NIST SP 800-203 日本語訳

Computer Security Division Information Technology Laboratory

Applied Cybersecurity Division Information Technology Laboratory

Larry Feldman

Greg Witte

G2, Inc. Annapolis Junction, Maryland

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-203

Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., Secretary

Walter Copan, NIST Director and Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology

This publication has been developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in accordance with its statutory responsibilities under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) of 2014, 44 U.S.C. § 3541 et seq., Public Law (P.L.) 113-283. NIST is responsible for developing information security standards and guidelines, including minimum requirements for federal information systems, but such standards and guidelines shall not apply to national security systems without the express approval of appropriate federal officials exercising policy authority over such systems. This guideline is consistent with the requirements of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130.

Nothing in this publication should be taken to contradict the standards and guidelines made mandatory and binding on federal agencies by the Secretary of Commerce under statutory authority. Nor should these guidelines be interpreted as altering or superseding the existing authorities of the Secretary of Commerce, Director of the OMB, or any other federal official. This publication may be used by nongovernmental organizations on a voluntary basis and is not subject to copyright in the United States. Attribution would, however, be appreciated by NIST.

National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-203

Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. Spec. Publ. 800-203, 175 pages (July 2018)

This publication is available free of charge from:

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-203

The Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at NIST promotes the U.S. economy and public welfare by providing technical leadership for the Nation’s measurement and standards infrastructure. ITL develops tests, test methods, reference data, proof of concept implementations, and technical analyses to advance the development and productive use of information technology. ITL’s responsibilities include the development of management, administrative, technical, and physical standards and guidelines for the cost-effective security and privacy of other than national security-related information in federal information systems. The Special Publication 800-series reports on ITL’s research, guidelines, and outreach efforts in information system security, and its collaborative activities with industry, government, and academic organizations.

The editors, Patrick O’Reilly of the Computer Security Division (CSD) and Kristina Rigopoulos of the Applied Cybersecurity Division (ACD), would like to thank their ITL colleagues who provided write-ups on their project highlights and accomplishments for this annual report (their names are mentioned after each project write-up). The editors would also like to acknowledge Elaine Barker (CSD) a Lisa Carnahan (Standards Coordination Office, NIST), for reviewing and providing valuable feedback for this annual report.

The editors would also like to acknowledge Natasha Hanacek (Graphic Designer, NIST Public Affairs Office) for designing the cover and inside layout for this annual report.

Any mention of commercial products or organizations is for informational purposes only; it is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply that the products identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose.

All names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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If recent events involving the security of information and operations have taught us anything, it is that cybersecurity, and the way cybersecurity risks are managed, are no longer solely the domain of the information technology specialist. Cybersecurity risk management issues are becoming increasingly familiar topics in executive management offices and boardrooms. That is as true for businesses as it is for federal and other government organizations.

No doubt that is because every year brings more troubling reports of organizations experiencing financial and reputational damage from both novel and well-known threats and vulnerabilities. But what does not get nearly as much attention are the impressive advances that so many organizations have been making in thoughtfully and successfully securing their information and processes and the systems upon which those organizations, their leaders, and their customers depend.

That’s where the cybersecurity work of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) comes into play. For nearly 50 years, we have been helping organizations to succeed in building the strategies and in employing the tools needed to better recognize, anticipate, and manage cybersecurity risks. Our diverse cybersecurity activities are an essential ingredient in carrying out the NIST Information Technology Laboratory’s mission: to cultivate trust in information and technology. We do that by conducting foundational and applied cybersecurity research to produce and advance cybersecurity standards, best practices, measurements, and reference resources. While NIST has an explicit statutory mission to focus on federal government agencies, our work can and is being heavily leveraged by large and small businesses, state and local agencies, and other organizations. Ultimately, this benefits taxpayers, investors, consumers, our digital economy, and our national security.

However, we don’t work alone. To the contrary, all cybersecurity efforts at NIST are based on input from, and often in cooperation with, the private sector and other government agencies.

We also don’t work in the dark. NIST prides itself on being transparent, open, and collaborative. When we actively engage the private and public sectors, we rely on and use experts from around the country – and around the globe – to complement the talents of our own staff. Exposing our thinking to others helps to improve the quality, relevance, and likely use of the end product.

This report features some of our most significant accomplishments during Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 in risk management, cryptography, identity and access management, vulnerability management, education and workforce development, and internet and communications infrastructure, as well as our efforts to transition our work into common practice. Below are just a few highlights of the work carried out in 2017.

Looking ahead - with full knowledge that new challenges are constantly emerging - we are moving towards collaborating with industry, government agencies, and others who use NIST’s cybersecurity research, standards, and guides. For example, in FY 2018 NIST is assigning higher priority to the cybersecurity and privacy aspects of the Internet of Things (IoT). Researchers in our Cybersecurity for IoT program are working with industry to produce guidance and best practices, as well as to perform research and coordinate standards within and across sectors in the digital economy. We are reviewing international standards-based approaches to the IoT challenges and ramping up our IoT-related identity work. NIST is also launching a project to provide organizations with practical guidance to reduce the vulnerability of IoT devices to botnets and other automated distributed threats, while also limiting the utility of compromised devices to malicious actors. Such efforts are paving the way toward more secure IoT devices in the future.

In addition to the work in IoT, NIST has embarked on a project to automate much of the testing required under the cryptographic validation programs. We expect that automated cryptographic algorithm testing will be complete in 2018, and we will then begin developing methods to automate the testing of cryptographic modules. These efforts in automation are intended to provide a higher trust in the assurance claims made by the product developers, but do so in an efficient, and cost-effective manner that allows the vendors’ conformance efforts to keep pace with the changing IT landscape. By investing in a more robust testing infrastructure, NIST hopes that product vendors will take advantage of this service by validating their products more often, which will produce more secure products.

In reporting on our accomplishments, NIST welcomes all suggestions about how we can improve our work. We do this so that we can provide the nation with the kind of cybersecurity information and tools needed to cultivate trust in information and technology while advancing and protecting our economy and our nation.

All projects in this report include contact information for the key NIST contacts. Let us hear from you.

NIST Chief Cybersecurity Advisor

This Annual Report provides the opportunity to describe the many cybersecurity program highlights and accomplishments from throughout the NIST Information Technology Laboratory (ITL). The report is organized into several sections, each section is identified by a title page.

Please note: This Annual Report covers the Federal Government’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2017, from October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017.

ITL, an operating unit under NIST, contains seven divisions. Cybersecurity work is conducted by each, and is the sole focus of the Applied Cybersecurity and Computer Security Divisions. Throughout this Annual Report, there are references to particular division activities, and often to work by groups within those divisions. Primarily, the authors of each segment of the report have attributed accomplishments to ITL, since the ITL staff have been involved with each cybersecurity program included in this Annual Report. At the end of each program/project write-up, one or more points of contact are provided and may be used to address questions or requests for more information. Many sections also include additional references that readers may find valuable.

Below is a condensed hierarchical chart of ITL’s structure:

Charles Romine, Director

Jim St. Pierre, Deputy Director

Kevin Stine, Division Chief

Matthew Scholl, Division Chief

Ronald F Boisvert, Division Chief

Abdella Battou, Division Chief

Shahram Orandi, Division Chief

Ram Sriram, Division Chief

ITL’s Cybersecurity Program is pleased to share these achievements and accomplishments made during the 2017 Fiscal Year in this Annual Report.

This section contains a list of the major activities that were accomplished during FY 2017 by the ITL Cybersecurity Program. Detailed explanations of these activities are provided in the next section.

The E-Government Act, Public Law 107-347, passed by the 107th Congress and signed into law by the President in December 2002, recognized the importance of information security to the economic and national security interests of the United States. Title III of the E-Government Act, titled the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002, included the duties and responsibilities for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Information Technology Laboratory (ITL). There are multiple divisions within ITL that are involved with cybersecurity programs and projects. The work is being conducted collaboratively between the divisions. In December 2014, the 113th Congress updated FISMA as the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (Public Law 113-283). NIST ITL responsibilities were unchanged in the update. In FY 2017, the ITL Cybersecurity Program addressed its assignment through the following major activities:

The 2016 Annual Report, the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework, attribute-based access control and access control standards and policies, application container security, Secure Hash Algorithm-3 (SHA-3) derived functions, cybersecurity event recovery, data integrity, recovering from ransomware and other destructive events, securing Apple OS X 10.10 systems, protecting controlled unclassified information in nonfederal information systems and organizations, systems security engineering, cyber threat information sharing, bluetooth security, the National Checklist Program, digital identity guidelines, block cipher modes of operation, the Cipher-Based Message Authentication Code (CMAC) - a Mode for Authentication, an introduction to information security, a report of the workshop on software measures and metrics to reduce security vulnerabilities, platform firmware resiliency, fog computing, de-identifying government datasets, Long Term Evolution (LTE) security, trustworthy email, security recommendations for hypervisor deployment, the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA) Block Cipher, key-derivation methods in key-establishment schemes, pair-wise key-establishment schemes using discrete logarithm cryptography, security and privacy controls, a risk management framework for information systems and organizations, personal identity verification (PIV) credentials, access rights management for the financial services sector, securing wireless infusion pumps in healthcare delivery organizations, situational awareness for electric utilities, and domain name systems-based electronic mail security.

A criticality analysis process model, security assurance challenges for container deployment, the cybersecurity framework for federal agencies, a cybersecurity framework manufacturing profile, dramatically reducing software vulnerabilities, code complexity on software analysis, identifying uniformity with entropy and divergence, enhancing resilience of the Internet and communications ecosystem, mobile application vetting services for public safety, lightweight cryptography, privacy engineering and risk management in federal systems, automation support for security control assessments, and small business information security.

The research community has actively responded to the NIST Call for Proposals to solicit, evaluate, and standardize quantum-resistant public key cryptography (also known as post-quantum cryptography (PQC)) algorithms. Upon the submission deadline, NIST received 82 submissions from 26 countries and 6 continents, among which 69 submissions are considered as complete and proper. The NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography team has worked closely with the submitters and the research community to evaluate and analyze the first-round candidates.

The Internet of Things (IoT) tethers heterogeneous “things” together. Some of the “things” are resource constrained. Lightweight cryptography provides critical tools for IoT security. To better understand the need for dedicated lightweight cryptography, the NIST team released a white paper in 2017 to specify two major portfolios for lightweight cryptography primitives. NIST will announce a call for proposals on lightweight cryptography primitives in 2018.

After working with industry on the protocol necessary to exchange cryptographic test data in an automated fashion, the development of the cryptographic algorithm testing service to be hosted at NIST is fully under way, with the full implementation expected in FY 2018. (See: http://csrc.nist.gov/projects/acvt).

NIST SP 800-53 Revision 5, Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations, is a comprehensive set of safeguarding measures that are applicable to all types of computing platforms, including traditional IT systems, cloud and mobile systems, industrial/process control systems, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The safeguarding measures in the update to this publication include a full integration of security and privacy controls to protect the operations and assets of organizations and the personal privacy of individuals. Additionally, this update promotes the integration with different risk management and cybersecurity approaches and lexicons, including the Cybersecurity Framework. The Initial Public Comment period resulted in over 3000 comments from over 115 different stakeholders representing the public and private sectors, and academia.

This update to NIST SP 800-37 Revision 2, Risk Management Framework for Information Systems and Organizations: A System Life Cycle Approach for Security and Privacy, responds to the call by the Defense Science Board, the President’s Executive Order on Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure, and the Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-17-25, to develop the next-generation Risk Management Framework (RMF) for systems and organizations. This update provides linkage and communication between the risk management processes and activities at the executive and operational levels of the organization; demonstrates how the Cybersecurity Framework can be implemented using the established NIST risk management processes (i.e., developing a Federal use case); and integrates privacy concepts into the RMF. This discussion draft was issued to inform a public workshop for RMF stakeholders and featured discussions on the risk management methodologies used in various sectors and potential opportunities to improve the RMF.

C-SCRM controls were significantly modified in a draft of NIST SP 800-53, Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations, to better align with other guidance. A working group co-chaired by NIST and the Department of Defense

completed a revision of Committee On National Security Systems Directives (CNSSD) Number 505, Supply Chain Risk Management, which assigns responsibilities and establishes minimum criteria for the development and deployment of supply chain risk management capabilities for national security systems. Also, NIST collaborated with over 3,000 stakeholders through the Software and Supply Chain Assurance (SSCA) Forum and email list service. The effort, initiated in 2003, is co-led by NIST, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and provides a venue for government, industry, and academic participants from around the world to discuss cyber supply chain risks, effective practices and mitigation strategies, tools and technologies, and any gaps related to the people, processes, or technologies involved.

The Usable Security and Privacy team contributed usability chapters to SP 800-63, Digital Identity Guidelines, marking the first time there were dedicated usability chapters in this flagship NIST security publication. In addition, the usability team also completed a long-term operational phishing evaluation, demonstrating the importance of individual user context in explaining phishing email click decisions.

NIST developed a method of automatically testing and verifying rule-based systems to a high degree of assurance. The method uses a mathematical construct known as a covering array to exhaustively test all components of rules used in many classes of artificial intelligence applications, for a large subset of such applications. The method was incorporated into a proof-of-concept software tool that is freely available.

NIST developed this publication to assist IT professionals in securing Apple OS X 10.10 desktop and laptop systems within various environments. It provides detailed information about the security features of OS X 10.10 and security configuration guidelines. The publication recommends and explains tested, secure settings with the objective of simplifying the administrative burden of improving the security of OS X 10.10 systems in three types of environments: Standalone, Managed, and Specialized Security-Limited Functionality.

A July 2016 update to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130 requires federal agencies to apply the Risk Management Framework to privacy programs - managing privacy risk beyond compliance with privacy laws, regulations and policies. In alignment with this policy, the Privacy Engineering Program in ITL has been working to integrate privacy into the Risk Management Framework documents, providing one unified security and privacy approach – as seen in the initial draft of SP 800-53rev5 and the discussion draft of SP 800-37rev2.

