Common Criteria: A Prime Factor In Information Security For The Dod

Is your vital selective information secure. How do you know. There ar several ways to increase confidence in the security measures of your vital entropy. The data could be moved to a non-accessible location. A security system firm could be hired to install, update, and monitor the system.
But perhaps the easiest method, and one that is now mandatory for the Department of Defense, is the manipulation of info engineering products that rich person been independently evaluated and certified. While this sounds like a great idea, how does one find such IT products.
The answer is that certified products listed on the Subject Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) Web site at . The Home(a) Institute of Standards and Engineering (NIST) and the Interior(a) Security Agency (NSA) established the NIAP to evaluate data engineering science mathematical product conformance to international standards, namely the Park Criteria (CC). The programme, officially known as the NIAP Commons Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS) for IT Security, is a partnership between the public and private sectors.
The plan was implemented to aid consumers select commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) IT products that meet their surety requirements and to assist manufacturers of those products gain acceptance in the global marketplace. One of the platform's main objectives is to improve the availability of evaluated IT products.
The other key element of Instruction 8500.2 is the inclusion of definitions for generic "hardiness" levels and the assignment of "baseline levels" of IA services to those lustiness levels, depending on the value of the and the environment in which the is used. Robustness horizontal surface descriptions assistance the ISSE and DAA determine at which spirit level of CC self-assurance a mustiness be evaluated. This is passed on to the seller for wont in developing an rating services contract bridge with a CCTL.
The ISSE and DAA should besides consider the following when selecting the valuation confidence degree: the value of the assets organism protected; the risk of those assets beingness compromised; the resources of those who might try to compromise the assets; and the " requirements, mission, and customer needs."
Instruction 8500.2 too augments key points from Directive 8500.1. Products available "nether multiple-award schedule contracts or non-Defense Department Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts awarded before July 1, 2002, moldiness be evaluated when and if a version release of the is made available below the take." Simply stated, this means that products that just now existence received by the United States Department of Defense contracts awarded before July 1, 2002, be evaluated and validated the CC.
The instruction likewise states that "although products that wealthy person not satisfactorily completed may be used, contracts shall require. be satisfactorily completed inside a specified period of time." This statement gives abridge officers the task of ensuring the purchase foreshorten includes provisions requiring vendors to complete the CC . Vendors cannot simply submit their products for and then not complete the process.
Vendors tin can work with their CCTL and the Defense to determine a reasonable period of time for the , which could be any number of months depending primarily on complexity, vender evidence preparedness, self-confidence grade elect, and the lab's familiarity with the applied science. Finally, the instruction states that the original abbreviate specify that " validation will be kept current" where utilization is anticipated for subsequent versions of that.
CC certificate maintenance is another task that requires effort and planning on the part of the trafficker because CC certificates apply to a specific version and configuration of a . The requirements for maintaining that certificate across future versions of the described in a document entitled "Assurance Continuity: CCRA Requirements," issued in February 2004 by the international body responsible for(p) for maintaining the Green Criteria.
You toilet obtain a copy of this document from any CCTL or the NIAP CCEVS. shorten officers should ensure their vendors aware of the completion and certificate maintenance clauses in their contracts so that products do not fail to meet and maintain the CC certification requirements for continued exercise. As with Directive 8500.1, the heads of components entrusted with the responsibilities to ensure systems employ solutions in accordance with the 8500.2 sections describing evaluations.
Further emphasizing the importance the federal government and placing on evaluations, public law includes provisions for evaluations and the often-sought-after waivers to such policy requirements. Subtitle F: Information Engineering science, Section 352 of Public Law 107-314, passed in December 2002, directs the secretary of defense to establish a policy to limit the skill of authority products to those products that give birth been evaluated and validated in accordance with appropriate criteria, schemes, or programs. Such criteria or schemes include the NIAP CCEVS and the internationally developed CC.
While experienced vendors will state that accomplishment policy requirements lavatory sometimes be waived, the waiver clause in Public Law 107-314 authorizes the secretary of defense to provide such waivers only for U.S. Therefore, this law makes it difficult to obtain waivers to the acquirement policies requiring CC evaluations. Clearly, independent evaluations important to both the federal government and the , as NSTISSP #11, 8500.1, 8500.2, and Public Law 107-314 confirm.
Such evaluations allow the to deliver confidence that the products it purchases meet the security department claims made by the vendors. While the bulk of the work for obtaining these evaluations falls to the , the is creditworthy for ensuring that products evaluated and validated in accordance with the reduce requirements stated in the 's own policies.
The is as well for assisting the with the selection of the sureness layer for the since that pledge stratum is Chosen based on the protection needs and the application of purpose.
The understand that such evaluations and their subsequent maintenance not trivial tasks: They take weeks or months to complete depending on the stage , the preparedness of the to supply the required evidence, and the complexity of the . Usual Criteria evaluations play an important role in protecting . For this reason, procurement officers, narrow officers, and vendors should familiarize themselves with the criteria and the process.