Published in Military & Aerospace Electronics
ASHBURN, Va. – Trusted computing standards are evolving constantly within the United States, which can be confusing enough. Now consider international trusted computing standards that may apply to a growing number of embedded computing projects and you can encounter a real dilemma.
This overview could help. It's a guide to the international government agencies that perform security accreditation for equipment, such as network switches, storage devices, and ruggedized computers used in military applications.
International agreements exist like the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), that recognize Common Criteria (CC) schemes and Protection Profiles (PP) to reduce the level of re-assessment on international military program standards.
Nevertheless, applicants generally must submit a Security Target document that describes the Target Of Evaluation (TOE) and the relevant protection features built around the critical security areas, such as hard drive encryption, key management, and secure boot that cryptographically verifies executable code on power-up.
The extent of these features depends on the type of program. For example, secure boot can range from validating checksums prior to loading code, to verifying cryptographic signatures and decrypting all boot artifacts. Government agencies and international authorities will issue high-level requirements that specify the protection levels. There also are specific agencies and protection schemes for individual countries.
The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MOD) in London issues a Security Aspects Letter (SAL) on a new military program. In turn, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in London determines the assessment process level -- the highest grade being the CESG Assisted Product Service (CAPS), with official-level programs following the Commercial Product Assurance (CPA) certification route.
CAPS assessments are performed directly by NCSC, whereas CPA approvals are outsourced to licensed evaluation facilities.
Companies performing development work in this field also need to meet facility-level IT and access security requirements which flow down from Defence Condition DEFCON 658 (Cyber) and Defence Standard DEF STAN 05-138 (Cyber Security for Defence Suppliers). The MOD sponsors a scheme known as Cyber Essentials Plus, whereby potential suppliers can seek accreditation against these requirements.
The French government agency Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information (ANSSI) is equivalent to the United Kingdom NCSC. It two certification schemes that depend on the security level, which are assessed by facilities approved by the Centres d’évaluation de la sécurité des technologies de l’information (CESTI).
Among the CESTI schemes is the Critères communs (CC), which is equal to the Common Criteria. It is applicable to products already accredited in another country, like the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, that is a signatory to the ITSEC accord. It also is based on ISO15408 (IT Security) and focused on network, enterprise-level computing.
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