The Privacy Engineering Program in ACD published NISTIR 8062, An Introduction to Privacy Engineering and Risk Management in Federal Systems. This publication establishes the basis for a common vocabulary to facilitate better understanding and communication of privacy risk within federal systems, and the effective implementation of privacy principles. It introduces two key components to support the application of privacy engineering and risk management: privacy engineering objectives and a privacy risk model. These concepts lay the foundation for the integration of privacy into the Risk Management Framework (as seen in the latest revisions of SP 800-53 and SP 800-37).

A set of security recommendations for server virtualization were updated in the publication of SP 800-125A, Security Recommendations for Hypervisor Deployment on Servers, by including emerging use cases. NIST security guidance for this technology now covers hardware, hypervisor (the core server virtualization software), virtual network and management modules. The active participation of NIST in the editorial team for the International Organization For Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 21878, Security guidelines for design and implementation of virtualized servers, has advanced the standard from a working draft in October 2016 to a Draft International Standard (DIS) in October 2017. In the area of OS virtualization, the potential solutions for security countermeasures outlined in SP 800-190, Application Container Security Guide, were examined, and security assurance requirements for each solution were developed to guide actual security configurations. These security assurance requirements were published in NISTIR 8176, Security Assurance Requirements for Linux Application Container Deployments, for the open source Linux platform where application containers are ubiquitously developed and deployed.

ITL created a program for IoT cybersecurity that supports the development and application of standards, guidelines, and related tools to improve IoT cybersecurity. Program establishment included creating an inventory of NIST-wide efforts related to IoT cybersecurity, coordinating among NIST IoT efforts, and convening a team of subject-matter experts to begin drafting guidance on managing IoT cybersecurity and privacy risks.

The IoT Cybersecurity Program coordinated outreach to a range of public and private-sector stakeholders to inform them of NIST’s IoT cybersecurity work and collect feedback to inform future work. This included sessions at the Cybersecurity Framework Workshop in 2017, the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) quarterly meeting, and planning a colloquium with industry, government, and academic participants.

The NICE program published three eNewsletters; launched an updated and refreshed the NICE Website to better meet the needs of the NICE Community and visitors; produced 3 new one-page reports and updated the content of three others; produced two ITL Science Day posters; established a LinkedIn presence and hashtag for Tweets from the @NISTCyber twitter account; developed a NICE Multimedia page; participated in seven conference exhibit displays; and hosted ten webinar sessions.

During FY 2017, the NICE Program published NIST Special Publication 800-181, National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework, and the Draft NIST Interagency Report (NISTIR) 8193, National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Framework Work Role Capability Indicators: Indicators for Performing Work Roles. The national need for a common lexicon to describe and organize the cybersecurity workforce and the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) led to the creation of the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework (NICE Framework). The NICE Framework defines the spectrum of cybersecurity work as well as tasks and for over 50 common Work Roles. While the Work Roles have made the NICE Framework easier to associate with specific positions, they do not provide organizations with guidance on how to determine if a cybersecurity worker can perform a Work Role. NISTIR 8193 is intended to help organizations address this challenge by identifying capability indicators or recommended education, certification, training, experiential learning, and continuous learning that could signal an increased ability to perform a given Work Role.

The NICE Program increased its outreach efforts to include new academic, industry, and government organizations, including international stakeholders through various meetings and collaborative efforts including the NICE Working Group and NICE Interagency Coordinating Council.

Attribute Based Access Control, Domain Name Systems-Based Email Security, Situational Awareness for the Electric Utilities, Securing Wireless Infusion Pumps in Healthcare Delivery Organizations, Managing Access Rights in the Financial Services Sector, Data Integrity: Recovering from Ransomware and Other Destructive Events, and Derived Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Credentials.

The SAMATE program has three primary components: the Software Assurance Reference Dataset (SARD), the Static Analysis Tool Exposition (SATE), and the Bugs Framework (BF). Mobile applications and test cases used in former Static Analysis Tool Expositions were added to SARD. In 2017, the sixth instance of SATE began.

ITL promoted the efficient and effective use of computer technology to investigate crimes. The project team developed tools for testing computer forensic software, including test criteria and test sets. ITL also maintains the National Software Reference Library (NSRL) – a vast archive of published software applications that is an important resource for both criminal investigators and historians. The NSRL published four releases of the Reference Data Set (RDS) that continues to be the premier software resource. The NSRL was expanded to include mobile apps and to include the profiles obtained from installing and exercising applications.

ITL provided assistance to agencies and the private sector through many outreach programs, including the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), the Federal Information Systems Security Educators’ Association (FISSEA), and the Federal Computer Security Managers’ Forum.

NIST solicited recommendations from the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB) on draft standards and guidelines regarding information security and privacy issues.

The ITL Cybersecurity Program hosted or provided at least 55 different cybersecurity events throughout FY 2017. These outreach activities were open to the public or for federal agencies. These events covered various Cybersecurity topics – to see the complete list of these events, please see Appendix B at the back of this Annual Report for further details. If a website URL is available for these events – the URLs have been provided.

The ITL Fiscal Year 2017 Cybersecurity Program Annual Report (formerly titled Computer Security Division Annual Report) was produced and released as a NIST SP. This report, and previously released CSD annual reports from fiscal years 2003 through 2017, are available on the Computer Security Resource Center (CSRC) website at https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/search?topics-lg=3363%7Cannual+reports

The next section describes accomplishments that were achieved during FY 2017 (covering the time frame October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017) for the NIST ITL Cybersecurity Program.

(Editors’ Note: Acronyms used throughout this Annual Report are generally defned when frst used. A complete list of Acronyms used in this report is provided in Appendix A of this Annual Report.)

Figure 1 shows many of the national and international standards-developing organizations (SDOs) involved in cybersecurity standardization. Various ITL staff participate in many cybersecurity standards’ activities either in leadership positions or as editors and contributors, including the American National Standards Institute (ANSI); the International Organization for Standardization (ISO); the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC); the Biometric Application Programming Interface (BioAPI) Consortium; the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG); the Bluetooth Security Expert Group (BT-SEG); the International Telecommunications Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T); various groups within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF); the North American Security Products Organization (NASPO); the Trusted Computing Group (TCG); and Accredited Standards Committee X9, Inc. (ASC X9, Inc.) (e.g., X9F – Data & Information Security Subcommittee). Many of ITL’s publications have been the basis for both national and international standards projects.

The following paragraphs discuss ITL staff activities in conjunction with the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) Technical Committee Cybersecurity 1 (CS1), where ITL’s Mr. Sal Francomacaro serves as the CS1 Vice Chair. CS1 is the U.S. counterpart for the ISO/IEC SC27 committee for IT Security.

Figure 1: SDOs involved in Cybersecurity

The ITL staff actively participate with JTC1/SC27 and its working groups to develop standards for the protection of information and communications technology (ICT). This includes generic methods, techniques and guidelines to address both security and privacy aspects, such as:

The ITL staff also engages in active liaison and collaboration with appropriate bodies to ensure the proper development and application of SC 27 standards and technical reports in relevant areas.

Mr. Salvatore Francomacaro, (301) 975-6414, salfra@nist.gov

The NIST/ITL staff actively participate with JTC1/SC27 and its working groups to support the NIST Cybersecurity Framework International Standardizations strategy.

The main focus for FY 2017 was the development of a Technical Specification based on ISO/IEC 27101 – Guidelines for developing cybersecurity frameworks. This Technical Specification (TS) represents the work done by a U.S. group on NIST Cybersecurity Framework and should serve as a guideline for other organizations considering creating a new cybersecurity framework.

The NIST staff was also active in the definition of another ISO Technical Specification: Cybersecurity Overview and Concepts. This TS should target any user concerned with cybersecurity, but is particularly targeted toward decision makers. It should cover, among other things, what cybersecurity IS and IS NOT, how it applies to existing standards, and how it fits in with the other ISO/IEC 27000 series of standards.

The NIST staff will increase participation and effort on these activities during FY 2018.

Mr. Matt Barrett, (301) 975-6259, matthew.barrett@nist.gov

ITL is also the principal editor, co-editor, and contributor to many ISO/IEC documents by the ISO/IEC International Organization for Standardization. ITL’s contributions to the development of these international standards help to create a strong foundation for the adoption of and migration from currently used national standards. In particular, this adoption promotes international harmonization for the implementation and testing of cryptographic algorithms and modules, while accommodating individual country preferences in the choice of approved security functions.

ITL has contributed to the activities of ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC/27, which published ISO/IEC 19790, Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules, on March 1, 2006, and ISO/IEC 24759, Test Requirements for Cryptographic Modules, on July 1, 2008. ISO/IEC 19790 specifies the security requirements for a cryptographic module utilized within a security system protecting sensitive information in computer and telecommunication systems. These efforts bring consistent testing of cryptographic modules to the global community by providing ISO-equivalent standards representing Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2, Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules and Derived Test Requirements [DTR] for FIPS 140-2, Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules. Mr. Randall Easter (CSD) continues as the principal editor for these standards.

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 Working Group (WG) 3 completed and published revisions, followed with updated corrections, of ISO/IEC 19790:2006 and ISO/IEC 24759:2008. The second revision of ISO/IEC 19790 was published on August 15, 2012. The second revision of ISO/IEC 24759 was published on January 31, 2014 and the third revision was published March 2017. Both ISO/IEC standards are available through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) (see: http://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetail.aspx?sku=ISO%2FIEC+19790%3A2012). The two ISO/IEC revisions were developed with international support and the collaboration of governments, industry and academia.

The revision of ISO/IEC 19790:2012 addresses new security areas, such as defined software module boundaries, degraded modes of operation, trusted channels, two-factor authentication, software security, mitigation of fault induction and side-channel attacks, operational self-tests for algorithms, and lifecycle assurance from design to end-of-life.

Figure 2 is a chart of the ISO/IEC standards, as explained above, in which CSD has played a part during the development process.

In addition to the aforementioned standards, International Standards ISO/IEC 17825, Testing methods for the mitigation of non-invasive attack classes against cryptographic modules, was published on January 15, 2016 and ISO/IEC 18367, Cryptographic algorithms and security mechanisms conformance testing, was published on December 15, 2016. Mr. Easter was the editor of both standards.

International Standard ISO/IEC 17825 specifies the non-invasive attack mitigation test metrics for determining conformance to the requirements specified in ISO/IEC 19790 for Security Levels 3 and 4. The test metrics are associated with the security functions specified in ISO/IEC 19790. Testing will be conducted at the defined boundary of the cryptographic module and using Input/Output (I/O) available at the defined boundary.

Figure 2: Cryptographic Module Testing – ISO Standards

International Standard ISO/IEC 18367 describes conformance testing methods for cryptographic algorithms and security mechanisms. Conformance testing assures that an implementation of a cryptographic algorithm or security mechanism is correct whether implemented in hardware, software or firmware. It also confirms that it runs correctly in a specific operating environment. Testing may consist of known-answer or Monte Carlo testing, or a combination of test methods. Testing may be performed on the actual implementation or modeled in a simulation environment.

The test methods used by testing laboratories to test whether the cryptographic module conforms to the requirements specified in ISO/IEC 19790 and the test metrics specified in this International Standard for each of the associated security functions specified in ISO/IEC 19790 are specified in ISO/IEC 24759. The test approach employed in this International Standard is an efficient “push-button” approach: the tests are technically sound, repeatable and have moderate costs.

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Cryptographic-Module-Validation-Program

Mr. Randall J. Easter, (240) 361-8777, randall.easter@nist.gov

ITL has continued the development of an advanced Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) framework called the Policy Machine, which was designed to be in alignment with an emerging ANSI/INCITS standard under the title of “Next Generation Access Control” (NGAC).

The NIST Policy Machine research and development effort has resulted in three ongoing national standards projects in CS1 that are in the early stages of development. They include:

Mr. David Ferraiolo, (301) 975-3046, david.ferraiolo@nist.gov

Mr. Serban Gavrila, (301) 975-4343, serban.gavrila@nist.gov

In the area of Identity Tokens and Secure elements, ITL has provided the technical and editorial support of Mr. Ketan Mehta (CSD) in the development and amendment of American National Standard (ANS) 504, Generic Identity Command Set (GICS). GICS enables Personal Identity Verification (PIV), PIV-Interoperable (PIV-I) and Common Access Card (CAC) applications, and others, to be built from a single platform. GICS defines an open platform where identity applications can be instantiated, deployed, and used in an interoperable way between the credential issuers and credential users that aligns with the last revision of the NIST SP 800-73-4, Interfaces for Personal Identity Verification, (PIV) specifications.

During FY 2017, the ITL staff:

The ITL staff will continue to actively support relevant ID management standard initiatives, such as ISO/IEC 19286, Integrated circuit card (ICC) Privacy-enhancing protocols and services, and ISO/IEC 18328, ICC managed devices.

ITL participates in the development of online authentication specifications. These specifications are developed by the Fast Identities Online (FIDO) alliance, which is a consortium of private organizations. ITL also participates in the development of similar specifications (called WebAuthn) for web browsers that are being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Both the FIDO and WebAuthn specifications enable relying parties to create cryptographic tokens on the end-user’s device and subsequently use this cryptographic token to authenticate the end user. These specifications provide multi-factor authentication directives, and they are designed to mitigate common threat vectors for Internet communications, such as phishing, man-in-the-middle, and replay attacks.

ITL participates in the development of an ISO/IEC standard (ISO/IEC 7501) for electronic Passports. Specifically, ITL is contributing to the development of passport data structure and its access control. ITL reviews and comments on authentication protocols that are developed to ensure strong user authentication and to protect personally identifiable passport data.

ITL is also participating in the development of an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 18013) for an International Mobile Driver License (DL). ITL gathered and discussed functional and security requirements for Mobile DLs, and is now developing two models: offline and online. Once these models are fully defined, ITL plans to write technical specifications for each model.

