News

Dekart announces the certification of its cryptographic libraries by NIST
By: Artem Belitsky

Dekart's cryptographic security module within its Dekart Security Suite product line achieved U.S. government certification, under the Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The CMV Program provides specifications for software and hardware products that employ cryptographic algorithms, cryptographic key generation and distribution techniques, and authentication techniques that are FIPS 180-1 approved for protecting Federal Government unclassified information.

Vendor products are tested for compliance to these specifications by NIST-approved testing laboratories. In accordance with the NIST certification guidelines, the Dekart cryptographic module is certified as conforming to the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-1) specified in Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 180-1, Secure Hash Standard (SHS), using tests described in Digital Signature Standard Validation System (DSSVS) User's Guide.

Along with Secure Hash Algorithm, Dekart software implementation within Dekart Security Suite product line were certified as conforming to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Algorithm, as specified in Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 197, Advanced Encryption Standard.

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) specifies a FIPS-approved cryptographic algorithm that can be used to protect electronic data. The AES algorithm is a symmetric block cipher that can encrypt (encipher) and decrypt (decipher) information. Encryption converts data to an unintelligible form called ciphertext; decrypting the ciphertext converts the data back into its original form, called plaintext. The AES algorithm is capable of using cryptographic keys of 128, 192, and 256 bits to encrypt and decrypt data in blocks of 128 bits.

The conformance of Dekart implementations to Secure Hash Standard is recorded in the SHS Validation List, published on NIST’s web site: http://csrc.ncsl.nist.gov/cryptval/shs/shaval.htm