multiple instruments to a single SPC credential, it might choose not to share that credential ID with other parties. In this case, the Relying Party could still use the SPC credential itself (in either a first-party or third-party context) to authenticate the user.

• A Relying Party (e.g., a bank) might enable the user to register a distinct SPC credential per payment instrument. This would not prevent the Relying Party from joining those accounts internally.

NOTE: See issue #77 for discussion on possible spec changes related to this section.

11.4. Credential ID(s) as a tracking vector

Even for a single payment instrument, the credential ID(s) returned by the Relying Party could be used by a malicious entity as a tracking vector, as they are strong, cross-site identifiers. However in order to obtain them from the Relying Party, the merchant already needs an as-strong identifier to give to the Relying Party (e.g., the credit card number).

NOTE: See issue #77 for discussion on possible spec changes related to this section.

12. Accessibility Considerations

User agents render the icon and displayName together. Relying parties ensure the accessibility of the icon presentation by providing sufficient information via the displayName (e.g., if the icon represents a bank, by including the bank name in the displayName).

User Agents implementing this specification should follow both WebAuthn’s Accessibility Considerations and PaymentRequest’s Accessibility Considerations.