Mr. Salvatore Francomacaro, (301) 975-6414, salvatore.francomacaro@nist.gov

Mr. Ketan Mehta, (301) 975-8405, ketan.mehta@nist.gov

During FY 2017, NIST ACD’s Trusted Identities Group (TIG) collaborated with representatives from the United Kingdom (U.K.) Cabinet Office and the Canadian Treasury Board to identify commonalities and work to align the digital identity standards and requirements among the respective national digital identity programs, particularly SP 800-63-3 for the U.S. and the U.K. Good Practice Guides (GPG). The goal in these efforts is to promote a vibrant market of internationally viable identity services and advance the secure exchange of digital identities while protecting the privacy of the subjects of those identities for cross-border transactions and mutual recognition. While primarily focused on developing a framework that would facilitate the establishment of a common set of requirements and standards across the three national programs, there was increasing interest from other national programs and industry in the work products and methodologies developed by this collaborative work. As a result, the group provided this work to the international community as a series of aligned joint contributions for international standardization.

The TIG contributions, in collaboration with their British and Canadian partners, were focused on establishing a synchronized core set of international identity management standards within the scope of the activities of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/WG 5, which oversees the development of international standards for identity management and privacy. The team provided contributions to synchronize and align the following ISO/IEC standards with the U.K., Canadian, and U.S. harmonization work:

Mr. David Temoshok, (202) 482-5475, david.temoshok@nist.gov

During FY 2017, NIST participated in standards activities exploring blockchain technologies, architectures, and use cases. These included participation in a new blockchain study group sponsored by the American Standards Committee X9, the financial services committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and continued work in the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) for Blockchains and Distributed Ledger Technologies (ISO/TC 307). Established in 2016, the initial objectives of ISO/TC 307 include defining key terms and concepts, exploring reference architectures, investigating use cases, and identifying identity and privacy implications within blockchain technologies and architectures. NIST has been participating in these activities via the national mirror committee within the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS). ISO/TC 307 will meet in November 2017, where the reports on these topics will be reviewed and new work will be established.

Mr. Dylan Yaga, (301)-975-6004, dylan.yaga@nist.gov

Dr. Lily Chen, (301) 975-6974, lily.chen@nist.gov

NIST/ITL has contributed to standardization activities for the IoT architecture and vocabulary during FY 2017 in three primary areas:

Focus was on the architecture, vocabulary, and recently, edge computing. In addition to working on standards related to these areas, NIST staff member Eric Simmon is the chair of the IIC commenting working group for reviewing the IEEE p2413 draft standard and is the liaison between ISO/IEC SC41-ISO/IEC SC38 (cloud computing).

The NIST staff has also participated to the activities in ISO/IEC SC27 relative to IoT Security. This activity will be further developed during FY 2018.

Mr. Eric Simmon, (301) 975-3956, eric.simmon@nist.gov

Ms. Katerina Megas, (202) 441-1147, katerina.megas@nist.gov

ITL is actively engaged with several key players in the Federal Government which look broadly at questions of IT standards, how to influence them, and how to use them. These participants include the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) E-Gov Office and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council, the Interagency Council on Standards Policy (ICSP), and the General Services Administration (GSA) Office of Government-wide Policy. Our goal in chairing the Standards Working Group is to solicit requirements from federal agencies, find the appropriate voluntary standards committee that is addressing these requirements and encourage participation to ensure the government requirements are being adequately met. Where standards are needed, ITL works closely with U.S. industry, standards development organizations, other government agencies, and leaders in the global standards community to develop standards that will support secure cloud computing.

ITL participation helps to ensure the alignment of NIST standards with those of ISO/IEC JTC 1 subcommittees, such as SC 27 IT Security techniques, SC 38 Cloud Computing and Distributed Platforms, and their U.S. counterparts, ANSI/ INCITS Cyber Security 1 (CS 1) and Cloud 38. The large number of standards being developed in SC 27 covering areas such as security, cryptography, privacy, supply chain, personally identifiable information (PII) processing or virtualization security, harmonize with many cloud computing standards being developed by these subcommittees.

The focus of implementing cloud computing is even more critical since the White House released an IT Modernization Report in September 2017 that includes recommendations for agencies to take steps to secure and modernize federal IT networks. Those steps for modernizing and consolidating networks point to cloud computing, modernization of government-hosted applications, and better security for legacy systems. Federal modernization efforts, such as those connected with the Modernizing Government Technology Act, may further enable agencies to accelerate investments in cloud and other new technologies.

Ms. Annie Sokol is a member of ITL’s Cloud Computing team and is the CSD representative in the standards development program. ITL provides technical and editorial representation in the development of national and international standards in both SC 27 and SC 38. Ms. Sokol is the co-editor of ISO/IEC 19941, Information technology–Cloud computing–Interoperability and portability, which is expected to be published by the end of 2017. The document is intended to establish a common understanding of cloud computing interoperability and portability. Both interoperability and portability offer more choices to cloud users by limiting the effects of being locked-in to any cloud service or cloud service provider. ISO/IEC 19941 joins many published cloud computing standards that were developed from NIST publications, such as:

Ms. Annie Sokol, (301) 975-2006, annie.sokol@nist.gov

Recognizing that the national and economic security of the United States depends on the reliable functioning of its critical infrastructure, the President issued Executive Order (EO) 13636: Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, in February of 2013. This EO directed NIST to work with stakeholders to develop a voluntary framework – based on existing standards, guidelines, and practices − for reducing cybersecurity risks to critical infrastructures.

The Cybersecurity Framework that was developed provides a prioritized, flexible, repeatable, performance-based, and cost-effective approach to help critical infrastructure owners and operators—as well as other interested entities—identify, assess, and manage cybersecurity-related risk while protecting business confidentiality, individual privacy, and civil liberties.

In FY 2017, NIST continued to work with a diverse stakeholder community to support the use and understanding of the Cybersecurity Framework. This process included:

Since the release of the Framework, NIST’s primary goal has been to raise awareness of the Framework and encourage its use as a tool to help industry sectors and organizations manage cybersecurity risks. NIST has strengthened its collaboration with critical infrastructure owners and operators, industry leaders, government partners, and other stakeholders— building on previous years’ interactions that were crucial to the Framework’s development.

In May 2017, Executive Order 13800 was released, directing federal agency heads to use the Framework to manage agencies’ cybersecurity risk. NIST released draft NISTIR 8170, The Cybersecurity Framework: Implementation Guidance for Federal Agencies, to provide information on how Federal agencies can use the Cybersecurity Framework—and in particular, how the Risk Management Framework and Cybersecurity Framework work together to help agencies develop, implement, and continuously improve their information security programs.

In FY 2018, NIST will continue to conduct stakeholder outreach and will work collaboratively to further understand stakeholder needs regarding tools and resources to enable more effective use of the Framework. Version 1.1 of the Framework is expected to be published, and NIST will continue to identify ways for the Framework to contribute to risk management initiatives.

https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework

Mr. Matt Barrett (301) 975-6259 matthew.barrett@nist.gov

Mr. Jeff Marron (301) 975-3846 jeffrey.marron@nist.gov

The FISMA Implementation Project focuses on:

During FY 2017, the ITL FISMA Implementation project continued to strengthen collaboration through the Joint Task Force (JTF) Transformation Initiative, which includes the Department of Defense (DoD), the Intelligence Community (IC), the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS), and various federal agencies. The JTF partners continue to develop and update key cybersecurity guidelines for protecting federal information and information systems as part of the Unified Information Security Framework. Previously, the JTF developed common security guidance in the critical areas of security controls for information systems and organizations, security assessment procedures to demonstrate security control effectiveness, security authorizations for risk acceptance decisions, and continuous monitoring activities to ensure that decision makers receive the most up-to-date information on the security state of their information systems. In addition, ITL continued to work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop guidelines for automation support for security control assessments on a security capability basis and in accordance with the NIST RMF as well as on developing guidance and a security controls overlay to protect federal high value assets.

In FY 2017, the ITL FISMA Team worked on the following initiatives:

management processes and activities at the executive level of the organization, with risk management activities at the system and operational level; institutionalizes enterprise-wide risk management preparatory activities to facilitate a more efficient and cost-effective execution of the Risk Management Framework at the system and operational level; demonstrates how the Cybersecurity Framework can be implemented using the established Risk Management Framework processes; and integrates privacy concepts into the Risk Management Framework. The implementation of SP 800-53, SP 800-37, and SP 800-137, Information Security Continuous Monitoring for Federal Information Systems and Organizations, provides organizations with near real-time information that is essential for senior leaders making ongoing risk-based decisions affecting their critical missions and business functions.

The FISMA Team also collaborated with DoD, the IC, DHS, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the OMB, the General Services Administration (GSA), the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the Inspectors General (IGs) on multiple projects to ensure consistency with FISMA-related guidance and to protect information in a way that is commensurate with risk. In addition, the FISMA Team served as co-chairs on the CNSS working groups.

In FY 2017, the FISMA Team completed the following activities:

In FY 2018, the FISMA Team intends to:

https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/risk-management

The ITL FISMA Team email is: sec-cert@nist.gov

Dr. Ron Ross, (301) 975-5390, ron.ross@nist.gov

Ms. Victoria Pillitteri, (301) 975-8542, victoria.pillitteri@nist.gov

Mr. Nedim Goren, (301) 975-5233, nedim.goren@nist.gov

Ms. Jody Jacobs, (301) 975-4728, jody.jacobs@nist.gov

Ms. Kelley Dempsey, (301) 975-2827, kelley.dempsey@nist.gov

Ms. Peggy Himes worked on this project until her recent retirement.

The NIST Privacy Engineering Program (PEP) supports the development of trustworthy information systems by applying measurement science and system engineering principles to the creation of frameworks, risk models, guidance, tools, and standards that protect privacy and, by extension, civil liberties.

In FY 2017, the PEP focused on advancing the development of privacy engineering and risk management processes and the deployment of privacy-enhancing technologies (as well as positioning NIST as a leader in privacy research). Many of the PEP’s efforts in FY 2017 were fueled by the OMB’s July 2016 update to Circular A-130, which emphasized federal agencies’ responsibilities to manage privacy risk, not just compliance risk, and now requires them to apply the NIST Risk Management Framework to their privacy programs.

In January 2017, the PEP reached a major milestone in advancing the development of privacy engineering and risk management processes with the finalization of NISTIR 8062, An Introduction to Privacy Engineering and Risk Management in Federal Systems (see https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8062). NISTIR 8062 introduces the concept of applying systems engineering practices to privacy and provides a new model for conducting privacy risk assessments on federal systems. It also presents the PEP’s initial roadmap (See Figure 3) for guidance development to help agencies more effectively meet new obligations under the revised Circular A-130.

In FY 2017, the PEP team collaborated with internal and external partners to successfully integrate privacy requirements and considerations into SP 800-63-3, Digital Identity Guidelines. The PEP team also collaborated to integrate privacy into the draft revisions of SPs 800-53, Revision 5, Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations, and 800-37, Revision 2, Risk Management Framework for Information Systems and Organizations, building the foundation of making privacy and security equal quality attributes in trustworthy systems. The PEP team also contributed privacy concepts to the Trusted Identities Group (TIG) measurement science effort, draft NISTIR 8112, Attribute Metadata.

Figure 3: PEP guidance roadmap for integrating privacy risk management into NIST SPs, featuring integrations underway during FY 2017 (highlighted in green).

The PEP team also contributed to ongoing standards and framework development efforts in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Alliance. Specifically, the PEP team worked on ISO/IEC 27552, which is a privacy-focused sector-specific extension of the information security-focused ISO/IEC 27001, and ISO/IEC 27550, a technical report on privacy engineering. The PEP team also supported the development of IEEE P7002, an effort in its early stages that also addresses privacy engineering. The PEP team also engaged with FIDO to help develop privacy-enhancing authentication specifications.

Continuing the ongoing series of NIST workshops on privacy engineering and risk management, building off the concepts introduced in NISTIR 8062, the PEP team hosted the June 2017 workshop, “Privacy Risk Assessment: A Prerequisite for Privacy Risk Management” (see https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/2017/06/privacy-risk-assessment-prerequisite-privacy-risk-management). Feedback received included the need for further integration of privacy into risk management and security guidance, a privacy-specific risk assessment model, and a toolset to manage privacy risk. These takeaways aligned well with the PEP team’s ongoing efforts and goals for future work.

In support of a privacy-specific risk assessment tool, the PEP team continued socializing the use of its Privacy Risk Assessment Methodology (PRAM) inside and outside the Federal Government. As of FY 2017, more than 30 public- and private-sector organizations have used or are using the PRAM, including participants in NIST’s trusted identities pilots and a few federal agencies.

The PEP team also collaborated on projects at the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), including the Privacy-Enhancing Identity Federation building block, which demonstrates the use of the NIST privacy engineering objectives (see https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/privacy-enhanced-identity-brokers).

The PEP team built upon NIST’s leadership role in privacy by serving in leadership positions and contributing to privacy expertise organizations across the public and private sectors. These leadership positions included: the chair of the Federal Privacy Council’s Risk Management Task Force and co-chair of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program’s Privacy Research and Development (R&D) Interagency Working Group. The PEP team also participated in the Internet Policy Task Force’s Privacy Working Group, the FIDO Alliance’s Privacy and Public Policy Working Group, and the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group.

In FY 2018, the PEP team will continue developing privacy risk management guidance for agencies, including finalizing SP 800-53 Revision 5, and SP 800-37 Revision 2. The PEP team will also collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to kick off the integration of privacy guidance into SP 800-53A Revision 5, Assessing Security and Privacy Controls in Federal Information Systems and Organizations, and implement the provisions of other documents laid out in the guidance roadmap. The PEP team will continue supporting the development of international standards focused on privacy engineering and risk management.

