---
id: "papers-security-deep-dive-keri-necessary-and-sufficient"
type: "talk"
type_label: "Talks and presentations"
title: "Security Deep Dive: Why KERI is Necessary and Sufficient"
maintainer: "Samuel M. Smith"
authors:
  - "{'name': 'Samuel M. Smith'}"
date: "2025-10"
year: 2025
reading_level: "practitioner"
reading_level_label: "Practitioner"
reading_level_meaning: "architects, product people and adopters who know identity systems"
evidence: "informative"
evidence_meaning: "an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite"
status: "quiet"
status_meaning: "no change in six to eighteen months; still correct"
access: "public"
access_meaning: "anyone with the link"
topics:
  - "theory"
  - "infrastructure"
roles:
  - "security-architect"
  - "infrastructure-operator"
  - "communications"
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/presentations/KERI_SecurityDeepDive.web.pdf"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "smith-papers"
kerisse_credit: false
abstract_license: "CC BY 4.0"
abstract_license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
abstract_attribution: "KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/)"
last_checked: "2026-10-15"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/papers-security-deep-dive-keri-necessary-and-sufficient/"
kskb_app_url: "https://kskb.dev/#item/papers-security-deep-dive-keri-necessary-and-sufficient"
kskb_record_url: "https://kskb.dev/data/kskb/resources/papers-security-deep-dive-keri-necessary-and-sufficient"
kskb_markdown_url: "https://kskb.dev/export/cards/papers-security-deep-dive-keri-necessary-and-sufficient.md"
---

# Security Deep Dive: Why KERI is Necessary and Sufficient

A 76-slide deck by Samuel M. Smith, undated on its title slide (the PDF was created in October 2025), arguing that every part of KERI (Key Event Receipt Infrastructure) is needed to defend against a known set of attacks. It walks through the KERI ecosystem components, key compromise and recovery, delegation, and the trust-basis and spanning-layer background. For practitioners and implementers.

Labels: reading level Practitioner; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/presentations/KERI_SecurityDeepDive.web.pdf (license not recorded).
The abstract is KSKB's own text under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; credit KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/).