From Public-Key Linting to Operational Post-Quantum X.509 Assurance for ML-KEM and ML-DSA: Registry-Driven Policy, Mutation-Based Evaluation, and Import Validation

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 18 Apr 2026] From Public-Key Linting to Operational Post-Quantum X.509 Assurance for ML-KEM and ML-DSA: Registry-Driven Policy, Mutation-Based Evaluation, and Import Validation José Luis Delgado Jiménez Final FIPS and PKIX standards for ML-KEM and ML-DSA fix the normative floor, but operational assurance in post-quantum X.509 still depends on accountable checks across certificate-profile semantics, SubjectPublicKeyInfo representation, and private-key-container import. We present a workflow-centric assurance framework for ML-KEM and ML-DSA in the narrow executable profile pkix-core. The framework reifies 17 final-standards requirements into an assurance registry indexed by owner, stage, detector kind, normative strength, and mode-specific action; groups them into three operator gate packs; spans certificate/profile, SPKI/public-key, and private-key-container/import surfaces; and evaluates them through a frozen mutation-based corpus with bounded public-appendix and cross-tool supporting evidence. Across a controlled corpus of 48 artifacts (21 valid, 27 invalid), the artifact detects all expected invalid cases in both strict and deployable modes with zero false positives. Strict blocks all 17 active requirements; deployable preserves the same detection coverage while downgrading exactly one exercised ML-KEM canonicality condition from block to warning. On the importer-owned private-key surface, all 7 active requirements are covered, with 7/7 expected invalid detections and no open detector gaps. On a comparable certificate subset, a frozen JZLint baseline meets 5/10 expected invalid detections and fatally rejects 3 valid ML-KEM certificates, whereas the local artifact meets 10/10 with no fatal valid rejections. A bounded public appendix and a cross-tool matrix further show that parse acceptance and policy conformance diverge materially. Overall, the results support an operational X.509 assurance workflow for CA pre-issuance and private-key import that extends prior PQ public-key linting work. Comments: 48 pages, 13 figures, 32 tables, 6 appendices; includes artifact, reproducibility, and cross-tool evaluation appendices Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) MSC classes: 94A60 Cite as: arXiv:2604.17003 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2604.17003v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.17003 Focus to learn more Submission history From: José Luis Delgado [view email] [v1] Sat, 18 Apr 2026 14:20:06 UTC (49 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)