The PEP team will place a greater focus on its goal of advancing the deployment of privacy-enhancing technologies. The PEP team has already begun exploring whether stakeholders see a need for an online space where collaborators can discuss, learn about, and improve upon tools, solutions, and processes that support privacy engineering and risk management. The PEP team will also explore the management of privacy risk in leading-edge domains, such as the internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI). Specifically, the PEP team will collaborate with NIST’s Cybersecurity for the IoT program to tackle IoT-specific privacy challenges through workshops and guidance.

The PEP team will continue to seek leadership opportunities in public- and private-sector organizations to strengthen NIST’s position as a leader in privacy. Finally, the PEP team will continue working with a variety of organizations to manage privacy risk using the PRAM, such as using it in the NCCoE’s Mobile Device Security building block.

https://www.nist.gov/itl/privacy-engineering

PEP Team email: privacyeng@nist.gov

Ms. Naomi Lefkovitz, (301) 975-2924, naomi.lefkovitz@nist.gov

Ms. Ellen Nadeau, (202) 306-4033, ellen.nadeau@nist.gov

Ms. Katie Boeckl, (240) 753-9674, kaitlin.boeckl@nist.gov

Figure 4: C-SCRM Disciplines

Over the last several years, providing information and operational technology (IT/OT) for a supply chain has evolved into a complex, globally distributed, dynamic ecosystem enabling the development of highly refined, sophisticated, cost-effective, and reusable solutions. This ecosystem is composed of assorted entities with multiple tiers of outsourcing, global distribution routes, diverse technologies, and varying laws, policies, procedures, and practices, all of which interact throughout the life cycle of a system. Factors that allow for low-cost products, rapid innovation, and other benefits also increase the risk that the supply chain may be compromised in a way that results in risks to the end user and reduce the overall competitiveness of U.S. companies.

Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) lies at the intersection of information security, supply chain management, and enterprise risk management (Figure 4); it is the process of identifying, assessing, and mitigating the risks associated with the distributed and interconnected nature of IT/OT product and service supply chains. C-SCRM covers the entire life cycle of a system (including design, development, maintenance, and destruction), as supply chain threats and vulnerabilities may intentionally or unintentionally compromise an IT/OT product or service at any stage. These cyber supply chain risks may include the use of counterfeits, unauthorized production, tampering, theft, and insertion of malicious software and hardware, as well as poor manufacturing and development practices. As shown in Figure 5, C-SCRM is concerned with and involves a range of subjects, including safety, integrity, quality, reliability, and others, all within an overall environment of awareness.

Figure 5: C-SCRM Aspects

In FY 2017, NIST drafted NISTIR 8179, Criticality Analysis Process Model, a method for identifying and prioritizing IT/OT systems and components. This model is intended to increase an organization’s ability to make cost-effective risk decisions by determining the systems and components that have the most impact on the organization and that would potentially cause the most harm if compromised. Figure 6 shows an overview of the model, which includes separate analyses at the program, system, and component level, and then a trace-back exercise to complete the analysis. NIST will finalize this publication in FY 2018 and will begin to research and write guidance that builds on this model to identify critical suppliers and service providers.

Figure 6: Criticality Analysis Process Overview

During 2017, NIST continued to research the state of C-SCRM in both the public and private sectors, related standards and initiatives, effective practices, and metrics. NIST joined with the GSA and the University of Maryland under a contract and grant awarded in FY 2016 to conduct cyber analytics research on the effectiveness of various risk management practices. The effort neared conclusion in FY 2017 and found correlations between certain practices and publicly disclosed data breaches. A report on the research will be published in FY 2018.

Similarly, NIST began research in FY 2017 to identify metrics that are currently used in organizations to measure information security risks. This research included a review of over 200 published standards, academic papers, organizational white-papers, and other documents and interviews with a dozen industry experts on the state of metrics in this field. The research will be continued and published in FY 2018.

NIST continued to co-chair a working group with the DoD to revise CNSSD 505, Supply Chain Risk Management, which assigns responsibilities and establishes minimum criteria for the development and deployment of supply chain risk management capabilities for national security systems. In FY 2017, the group completed the revision of CNSSD 505 and developed a self-assessment tool to help agencies measure their capabilities and compare those capabilities to those of other agencies.

NIST also sponsored the Software and Supply Chain Assurance (SSCA) Forum and Working Groups, the purpose of which is to bring together a stakeholder community of government, industry, and academic experts in this field. Meetings are held three to four times a year and cover a variety of subjects of interest to attendees (see the website at https://csrc.nist.gov/scrm/ssca).

NIST began working in FY 2017 to integrate C-SCRM into existing risk management programs and processes. The draft Cybersecurity Framework v1.1 and Draft SP 800-53 Revision 5 were both updated to better include up-to-date C-SCRM guidance. In FY 2018, NIST will continue this work by including or updating existing C-SCRM concepts in other publications as they are developed.

In FY 2018, NIST will continue to collaborate with stakeholders in government, industry, and academia to conduct research, produce needed standards and guidance, and seek opportunities to create greater awareness across all sectors and types and sizes of organizations. NIST will:

https://scrm.nist.gov

Cyber SCRM Team email: scrm-nist@nist.gov

Ms. Celia Paulsen, (301) 975-5981, celia.paulsen@nist.gov

Mr. Jon Boyens, (301) 975-5549, jon.boyens@nist.gov

Cyber supply chain risk management (hardware and software assurance and assured services) has become a topic of core strategic concern for business and government leaders worldwide and is an essential component of an enterprise risk management strategy. The Software and Supply Chain Assurance (SSCA) Forum provides a venue for government, industry, and academic participants from around the world to share their knowledge and expertise regarding cyber supply chain risks, effective practices and mitigation strategies, tools and technologies, and any gaps related to the people, processes, or technologies involved.

The effort, initiated in 2003, is co-led by NIST, DHS, DoD and GSA, and serves approximately 3,000 stakeholders. Participants represent a diverse group of career professionals, including government officials, chief information security officers, those in academia with cybersecurity and supply chain specialties, system administrators, engineers, consultants, vendors, software developers, managers, analysts, specialists in IT and cybersecurity, and many more fields. The SSCA Forum meets two to three times per year and is free and open to all interested participants, both nationally and internationally.

While the general intent is to share information, the SSCA Forum also offers government and private-sector participants an opportunity to openly collaborate by presenting and receiving feedback on current and potential future work. Most events are two to three days long and contain a mixture of discussion and presentation. To encourage open interaction, SSCA Forum meetings operate under the Chatham House Rule, meaning “participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed,” though most speakers allow NIST to post their presentations.

The SSCA Forum also maintains an extensive email subscription service. To receive information about upcoming meetings and related publications and activities, please sign up for the SSCA Forum mailing list, operated by NIST, by sending a blank email to sw.assurance-join@nist.gov.

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Supply-Chain-Risk-Management/SSCA

Ms. Celia Paulsen, (301) 975-5981, celia.paulsen@nist.gov

Mr. Jon Boyens, (301) 975-5549, jon.boyens@nist.gov

ITL supports the development of biometric conformance testing methodology standards and other conformity assessment efforts through active technical participation in the development of these standards and the development of associated conformance test software, architectures and test suites, collectively known as Biometric Conformance Test Software (BioCTS). These test tools are developed to promote the adoption of these standards and to support users, product developers, and testing labs that require conformance to selected biometric standards. ITL contributes to the development of biometric standards and participates in the INCITS Technical Committee M1 – Biometrics and related subcommittees and in ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee (JTC) 1 Subcommittee (SC) 37 – Biometrics standards bodies.

In early 2017, a suite of BioCTS applications was released to support user-defined requirements and profiles for ANSI/NIST-ITL (AN-ITL) specifications. These applications make use of configuration files to dynamically generate parsing rules and conformance requirements for nearly any version or profile of the AN-ITL standard. The configuration files utilize an Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based format called ANSI/NIST-ITL Machine Readable Tables (MRTs) (see Figure 7 for an example output). The BioCTS AN-ITL applications that use MRTs are collectively referred to as BioCTS AN MRT.

The development of BioCTS applications traditionally relied on the publication of Conformance Testing Methodology (CTM) documentation, which specified the test assertions required to assess conformance to requirements found in the related biometric standard. Manual software development was then required to code each of the assertions listed in the CTM documentation. This process required a large amount of development time after the publication of the standard and related CTM, and often resulted in long delays in the release of conformance tools. This approach also defined conformance tests statically, meaning that:

To alleviate these issues, the new version of BioCTS was designed to allow a modification of test assertions and parsing rules. This approach required a configuration file to specify requirements and allow the software to respond to the needs of the end user.

BioCTS AN MRT had two releases in FY 2017. The first release included a command line interface (CLI) as well as a graphical user interface (GUI). It supported Level-1 testing, file format testing that checks for the allowed content, length, and value for five different standards and profiles specified within the AN MRTs. Since the MRT files can be combined to support multiple standards, updates and profiles, BioCTS AN MRT was designed to allow users to test against multiple standards during a single test.

Figure 7 - BioCTS AN MRT Testing Multiple Standards Within Single Test

The second release included further refinements of the existing tools, and expanded the testing capabilities to include Level-2 testing, or the testing of inter-field as well as inter-record relationships, checking data between two or more related data fields. The current release of BioCTS AN MRT supports all Level-1 and Level-2 tests defined by the MRTs.

Work on BioCTS AN MRT continued through FY 2017, and an additional release that supports expanded character sets, as well as additional enhancements, is expected to be released in FY 2018.

BioCTS - Biometric Conformance Test Tool Homepage:

https://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/biometrics/biometric-conformance-test-software-biocts

BioCTS AN MRT:

https://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/biometrics/biocts-machine-readable-tables

BioCTS AN MRT Changelog:

https://www.nist.gov/file/384611

BioCTS AN MRT User Guide:

https://www.nist.gov/file/384606

Mr. Dylan Yaga, (301) 975-6004, dylan.yaga@nist.gov

In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to encourage the upgrade of voting equipment across the United States. HAVA established the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), chaired by the Director of NIST. HAVA directs NIST to provide technical support to the EAC and TGDC in efforts related to human factors, security, and laboratory accreditation.

NIST and the EAC established a set of public working groups to inform the development of a new version of the Volunary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG). The NIST and EAC goals are to accelerate the development and adoption of the VVSG by leading these working groups in close consultation with election officials, voting system manufacturers, standards bodies, academic researchers, and other members of the public. These working groups focus on multiple voting system technology areas, including accessibility, usability, interoperability, security, testing and certification.

The cybersecurity public working group designed principles and guidelines to form the basis for the security requirements in the new version of the VVSG. Although 15 principles exist, the security-related principles include auditability, ballot secrecy, physical security, access control, system integrity, detection and monitoring, and data protection. Many of these principles are already included in previous iterations of the federal standards, whereas others are new areas of focus (e.g., system integrity). These principles and guidelines were presented to, and adopted by, the Technical Guidelines and Development Committee (TGDC).

In FY 2018, NIST will continue leading the public working groups to inform the development of voting system requirements based on the principles and guidelines. Additionally, test assertions will be developed to improve the quality and consistency of testing activities by accredited voting system test laboratories (VSTLs).

https://vote.nist.gov

Mr. Joshua Franklin, (301) 975-8463, joshua.franklin@nist.gov

Ms. Gema Howell, (301) 975-6299, gema.howell@nist.gov

Mr. Andrew Regenscheid, (301) 975-5155, andrew.regenenscheid@nist.gov

Source: https://www.pscr.gov/

In February 2012, Congress passed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act. One portion of this legislation calls for the establishment of a nationwide, interoperable public-safety broadband network based on the 3rd Generation Partnership Project’s (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. The network will be deployed and operated by the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet). The planned Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) will “create a much needed nationwide interoperable broadband network that will help police, firefighters, emergency medical service professionals and other public safety officials stay safe and do their jobs” (see https://www.ntia.doc.gov/category/public-safety). NIST is directed to conduct research and development that supports the acceleration and advancement of the nationwide network.

In FY 2017, CSD, ACD, and the NCCoE continued to support the joint National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and NIST Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program (see https://www.pscr.gov) with efforts in public-safety mobile-application security, identity management, data and application isolation technologies, wearable devices, and broadband standards. The PSCR’s Annual Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder Conference, held in June 2017, continued to be a valuable venue for ITL to provide updates on each of our ongoing projects. The conference also provided a venue to directly interface with the public safety and first responder communities.

The mobile devices that will operate on the NPSBN will be utilized in unique ways when compared to their public counterparts. The same device(s) will likely be shared between public safety officials as each individual goes on and off duty. Furthermore, there will be a need for flexible distribution and credentialing of devices and users in situations where multiple public safety organizations are called into action. To facilitate these needs NIST, through the NCCoE, piloted a proof-of-concept single sign on (SSO) for mobile applications on iOS and Android.

Due to the vital nature of first responder activities, the mobile applications that will serve public safety in their mission will require more scrutiny when evaluated for software bugs and vulnerabilities than applications targeted at the public. In FY 2017, NIST continued to expand its expertise in mobile application vetting tools and practices. In addition to publishing NISTIR 8136, An Overview of Mobile Application Vetting Services for Public Safety, ACD, in conjunction with NIST Software and System’s Division (SSD), expanded the Static Analysis Tool Exposition (SATE) to include mobile application analysis for the first time. This exposition seeks to improve methods for measuring the effectiveness of mobile application vetting tools.

ITL continued to participate in the standards development process for LTE technology within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), supporting security requirements for public safety that are related to Proximity Services (ProSe), Group Communication System Enablers (GCSE), and Mission Critical Push-To-Talk (MCPTT). NIST also broadened its participation in 3GPP’s 5th Generation Mobile Networks (5G). In addition, researchers broadened their scope within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to include efforts related to public safety.

In FY 2018, CSD and ACD will continue to strengthen NIST’s relationship with both public safety and commercial telecom stakeholders. Work concerning mobile application vetting and cyber security will continue to evolve as NIST refines both its methods for tool evaluation as well as its corpus of test cases used in those evaluations. PSCR is working diligently to fund grants and prize challenges to both solve current problems and fill future gaps in public safety broadband technology. In FY 2018, ITL will also take on a crucial role in this work by providing cybersecurity expertise and guidance in the administration of these awards.

Mr. Michael Ogata, (301) 975-6993, michael.ogata@nist.gov

Dr. Nelson Hastings, (301) 975-5237, nelson.hastings@nist.gov

NIST’s Industrial Control System (ICS) cybersecurity effort is focused on providing guidance and insights into the domain of securing connected physical systems. ACD is supporting the NIST Engineering Laboratory’s (EL) effort to develop and implement guidance aimed at effectively securing ICS, initially focusing on Smart Manufacturing Environments. Using an ICS cybersecurity testbed, a portion of which is shown in Figure 8, NIST will measure the network and operational performance of these systems when instrumented with cybersecurity protections, in accordance with the best practices and requirements prescribed by national and international standards and guidelines. Examples of such standards and guidelines include International Society of Automation (ISA) standard ISA/IEC-62443 and SP 800-82 Revision 2, Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security (see https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-82r2.pdf).

Industrial Control Systems are an essential component in manufacturing environments. Increasing reliance on technology, communication, and the interconnectivity of ICS and IT has expanded the potential vulnerabilities and increased the potential risk to manufacturing operations. While these manufacturing systems become smarter and increasingly connected, providing a tremendous increase in value and efficiency, they also present a new challenge: “How is cybersecurity effectively applied to this connected domain?”

Figure 8: Collaborative robotics portion of the ICS cybersecurity testbed

The ICS cybersecurity team has used existing standards, in conjunction with the NIST Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, to develop a target profile for applying cybersecurity protections within manufacturing environments. The development of this profile helps establish a roadmap for reducing cybersecurity risk for manufacturers that is aligned with manufacturing sector goals and industry best practices. The profile tailors existing cybersecurity control language to be more aligned with operational technology environments, focusing on desired cybersecurity outcomes to identify opportunities for improving the current cybersecurity posture of a manufacturing system. Through a session during the 2016 Cybersecurity Framework Workshop and two public comment periods, the team solicited feedback from industry partners to help solidify the content in the profile. The Cybersecurity Framework Manufacturing Profile was published as NISTIR 8183 (see https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2017/NIST.IR.8183.pdf).

In 2018, NIST will continue the process of applying the guidance presented in the Manufacturing Profile by implementing the recommended cybersecurity controls within the ICS cybersecurity testbed. This application of cybersecurity controls in an ICS environment will enable the measuring and understanding of the network and operational performance impacts that cybersecurity protections have on these systems. In addition to providing performance data, this project will produce documentation relating to the implementation intricacies and special requirements presented by these non-traditional environments.

https://www.nist.gov/itl/privacy-engineering

Mr. Jeffrey Cichonski, (301) 975-3293, jeffrey.cichonski@nist.gov

Mr. Keith Stouffer (EL), (301) 975-3877, keith.stouffer@nist.gov

In December 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) that gave NIST a leading role in the coordination and acceleration of smart grid interoperability and security standards in collaboration with the private sector. The NIST Smart Grid program is led by the Engineering Laboratory (EL) with support from the Physical Measurement and Information Technology Laboratories. The objective of the program is to advance the measurement science that will increase asset utilization and efficiency, improve grid reliability, and enable greater use of renewable energy sources in the grid through research, standardization, testing and implementation of the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Framework.

In the Spring of 2017, the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) merged with the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA). SEPA’s Smart Grid Cybersecurity Committee (SGCC) is led by an ITL representative. The SGCC conducts regular outreach regarding cybersecurity issues related to the smart grid, including such topics as identity and key management. Examples of this outreach include bi-weekly calls and support to the SEPA Grid Evolution Summit held on July 25-27, 2017 in Washington, D.C., where the SGCC held its annual face-to-face meeting and included a presentation on the public key infrastructure by ACD’s Tim Polk. In addition to participating in SEPA’s SGCC, CSD and ACD personnel are participating in SEPA’s OpenFMB working groups to support cybersecurity capabilities.

In FY 2017, researchers from ITL worked on defining a grid edge experiment to understand the performance impact of cybersecurity capabilities on resource-constrained components of the grid. In addition, researchers explored how to leverage and incorporate cybersecurity risk management into the next version of the Smart Grid Interoperability Framework. ITL experts supported the Department of Energy (DoE) Cyber Resilient Energy Delivery Consortium (CREDC) program by participating in their Annual Industry Workshop in Tempe, AZ and program peer review held in Washington, D.C. Through a grant to the University of New Hampshire, NIST supported research into adding security mechanisms to the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP).

In FY 2018, ITL will continue to coordinate with EL and the Smart Grid Program in the development of the next version of the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Framework 2.0 and in an execution of the grid edge experiment on the NIST Smart Grid Testbed. ITL will continue to chair SEPA’s SGCC and support the DoE CREDC program, and will look for and explore opportunities to collaborate with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) about smart grid cybersecurity.

https://www.nist.gov/engineering-laboratory/smart-grid

https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/cybersecurity-smart-grid-systems

https://sepapower.org

Dr. Nelson Hastings, (301) 975-5237, nelson.hastings@nist.gov

Outstanding computer security is based on software implementations that minimize the existence of vulnerabilities. To develop processes that deliver high-quality software, it is vital to be able to find, characterize, and categorize vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and faults that appear in code. Processes can then be improved to preclude these faults, detect them earlier, or build in mitigations for them. The NIST Software Assurance Metrics And Tool Evaluation (SAMATE) program promotes effective software assurance processes and also evaluates methods for automated tools to provide confidence that software is free from vulnerabilities. The SAMATE program has three primary components: the Software Assurance Reference Dataset (SARD), the Static Analysis Tool Exposition (SATE), and the Bugs Framework (BF).

SARD is a public repository of hundreds of thousands of computer programs with known security flaws (see https://samate.nist.gov/SARD). The programs are primarily in five computer languages, C, C++, Java, PHP, and C#, and include synthetic test cases (small programs written as tests), open-source production programs, and production programs with vulnerabilities injected. See Figure 9 for a graph of the size, type, and languages of the test cases. This rich collection allows software developers to assess tools and helps tool developers to refine their techniques.

SARD includes contributions from government organizations, such as the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), academia, and industry. In FY 2017, mobile applications and test cases used in former Static Analysis Tool Expositions were added to SARD.

Figure 9: Graph of Size, Type, and Languages Of Test Cases in SARD

The sixth instance of SATE began in FY 2017. The SAMATE prepares test cases to measure the strengths of tools in finding source code that may lead to serious breaches. More than a dozen tool makers will run their software analysis tools on these test cases. NIST researchers, aided by others in the software assurance community, analyzed the tool reports and publicly reported their experiences at a workshop. The purpose of SATE is to understand the state of technology and society’s justified confidence in software. SATE VI has three tracks: the classic track, a track to assess mobile application vetting services, and the Ockham track for sound analysis. For more information, see https://samate.nist.gov/SATE.html.

Just as the medical profession has vocabulary to precisely indicate anatomy, symptoms, and diseases, the BF seeks to improve the science of secure software by providing orthogonal, unambiguous language for software professionals. The BF comprises classes of software faults, including their attributes, causes, and consequences. Figure 10 illustrates the causal graph for buffer overflow (BOF) faults. FY 2017 updates include eight classes (including three cryptography classes):

Definitions, examples, and causal graphs of these classes and links to publications are available at https://samate.nist.gov/BF.

Figure 10: Causal Graph for Buffer Overflow

Dr. Paul E. Black (301) 975-4794 paul.black@nist.goV

Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program provides a framework in which many federal agencies come together to coordinate their networking and IT research and development (R&D) efforts. NIST remained committed to the value of communicating its R&D efforts to other federal colleagues and identifying the opportunities to support R&D efforts throughout the Federal Government.

NIST is a consistent presence at the monthly cybersecurity meetings with Bill Newhouse, National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Security Engineer and the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Deputy Director, as the co-chair of the Cyber Security and Information Assurance Interagency Working Group (CSIA IWG). During FY 2017, NIST provided updates to the CSIA IWG describing the updates to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, SP 800-53, Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations, and the NICE program.

Naomi Lefkowitz, Senior Privacy Policy Advisor at NIST, co-chairs the Privacy R&D IWG, which coordinates the multidisciplinary research and development conducted by NITRD agencies that seek to produce knowledge and technologies that identify and mitigate emerging risks to our privacy, and that enables individuals, companies, and the government to benefit from technological advancements while being able to effectively balance the resulting benefits with resulting risks to privacy. The activity involves research into and development of methods for characterizing privacy expectations, understanding privacy violations, engineering privacy-protecting systems, recovering from privacy violations, and the impact of privacy on public policy and of public policy on privacy.

Ram Sriram is the co-chair of NITRD’s Software Productivity, Sustainability, and Quality (SPSQ) Interagency Working Group (IWG). Robert B. Bohn is the co-chair of NITRD’s Faster Administration of S&T Education and Research (FASTER) Community of Practice (CoP). Barry I. Schneider is co-chair of High End Computing (HEC) IWG. Chris Greer and Al Wavering from NIST’s Engineering Laboratory co-chair NITRD’s Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) IWG and the High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) IWG, respectively.

Tim Polk is the principal NIST participant in the biweekly coordination activities of the federal Special Cyber Operations Research and Engineering (SCORE) Committee. SCORE enables technology transfer through the sharing of NIST cybersecurity expertise and publications with researchers throughout the Federal Government. The SCORE committee interacts with federal leaders and reports to the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Homeland and National Security.

All the NIST leaders for interagency coordination leverage these working groups and committees to communicate powerfully about NIST’s research, frameworks, and publications and bring back insights and activities relevant to NIST’s work.

https://www.nitrd.gov

Mr. Bill Newhouse (301) 975-0232 william.newhouse@nist.gov

Digital evidence includes software, hardware, and data on computers and mobile devices (e.g., audio, video, and image files). Digital evidence can be a part of investigating most crimes, since material relevant to the crime may be recorded in digital form. Methods for securely acquiring, storing and analyzing digital evidence quickly and efficiently are critical. ITL promotes the efficient and effective use of computer technology to investigate crimes. The project team develops tools for testing computer forensic software, including test criteria and test sets. ITL also maintains the National Software Reference Library (NSRL) – a vast archive of published software applications that is an important resource for both criminal investigators and historians.

National Software Reference Library

The NSRL is designed to collect software from various sources and incorporate file profiles computed from this software into a Reference Data Set (RDS) of information. The RDS can be used by law enforcement, government, and industry organizations to review files on a computer by matching file profiles in the RDS. This will help alleviate much of the effort involved in determining which files are important as evidence on computers or file systems that have been seized as part of criminal investigations. The NSRL also provides a research environment to promote the development of new forensics techniques and other applications in computer science.

The RDS continues to be the premier software resource and, in FY 2017, the NSRL published four releases. There are currently 23,000 microcomputer applications and 160,000 mobile device applications yielding a combined total of 326 million files. In FY 2017, the NSRL was expanded to include mobile applications and to include the profiles obtained from installing and exercising applications.

Computer Forensics Tool Testing Project

There is a critical need in the law enforcement community to ensure the reliability of computer forensic tools. The goal of the Computer Forensic Tool Testing (CFTT) project at NIST is to establish a methodology for testing computer forensic software tools by the development of general tool specifications, test procedures, test criteria, test sets, and test hardware. The project is intended to provide the information necessary for toolmakers to improve tools, for users to make informed choices about acquiring and using computer forensics tools, and for interested parties to understand the capabilities of the tools. The project team’s approach for testing computer forensic tools is based on well-recognized international methodologies for conformance testing and quality testing that ensures that forensic software tools consistently produce accurate and objective test results.

In FY 2016, the CFTT project expanded to allow forensics testers to use the NIST testing methodology in their own labs and to produce standardized test reports for disk imaging forensic tools. In FY 2017, federated testing was further expanded with three major updates: a revision to disk-imaging testing, the addition of mobile device tool testing and hardware write-blocker testing. In FY 2018, the project will be expanded to support string searching and forensic media preparation. The forensic community is beginning to use federated testing to test tools and share test reports. The CFTT project also maintains the Forensics Tool Catalog and the Computer Forensics Reference Data Sets (CFReDS). The Tool Catalog website is a community-sourced catalog of forensic tools aided by a taxonomy of forensic tools. The Tool Catalog grew by 17 tools in FY 2017. The CFReDS data sets are used in a variety of settings, such as university classes, to try out forensics tools on known data.

https://www.nsrl.nist.gov, https://toolcatalog.nist.gov, https://www.cfreds.nist.gov. and https://www.cftt.nist.gov

Mr. Doug White, (301) 975-4761, doug.white@nist.gov

Dr. Jim Lyle, (301) 975-3270, james.lyle@nist.gov

Figure 11: The Seven Categories of the NICE Framework

Since 2010 NIST’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) seeks to foster, energize, and promote a robust network and an integrated ecosystem of cybersecurity education, training, and workforce development. NICE has been focusing on efforts to achieve this by aligning to three goals: 1) accelerate learning and skills development, 2) nurture a diverse learning community, and 3) guide career development and workforce planning.

In support of goal 1, in November 2016, CyberSeek was launched to provide a visualization of the demand for and supply of cybersecurity workers across the nation (see http://cyberseek.org). At its launch, the tool also provided a visualization of career pathways in cybersecurity. The data from this tool, in part, has helped NICE develop an executive overview white paper on Cybersecurity Workforce Demand. In FY 2017, NICE also supported goal one through the development of a paper regarding Cybersecurity Apprenticeships. This report and other white papers developed by NICE authors are available at https://www.nist.gov/itl/applied-cybersecurity/nice/resources/one-pagers.

In support of goal 2, NICE hosted a Veterans in Cybersecurity Workshop in March 2017. This workshop convened approximately 40 representatives of federal and state government, branches of the military, industry, and workforce development organizations to explore issues, discuss initiatives and better understand the gaps that exist in helping our veterans transition to careers in cybersecurity.

In support of goal 3, NICE published SP 800-181, The NICE Framework, in August 2017 (see https://nist.gov/nice/framework). The NICE Framework establishes a taxonomy and common lexicon that is to be used to describe all cybersecurity work and workers, irrespective of where or for whom the work is performed. Figure 11 shows the seven categories of the NICE Framework. These categories further break down into Specialty Areas, Work Roles, Tasks, and Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs).

Figure 12: Clarence Williams, Lead for Government Engagement at NICE, and Rodney Petersen, Director of NICE, speak with an attendee at the CyberSecureGov Conference in Washington, D.C.

NICE continued its coordination with academic, industry and government partners throughout the year at various meetings, workshops and events. In August 2017, NICE held a workshop in Chicago, Illinois. This workshop, along with a Request for Information that NICE issued, provided information to inform work and to prepare a report to the President on the findings and recommendations about supporting the growth and sustainment of the nation’s cybersecurity workforce in the public and private sectors.

In FY 2018, NICE will continue to promote and coordinate annual NICE activities such as the NICE Quarterly eNewsletter; the NICE Webinar Series; the NICE Conference to be held on November 7-8, 2017 in Dayton, Ohio; and the NICE K-12 Cybersecurity Education Conference to be held December 4-5, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee. NICE will also kick off the first annual National Cybersecurity Career Awareness Week on November 13-18, 2017 to focus local, regional, and national interest to inspire, educate, and engage children through adults to pursue careers in cybersecurity.

https://www.nist.gov/itl/applied-cybersecurity/nice

Mr. Rodney Petersen, (301) 975-8897, rodney@nist.gov

Ms. Danielle Santos, (301) 975-5048, danielle.santos@nist.gov

For more than 20 years, the CSRC website has provided stakeholders with significant information about ITL’s cybersecurity research and testing programs. Consistently one of the most-visited websites at NIST, CSRC is used by several ITL divisions to communicate information about NIST’s cybersecurity and privacy programs and projects, research, validation testing, software tools, and other areas of interest to NIST’s customers in government, industry, academia and elsewhere, both within the U.S. and globally.

The CSRC website serves as a primary NIST repository of cybersecurity and privacy standards, guidelines, and technical documents. Refer to the Publications Released in FY 2017 section of this annual report for details about the ITL Cybersecurity Program’s publications released in FY 2017.

CSRC’s most significant event occurred in September 2017, with the launch of a completely redesigned, content management system-based website. In addition to aligning with the main NIST website’s look and feel, the new CSRC website is organized around several primary content types to make information easier to find and maintain: projects, publications, news, events and presentations. A new taxonomy of topics is used to tag content site-wide, and an online, searchable glossary of information security terminology expands on the terms identified in NISTIR 7298 Revision 2. One of the most noticeable changes is a vastly improved publications section, in terms of content, searchability, and browsing. At the end of FY 2017, the site provided detailed information about more than 1,200 of NIST’s current and historical information security publications.

The CSRC Redesign Team designed the site’s architecture and interface to significantly improve site navigation, search, and the ability of ITL staff to maintain and contribute content. The site also uses responsive design to greatly improve CSRC’s usability on mobile devices. More than 21,000 individual content items were transferred from the legacy site, and in February 2017, ITL successfully launched a beta version of the new site. Feedback from beta-site users over seven months was incorporated by the CSRC Redesign Team to fix bugs, implement enhancements, and refine the site’s look and feel. The team considered all comments it received, and made every effort to implement those suggestions. After making significant, gradual improvements to the beta site, NIST launched the new CSRC on September 18, 2017, while simultaneously retiring the legacy site.

In FY 2018, the CSRC Redesign Team will continue to enhance the content, functionality and usability of the new site, striving to provide a better and more useful experience to site users.

The CSRC team maintains an email subscription list with more than 78,000 subscribers worldwide. Subscribers receive notifications when news updates, event details, and publication information—including the release of draft publications for public comment—are posted to CSRC. To review the available lists and subscribe, visit https://csrc.nist.gov/ and in the page footer click either the envelope icon or the “Subscribe to CSRC Updates” link. Additional NIST/ITL Cybersecurity topics are available including: Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) news; Cybersecurity Framework; National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE); ITL’s Trusted Identity Group (TIG), and several lists for the NCCoE.

https://csrc.nist.gov

Questions regarding the CSRC website can be sent to the CSRC Webmasters at: webmaster-csrc@nist.gov

Mr. Patrick O’Reilly, (301) 975-4751, patrick.oreilly@nist.gov

Ms. Nicole Keller, (301) 975-3648, nicole.keller@nist.gov

The Federal Computer Security Managers’ Forum (the Forum) is sponsored by NIST to promote the sharing of security-related information among federal agencies. The Forum, which serves more than 1,000 members, strives to provide an ongoing opportunity for managers of federal information security programs to exchange information security materials in a timely manner, build upon the experiences of other programs, and to reduce possible duplication of efforts. It provides a mechanism for NIST to share information directly with federal agency information security managers in fulfillment of NIST’s leadership mandate under FISMA. The Forum also assists NIST in establishing and maintaining relationships with other individuals and organizations that are actively addressing information security issues within the Federal Government. During FY 2017, CSD’s Victoria Pillitteri and Jody Jacobs served as Co-Chairs, and Peggy Himes from ACD served as the Secretariat of the Forum, providing administrative and logistical support. Additionally, during FY 2017, the FCSM webpage was significantly restructured and updated to ensure that presentation information, both current and archived, is delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible.

The Forum maintains an extensive email subscription service/listserv. Participation in the service is restricted to those Federal and State Government employees and their designated support contractors with a role in the management of their organization’s information system security program. The email listserv offers an open forum for information sharing of best practices and recommendations, and serves as a resource for this community of interest.

The Forum conducts quarterly meetings and an annual two-day conference for a discussion of current issues and topics of interest to those responsible for supporting the information security programs of federal agencies.

Discussion topics at the quarterly FCSM meetings in FY 2017 included briefings on:

FY 2017’s annual two-day meeting was held at NIST on June 20-21, 2017 with over 220 attendees. Presentations included the current technical, operational and management information systems security topics and updates on the information system security activities of OMB, General Services Administration (GSA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NARA, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), National Weather Service (NOAA), Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and NIST. A first ever “ask the experts” panel was held where attendees could ask subject matter experts on security, privacy, and procurement-related questions. Most presentations from the two-day offsite and monthly meetings are available online (see https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Forum/Archived-Events-and-Presentations).

The following is a list of presentations that were given at the annual two-day meeting:

The Forum plays a valuable role in helping NIST and other federal agencies develop and maintain a strong, proactive stance in the identification and resolution of new strategic and tactical IT security issues as they emerge. The email list of interested parties has steadily increased in size and provides a valuable resource for Federal and State security program managers.

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Forum

Ms. Victoria Pillitteri, (301) 975-8542, victoria.pillitteri@nist.gov

Ms. Jody Jacobs, (301) 975-4728, jody.jacobs@nist.gov

The Federal Information Systems Security Educators’ Association (FISSEA), founded in 1987, is an organization hosted by NIST for information system security professionals to assist federal agencies in meeting their information system’s security awareness, training, and education responsibilities. FISSEA strives to elevate the general level of information system security knowledge for the Federal Government and the federal workforce. It also seeks to assist the professional development of its members.

FISSEA membership is open to information system security professionals, professional trainers and educators, and managers responsible for information system security training programs in federal agencies, as well as contractors of these agencies and faculty members of accredited educational institutions who are involved in information security training and education. Willingness to share products, information, and experiences is all that is required to become a FISSEA member. A working group meets monthly to administer business activities.

FISSEA maintains a website and a mailing list, and participates in a social networking site as a means of communication for its members. CSD assists FISSEA with its operations by providing staff support for several of its activities and by being FISSEA’s host agency.

The 30th Annual FISSEA Conference occurred on June 19, 2017 at NIST. The FISSEA audience included managers responsible for information systems security awareness, training, certifications, workforce identification, compliance, etc. in federal agencies; contractors providing awareness and training support; and faculty members of accredited educational institutions who are involved in information security training and education. Clarence Williams, Peggy Himes, Gretchen Morris (DB Consulting Group/NASA), and other members of the FISSEA Working Group, were integral to the effort to support the conference.

This year’s theme was “Securing the Future to Infinity and Beyond: Improving Cybersecurity through Awareness, Training, and Education”. Attendees gained new techniques for developing/conducting training, cost-effective practices, considerations for compliance, and free resources and contacts. Over 150 cybersecurity training professionals attended the one-day conference.

NIST’s ITL Director, Charles Romine, welcomed attendees to the event. FISSEA Lifetime Member, Louis Numkin, provided a historical timeline of FISSEA, recognizing 30 years of providing a platform for security specialists to collaborate, network, and learn.

Presenters represented NIST, DHS, DoD, HHS, private industry, and academia. Attendees had an opportunity to share about their specific awareness and training programs throughout the conference.

The FISSEA Educator of the Year Award was established to recognize and honor a contemporary who is making special efforts to create, build, manage, or inspire an information systems security awareness, training, or education program. Gretchen Morris, 2015 FISSEA Educator of the Year, presented the 2016 FISSEA Educator of the Year Award to Professor Sushil Jajodia of George Mason University. Mrs. Morris shared Mr. Jajodia’s contributions to the cybersecurity education industry by characterizing his contributions in three ways: as an educationist, a researcher, and a thought leader. Professor Jajodia was presented with a plaque as recognition of his achievements in the security community.

Other traditional FISSEA conference events included announcing the winners of the FISSEA security contest. The FISSEA Security Awareness, Training & Education Contest includes five categories from one of FISSEA’s three key areas of Awareness, Training, and Education. A winner is selected from each category and awarded a certificate. The categories include: (1) an awareness poster; (2) an awareness website; (3) a motivational item (e.g., trinkets, pens, stress relief items and t-shirts); (4) an awareness newsletter; (5) an interactive scenario/exercise; and (6) an awareness video

Awarded Certificates at the Conference (selected by an impartial judging committee prior to the conference):

Publicly available YouTube video Uniform Resource Locator (URL): https://youtu.be/KBJCO6F4r2g

Peer’s Choice Awards (selected by peers during the conference):

FISSEA attendees have reported that social interaction and networking at the conference are beneficial. The conference continues to be a valuable forum for individuals from government, industry, and academia who are involved with developing, maintaining, and/or supporting security programs. Attendees gain insights regarding information security awareness, training, education, certification, and professionalization. Attendees also learn of ongoing and planned training and education programs and cybersecurity initiatives. The conference provides NIST with the opportunity to provide assistance to departments and agencies as they work to meet their FISMA responsibilities. The FISSEA website provides links to the conference program and presentations (see https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Federal-Info Systems-Security-Educators-Assoc.)

The next conference will be held at NIST on March 14-15, 2018.

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Federal-Info-Systems-Security-Educators-Assoc

Mr. Clarence Williams, (240) 672-8723, clarence.williams@nist.gov

Ms. Rae’chell Finch, (202) 482-0935, raechell.finch@nist.gov

Since the inception of this Advisory Board in 1987, the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB) has successfully renewed its charter with proper authority every two years. The Board plays a central and unique role in providing the government with expert advice concerning information security and privacy issues that may affect federal information systems. Title III of the E-Government Act of 2002 reaffirmed the need for this Board by giving it an additional responsibility: to thoroughly review all of the proposed information technology standards and guidelines developed under Section 20 of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Act (15 U.S. Code (U.S.C.) 278g-3), as amended.

The ISPAB is a federal advisory committee with specific statutory objectives to identify emerging managerial, technical, administrative, and physical safeguard issues related to information security and privacy. The Board was originally created by the Computer Security Act of 1987 (P.L. 100-235) as the Computer System Security and Privacy Advisory Board (CSSPAB) within the Department of Commerce. The CSSPAB was chartered in May 1988 in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended. The 2002 FISMA legislation amended the statutory authority of the Board and provided its current name.

The duties of the Board, as stipulated in FISMA, include:

Congress indicated the long-term need for the Board by setting the term of Board members to four years. The charter requires that the NIST Director appoint the Chairperson and all 12 members of the Board. They are selected for their preeminence in the information technology industry or related disciplines.

The charter stipulates that Board members be selected from three main categories, with each category providing four members. Category 1 includes members from outside the Federal Government who are eminent in the information technology industry, at least one of whom is a representative of small or medium-sized companies in such industries. Category 2 also includes members from outside the Federal Government who are eminent in the field of information technology or related disciplines, but who are not employed by or representative of a producer of information. Category 3 includes those from the Federal Government who are experienced in information system management, including those with experience in information security and privacy, at least one of whom should be from the National Security Agency. The diversity of these categories helps the Board to meet its statutory objectives. Federal members bring a detailed understanding of the federal processing environment; industry brings concerns and experiences regarding product development and market formation, while private computer security experts are able to bring their experiences of commercial cost-effective security measures into Board discussions.

Chris Boyer is currently the Chair of ISPAB. Mr. Boyer, the Assistant Vice President for Global Public Policy at AT&T, joined the Board in 2012 and assumed the responsibilities of the Chair in January 2016 (see list of Board members https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/ISPAB/Members).

During FY 2017, ISPAB held three meetings, all in Washington, D.C.:

In keeping with previous practices at the first meeting of each fiscal year, the Board established a work plan for FY 2017. The resulting plan included the following areas of focus:

In aligning with the work-plan focus areas, the Board expanded its work to include the following:

The presenters at each Board meeting were leaders and experts representing private industry, academia, federal agency Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Inspector Generals (IGs) and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs).

Copies of the current list of members and their biographies, the Board’s charter and past Board activities are located at https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/ISPAB. Information on ISPAB meetings is published in Federal Register Notices at least 16 days prior to the meeting. Those interested in receiving meeting notices and other notices relating to NIST work in information security and privacy may email their name, affiliation, and address to Matthew Scholl at the address below.

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/ISPAB

Mr. Matthew Scholl, (301) 975-2941, matthew.scholl@nist.gov

Small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs)— representing approximately 95% of all businesses— are the backbone of the U.S. economy. SMBs cannot always justify an extensive security program or even full-time staff devoted to information security. Faced with limited resources and budgets, SMBs need practical solutions and training that enable them to cost-effectively address their cybersecurity risks. NIST has partnered with other federal agencies and public-private organizations to help address these needs.

During FY 2017, the Small Business Outreach Program accomplished the following:

In FY 2018, the Small Business Outreach Program will continue to collaborate with federal and other partners to understand the cybersecurity needs of SMBs and identify and/or develop materials and training to meet those needs.

https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/small-business-corner-sbc

Email: smallbizsecurity@nist.gov

Dr. Nelson Hastings, (301) 975-5237, nelson.hastings@nist.gov

Ms. Marian Merritt, (240) 338-2033, marian.merritt@nist.gov

Mr. Jeff Marron, (301) 975-3846, jeffrey.marron@nist.gov

Mr. Matthew Barrett, (301) 975-3267, matthew.barrett@nist.gov

Cryptographic hash functions, which transform arbitrarily long input data into a fixed-length output, are a fundamental tool for information security, e.g., digital signatures, pseudorandom functions, and key derivation.

NIST has standardized two families of Secure Hash Algorithms (SHA): SHA-1 and SHA-2 in Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 180, and SHA-3 in FIPS 202.

The SHA-1 function—which was published in the original version of FIPS 180 in 1995, and which is still specified along with the SHA-2 family in FIPS 180-4— has been deprecated for many years, because it could no longer be relied upon to provide the important property of “collision resistance.” In fact, in 2017 a SHA-1 collision (different inputs with the same output) was published by researchers at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) Institute of Amsterdam and Google, based on the seminal cryptanalysis in 2005 by Xiaoyun Wang of Shandong University.

Wang’s research was the main impetus to the development of SHA-3 through a public competition, which NIST initiated in 2007. The winning algorithm, KECCAK, was chosen in part because its components could easily be adapted to provide a variety of functionalities.

FIPS 202 realized some of this potential by including two eXtendable Output Functions (XOFs), which allow variable-length outputs, in addition to its four hash functions. The two XOFs are called SHAKE128 and SHAKE256; the numerical suffix indicates the supported security strength. FIPS 202 also supports a flexible scheme for “domain separation” between different functions, which ensures that different named functions will produce unrelated outputs.

In December 2016, NIST further expanded the uses of KECCAK with the publication SP 800-185, SHA-3 Derived Functions: cSHAKE, KMAC, TupleHash and ParallelHash. It provides four new types of functions, as indicated in the title, each with the same two supported security strengths:

NIST is currently considering the development of a parallelizable hashing mode and XOF mode for generic hash functions (e.g., SHA-2). These modes would allow the SHA-2 family to achieve some of the functionality of the SHA-3 family.

https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/hash-functions/sha-3-standardization

Dr. Morrie Dworkin, (301) 975-2354, morris.dworkin@nist.gov

(Editors’ Note: Ms. Shu-jen Chang supported this program until her recent retirement)

SP 800-67: Recommendation for the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA) Block Cipher:

The TDEA algorithm is specified in SP 800-67 Revision 1. This publication includes a specification of the Data Encryption Algorithm (DEA) engine that was originally specified in FIPS 46, The Data Encryption Standard, in 1977 and was withdrawn as an approved algorithm in 2005.

A security analysis and practical demonstration of attacks on TDEA in several real-world protocols was posted in FY 2017 by Karthikeyan Bhargavan and Gaëtan Leurent of Inria (Paris) and is available at https://sweet32.info/. This article provides evidence that the collision attack on TDEA represents a serious security vulnerability for many common uses of these protocols — including the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) protocol for secure Internet connections. Moreover, the analysis shows that the security vulnerability remains serious unless more stringent limits are imposed on the amount of data that can be encrypted under a single three-key bundle than the current data limit recommended by NIST in SP 800-67, Revision 1.

In response to this article, NIST posted a notice announcing plans to reduce the maximum amount of plaintext allowed to be encrypted under a single TDEA three-key bundle from 2^32 to 2^20 (64-bit) blocks, and to revise SP 800-67 accordingly. In addition, NIST plans to disallow TDEA for TLS, IPsec and possibly other protocols (see https://csrc.nist.gov/News/2017/Update-to-Current-Use-and-Deprecation-of-TDEA for the announcement).

In late FY 2017, a revision of SP 800-67 was provided for public comment that included the above restriction on the usage of TDEA for each three-key TDEA key bundle. SP 800-67 Rev 2 will be published in early FY 2018.

Ms. Elaine Barker, (301) 975-2911, elaine.barker@nist.gov

Random bits are required for the secure use of most cryptographic algorithms. For example, random bits are used to generate the keys needed for encryption and digital signature applications. CSD began work on the specification of random bit generators in the late 1990s. Information on the Random Bit Generation project is available at https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/random-bit-generation.

This project consists of the development of three NIST Special Publications (SPs). SP 800-90A, Recommendation for Random Number Generation Using Deterministic Random Bit Generators, was initially published in 2007 and last revised in 2015. It specifies several deterministic algorithms that can be used for the generation of pseudorandom bits – a sequence of bits produced by an algorithm, rather than a random physical phenomenon that produces a truly random sequence. Two additional documents (SP 800-90B and SP 800-90C) are under development, and the latest drafts were made available for public comment in 2016 via the Special Publications page: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html.

SP 800-90B, Recommendation for the Entropy Sources Used for Random Bit Generation, addresses the development and testing of entropy sources. Figure 13 illustrates the model that the Recommendation uses to describe an entropy source and its components: a noise source, health tests, and an optional conditioning component.

Figure 13: Entropy Source Model

In Figure 13, the noise source contains the entropy-providing activity (e.g., the output of ring oscillators); if the activity being sampled does not produce binary data, then the noise source includes a digitization process. Health tests are intended to detect whether the noise source and the entropy source (as a whole) continues to operate as expected. The optional conditioning component is responsible for reducing bias and/or increasing the entropy rate of the bits to eventually be output by the entropy source.

SP 800-90B includes descriptions of the tests for NIST’s Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program (CAVP) and Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) to validate candidate entropy sources. During FY 2017, CSD finalized the test descriptions for the initial publication of SP 800-90B, which is expected to be published in early FY 2018. CSD will begin a revision of the document in FY 2018 to address issues that were not included in the initial version of the document and any lessons learned during validation testing by the CAVP and CMVP labs.

The initial version of SP 800-90B will be available via the Special Publications page: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html.

In May 2017, a presentation “A Tale of Two Entropy Source Validation Approaches: NIST 800 90B vs. BSI AIS 31” was provided by Meltem Sönmez Turan at the ICMC17 International Cryptographic Module Conference held in Washington D.C.

SP 800-90C, Recommendation for Random Bit Generator (RBG) Constructions, provides basic guidance on the construction of Random Bit Generators (RBGs) from the entropy sources validated against the requirements of SP 800-90B and the Deterministic Random Bit Generators (DRBG) algorithms of SP 800-90A. SP 800-90C includes constructions for both non-deterministic random bit generators (NRBGs; also known as true random number generators) and deterministic random bit generators (DRBGs; also known as pseudorandom number generators). Two general models are provided in SP 800-90C, as shown in Figure 14 and Figure 15.

Figure 14: XOR-NRBG

Figure 14 depicts the construction of one of the NRBGs – the XOR-NRBG. In this construction, each bit output by the entropy source (as discussed in SP 800-90B) is exclusive-ORed with a bit of output from a DRBG algorithm specified in SP 800-90A.

Figure 15: DRBG and Oversampling NRBG

Figure 15 depicts the construction used for the DRBGs and the second NRBG design – the Oversampling NRBG. In this construction. the entropy source repeatedly provides input to the DRBG algorithm to produce the requested output.

The difference between DRBGs and NRBGs is the availability of the entropy source and the frequency of requesting output from the entropy source. For a DRBG, an entropy source is only required for seeding the DRBG; after the initial seeding process, further requests for entropy-source output depend on the implementation and application. For the Oversampling NRBG, the entropy source must always be available and is accessed whenever bits are requested from the NRBG by a consuming application.

The latest draft of SP 800-90C is available via the Special Publications page: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html.

The RBG development team has the following goals for FY 2018:

https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/random-bit-generation

Ms. Elaine Barker, (301) 975-2911, elaine.barker@nist.gov

Mr. John Kelsey, (301) 975-5101, john.kelsey@nist.gov

Dr. Meltem Sönmez Turan, (301) 975-4391, meltem.turan@nist.gov

Dr. Kerry McKay, (301) 975-4969, kerry.mckay@nist.gov

NIST has implemented a source of public randomness, which is available at https://beacon.nist.gov/home. It uses two independent, commercially available sources of randomness, each with an independent hardware entropy source and SP 800-90A-approved components.

The NIST Beacon is designed to provide unpredictability, autonomy, and consistency. Unpredictability means that users cannot algorithmically predict bits before they are made available by the source. Autonomy means that the source is resistant to attempts by outside parties to alter the distribution of the random bits. Consistency means that a set of users can access the source in such a way that they are confident of receiving the same random string.

The NIST Beacon posts bit-strings in blocks of 512 bits every 60 seconds. Each such value is time-stamped and signed to form a packet that also includes the hash of the previous value to chain the sequence of values together. This prevents all parties, even the source, from retroactively changing an output packet without being detected. The NIST Beacon keeps all output packets. At any point in time, the full history of outputs is available to users.

Tables of random numbers have probably been used for multiple purposes at least since the Industrial Revolution. In the digital age, algorithmic pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs) have largely replaced these tables. The NIST Beacon expands the use of randomness to multiple scenarios in which neither tables nor PRNGs can be used. The extra functionalities stem mainly from three features. First, the Beacon-generated numbers cannot be predicted before they are published. Second, the public, time-bound, and authenticated nature of the Beacon allows a user application to prove to anybody that it used truly random numbers not known before a certain point in time. Third, this proof can be presented offline and at any point in the future.

Although commercially available physical sources of randomness are adequate as entropy sources for currently envisioned implementations of the NIST Beacon, the NIST Randomness Beacon project team is working on developing a source of verifiably random sequences. In collaboration with NIST physicists from the Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML), the project team aims to use quantum non-locality to build an entropy source whose unpredictability is guaranteed by the laws of physics. In FY 2016, a major milestone was achieved, namely, a strong loophole-free test of local realism (where individual particles are governed by elements of reality, even if these elements are hidden) (see https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2015/11/nist-team-proves-spooky-action-distance-really-real).

The project team has also made progress in helping other institutions set up interoperable sources. This is important because multiple sources can be combined in such a way that all sources would have to be compromised in order to degrade the common random strings. It is expected that the University of Chile will start operating their own randomness beacon during FY 2018.

As of the end of FY 2017, the NIST Beacon has been functioning without major interruptions for more than four years. During this time, the project team has received valuable input from a growing community of users. As a result, the project team has redesigned the Application Programming Interface (API) and the architecture. The changes provide higher security and availability, as well as better interoperability. Version 2.0 of the NIST Beacon is scheduled to be deployed during November 2017.

NIST encourages the community of users to research and publish novel ways in which this tool can be used.

https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/nist-randomness-beacon

Dr. René Peralta, (301) 975-8702, rene.peralta@nist.gov

The security of cryptography today depends on having strong keys and keeping them secret. The ability to generate strong cryptographic keys is directly related to having access to unpredictable random data, but generating truly unpredictable random data on common computing devices is hard and unreliable. As a result, weak keys are widely used in cryptographic applications, thus compromising the security of the sensitive data protected by them – potentially with disastrous consequences.

A primary goal of this project is to provide high quality, truly unpredictable random data to devices on the Internet to enable them to generate strong cryptographic keys and attest the strength of the keys used to protect data in transit or at rest, thereby enabling cryptographic system strength attestation. Achieving this goal would provide a solid basis for achieving the goals of the Automated Cryptographic Validation Testing project (see https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/acvt) as well as addressing the problems targeted by the Cryptographic Programs and Laboratory Accreditation (see the next section: Validated Programs), where entropy estimation has persisted as one of the most difficult and labor-consuming activities, causing problems for all parties involved: the industry, the testing laboratories and the government validators.

Random data obtained from sources of true randomness that are based on unpredictable physical phenomena, such as quantum effects, is much better suited for cryptographic applications. CSD is collaborating with the NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) to build a quantum source. The aim is to use quantum effects to generate sequences that are guaranteed to be unpredictable, even if an attacker has access to the random source. (For more information on this collaboration, see https://www.nist.gov/pml/div684/random_numbers_bell_test.cfm).

This EaaS project aims to develop a system and protocols for obtaining random data with high entropy from one or more remote sources. The high-level architecture is shown in Figure 16. The architecture of the Entropy-as-a-Service system consists of two main parts: the client-side and the server-side. The critical components of the system are the quantum device, the EaaS server and a secure device in the client systems that is capable of providing strong isolation and protection for the cryptographic keys stored inside the device and offering a set of basic cryptographic services.

The EaaS server is continuously fed random data from the attached quantum source. The data enters a first in, first out (FIFO)-like buffer in the server’s Random Access Memory (RAM), and, when a client request arrives, the server reads the top value from the buffer, signs and encrypts it, and then sends it to the requester. The FIFO buffer shifts after every request and when new data comes from the random source. The EaaS server ensures that the FIFO buffer is erased prior to server shutdown and never copied to disk. Open implementations can help ensure that this occurs.

The client system consists of a classic computing device enabled with a dedicated hardware component capable of storing secret cryptographic keys and seeds. A dedicated software application bridges the communication between EaaS and the hardware component. Examples of secure hardware components are the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), TrustZone technology in Advanced Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) Machine (ARM) processors, and Identity Protection Technology in Intel processors. Recently, an alternative innovative technology has emerged that allows extracting unique cryptographic keys from the imperfections of memory Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) cells used in common computers. The idea behind this technology is to extract PUF-like unique data from the SRAM chip, which is then used to construct a unique key. This technology is quite interesting for EaaS applications on the client side because it eliminates the need to provision an initial key for accessing EaaS. If a client system or device does not have a secure hardware component, it can still use EaaS. The presence of a hardware component simply provides further guarantees to the system or device user, when present.

EaaS uses the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to transfer entropy payloads from the server to clients. To secure this transmission, the server encrypts the data using the client’s public key and digitally signs the payload with the server’s own private key.

Client devices mix this data with locally available random data to seed random number generators to generate strong cryptographic keys and other random values independently from the remote sources.

Figure 16: High-level Architecture of EaaS

With the conceptual system architecture and protocols defined, the project team continues to engage with industry and academia to obtain feedback on the approach and identify possibilities for collaborative approaches to solving important cybersecurity challenges in the domains of cryptography and supply-chain management (e.g., integrated circuit counterfeiting). A published paper on EaaS in IEEE Computer magazine generated a lot of interest among the public, including companies from the U.S. and Canada who approached the team and asked for assistance in implementing and hosting their own EaaS servers. The team started a technology transfer effort to help with this. The team also continues the collaboration with a team of researchers at the University of Florida who work under a NIST research grant to explore ways to leverage EaaS in protecting against integrated circuit counterfeiting and thereby help secure a supply chain. The University of Florida researchers working on this grant obtained interesting security results that identified security vulnerabilities in widely used protocols for intellectual property protection in integrated circuit manufacturing and resulted in proposals for new secure protocols that eliminated these vulnerabilities.

The team continues to develop the system to provide a publicly accessible NIST EaaS instance in FY 2018. The team succeeded in establishing a non-disclosure agreement and a collaboration with Intrinsic ID, Inc. – a company with complementing technology for constructing the initial key on the client side by extracting it from SRAM memory cells. The team also established a collaborative relationship with Crypto4A and 2Keys Corp. from Canada on developing a common protocol for EaaS. The team coordinated with the research team working on the NIST Beacon for developing common back-end components for the two services. The team plans to leverage these common components in the NIST EaaS implementation.

Dr. Apostol Vassilev (301) 975-3221 apostol.vassilev@nist.gov

Block Cipher Modes of Operation

The engine for many of the techniques in CSD’s cryptographic toolkit is a block cipher algorithm, such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. A block cipher transforms some fixed-length binary data (i.e., a “block” of data) into seemingly random data of the same length. The transformation is determined by the choice of some secret data called the “key.” The same key is used to reverse the transformation and recover the original block of data. A cryptographic technique (e.g., for encryption and/or authentication) that is constructed from a block cipher is called a “mode of operation.”

Several modes of operation have been specified in the SP 800-38 series of publications. The latest installment in the series, Special Publication 800-38G, Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation: Methods for Format-Preserving Encryption, was published in 2016. It specifies two AES modes of operation, called FF1 and FF3, for “format-preserving encryption” (FPE), based on proposals that were submitted from the private sector, specifically, the payments industry.

Recently, two academic researchers, Vaudenay and Dürak, developed a cryptanalytic attack on the FF3 mode. On April 12, 2017, CSD posted an announcement that summarizes the attack and outlines CSD’s plans to revise FF3 in a new draft of SP 800-38G in FY 2018; see https://csrc.nist.gov/News/2017/Recent-Cryptanalysis-of-FF3.

In FY 2018, CSD also plans to revisit SP 800-38D, which specifies the Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) for authenticated encryption. In particular, the security of GCM depends critically on the requirement for the uniqueness of the “nonce” input; CSD plans to seek public comment on how to best update the guidance for achieving this property.

https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/block-cipher-techniques

Dr. Morris Dworkin (301) 975-2354 morris.dworkin@nist.gov

Key Management

Key management is required for applying numerous cryptographic technologies and is considered one of the most critical aspects associated with the use of cryptography. The CSD began providing guidance in managing the keys used for cryptographic applications in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Information on the CSD’s key management project is available at https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/key-management.

In FY 2017, SP 800-56A was revised. SP 800-56A was originally published in 2006, and was previously revised in 2007 and 2013. This document specifies Diffie-Hellman (DH) and Menezes-Qu-Vanstone (MQV) key-agreement schemes, both elliptic curve and finite field versions. Key agreement results in keying material that is shared between the participants. A key-agreement scheme is a procedure in which both parties contribute information that is used in generating a cryptographic key. A key-agreement scheme is defined by a cryptographic algorithm, together with other information that must be available by both parties when establishing keys. The schemes are intended for use in communication protocols (e.g., Transport Layer Security (TLS), one of the protocols used by the Internet). The key-establishment schemes in SP 800-56A use public key algorithms, and each participant in a key-agreement transaction uses a pair of keys—a public key and a private key. The key-agreement process includes the generation of a shared secret (which is not itself considered to be a cryptographic key), and the derivation of keying material using the shared secret. Several key-agreement schemes are specified in SP 800-56A. Figure 17 below provides a simplified example of one of the key-agreement schemes. In this example, each party:

A revision of SP 800-56A was provided for public comment in FY 2017 as a draft of SP 800-56A Rev. 3. This revision includes the following changes:

Figure 17: Key-Agreement Example

A more complete list of changes is provided in an appendix of SP 800-56A Rev. 3. SP 800-56A Rev. 3 will be published in early FY 2018 and will be available via the CSD publications page at https://csrc.nist.gov/publications. This web page may also be used to access FIPS 186-4, SP 800-185, and (eventually) SP 800-186.

Information about SP 800-56A is also available at https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-56a/rev-3/draft.

SP 800-56C specifies techniques for the derivation of keys from a shared secret generated during a key-establishment scheme defined in SP 800-56A and SP 800-56B. SP 800-56A is discussed above. SP 800-56B: Recommendation for Pairwise Key-Establishment Schemes Using Integer Factorization Cryptography, is available via https://csrc.nist.gov/publications.

SP 800-56C had included only one method for key derivation – a two-step key-derivation procedure that used either the Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC) or the Cipher-based Message Authentication Code (CMAC) algorithm during the process. HMAC is specified in FIPS 198-1: The Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC), and CMAC is specified for AES in SP 800-38B: Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation: the CMAC Mode of Authentication. These documents are available via https://csrc.nist.gov/publications.

A revision of SP 800-56C was provided for public comment in FY 2017 as a draft of SP 800-56C Rev. 1. This revision includes the following changes:

Changes to the document are discussed in an appendix of SP 800-56C Rev. 1. SP 800-56A Rev. 3 will be published in early FY 2018 and will be available via the CSD publications page at https://csrc.nist.gov/publications. SP 800-135 and SP 800-185 are also available using that address.

Information on SP 800-56C is also available at https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-56c/rev-1/draft.

A new document was started in FY 2016 on key storage and recovery by an organization (e.g., key backup and archiving). This document is intended to serve as a guideline for the storage and recovery of cryptographic keys that are not under the direct control of the entity using those keys (e.g., the owner). This includes the backup and archiving of copies of the keys and the metadata associated with them. The document will also discuss the recovery of those keys when required (e.g., by the key’s owner or the owner’s organization).

During FY 2018, the CSD is expecting to accomplish the following key management tasks:

https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/key-management/cryptographic-key-management-systems

Ms. Elaine Barker, (301) 975-2911, elaine.barker@nist.gov

Mr. Quynh Dang, (301) 975-3610, quynh.dang@nist.gov

Dr. Lily Chen, (301) 975-6974, lily.chen@nist.gov

Dr. Allen Roginsky, (301) 975-8136, allen.roginsky@nist.gov

SP 800-52 Guidelines for the Selection, Configuration, and Use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) Implementations, provides recommendations regarding TLS server and client implementations. TLS is a widely used cryptographic protocol that provides communication security for a variety of network applications, such as email, e-commerce, and healthcare.

SP 800-52 was first published in June of 2005, and SP 800-52 Revision 1 was published in 2014. Since the first revision, CSD has been following developments in TLS implementations, including updates and attacks. In FY 2016, a second revision was initiated that updates TLS recommendations to include mitigations for recent attacks, synchronizes cryptographic algorithm recommendations with other NIST Special Publications, and provides more flexibility to system administrators in choosing which TLS features they should support. There is also guidance for implementations of TLS version 1.3, a significant update to TLS. SP 800-52 Revision 2 will be posted for public review and comment in FY 2018.

CSD has been contributing to the development of testssl.sh (see https://github.com/drwetter/testssl.sh), an open-source program that tests TLS-enabled servers, providing information about the protocols and cipher suites supported, in addition to checking for some well-known flaws. In FY 2018, CSD will be contributing code to testssl.sh that adds support for TLS version 1.3. When the draft of SP 800-52 Revision 2 is posted for public comment, CSD intends to make a draft version of this code available that includes some checks for conformance to SP 800-52 Revision 2.

Dr. Kerry McKay, (301) 975-4969, kerry.mckay@nist.gov

Dr. David Cooper, (301) 975-3194, david.cooper@nist.gov

IPsec is a suite of protocols for securing Internet communications at the network layer and operates within the Internet Protocol (IP). It is frequently used to establish Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), requiring both parties to share keying material, which can be established using the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol, and enabling telecommuters or travelers to gain secure access to their enterprise networks. IPsec provides the cryptographic security functions for both versions of the Internet Protocol, IPv4 and IPv6.

CSD has provided cryptographic guidance for using IPsec and IKE in SP 800-57 part 3, Section 3: Internet Protocol Security (IPsec). From the beginning of FY 2017, CSD has been working on a revision of the section and plans to publish it as a standalone Special Publication. This SP will update and expand the existing cryptographic guidelines. The important technical updates include disallowing Triple DES and recommending AES-GCM authenticated encryption instead of the CipherBlock Chaining (CBC) mode.

CSD expects to release the draft SP in FY 2018 for public comments. The SP will be harmonized with an upcoming revision of SP 800-77, Guide to IPsec VPNs.

Ms. Elaine Barker, (301) 975-2911, elaine.barker@nist.gov

Mr. Quynh Dang, (301) 975-3610, quynh.dang@nist.gov

Elliptic curve cryptography is critical to the adoption of strong cryptography during the migration to higher security strengths. One of the main advantages of elliptic curve cryptography is that users can achieve the same level of security as other systems, but with a much shorter key length. NIST has standardized elliptic curve cryptography for digital signature algorithms in FIPS 186: Digital Signature Standard (DSS), and for key establishment schemes in SP 800-56A: Recommendation for Pair-Wise Key Establishment Schemes Using Discrete Logarithm Cryptography.

In FIPS 186-4, NIST recommends 15 elliptic curves of varying security strengths for use in these elliptic curve cryptographic standards. However, the provenance of the curves is not fully specified in the standard, leading to recent public concerns that there could be a hidden weakness in these curves. NIST is not aware of any vulnerability in these curves when they are implemented correctly and used as described in NIST standards and guidelines.

More than 15 years have now passed since these curves were developed, and the community now knows more about the security of elliptic curve cryptography and practical implementation issues. Advances within the cryptographic community have led to the development of new elliptic curves and algorithms whose designers claim to offer better performance and are easier to implement in a secure manner. Some of these curves are under consideration in voluntary, consensus-based Standards Developing Organizations.

In FY 2017, NIST utilized feedback received to revise and improve FIPS 186-4. In particular, NIST plans to add new elliptic curves to the current recommended set. The entire collection of recommended curves and their specification will be moved to a new publication SP 800-186: Recommendations for Discrete-Logarithm Based Cryptography: Elliptic Curve Domain Parameters. In addition, new deterministic digital signature schemes will be included in FIPS 186. It is expected that the revised draft version of FIPS 186-5 (and SP 800-186) will be available for public comment in early FY 2018.

Email project team: EllipticCurves@nist.gov

Dr. Dustin Moody, (301) 975-8136, dustin.moody@nist.gov

Dr. Lily Chen, (301) 975-6974, lily.chen@nist.gov

Mr. Andrew Regenscheid, (301) 975-5155, andrew.regenscheid@nist.gov

In recent years, there has been a substantial amount of research on quantum computers – machines that exploit quantum mechanical phenomena to solve problems that are difficult or intractable for conventional computers. If large-scale quantum computers are ever built, they will be able to break the existing infrastructure of public-key cryptography (see Table 1). The focus of the Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) project is to identify candidate quantum-resistant systems that are secure against both quantum and classical computers—as well as the impact that such post-quantum algorithms will have on current protocols and security infrastructures.

NIST researchers have held regular seminars throughout FY 2017. The presentation topics included the latest published results and security analyses, as well as status reports on quantum computation, hash-based signatures, coding-based cryptography, lattice-based cryptography, and multivariate cryptography. Through these presentations and discussions, the project team has made significant progress in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the existing cryptographic schemes in each category.

The NIST team also continues to be productive in post-quantum cryptography research. The results have been published at major conferences, such as Real World Cryptography, Number Theory Methods in Cryptography, Selected Areas in Cryptography, Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQCrypto), and AsiaCrypt. NIST researchers have given many presentations at venues, such as the European Telecommunication Standardisation Institute (ETSI) Quantum-Safe Workshop, to increase awareness of the upcoming migration to post-quantum cryptography, and to engage with stakeholders in the U.S. and other countries. NIST has also sponsored other research, education, and research events.

In 2016, NIST published NISTIR 8105: Report on Post-Quantum Cryptography, which shared the team’s current understanding about the status of quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography. Shortly thereafter, NIST began the Post-Quantum Standardization Process, a thorough multi-year effort with the objective of creating new quantum-resistant cryptographic standards for public-key encryption and digital signatures (see https://www.nist.gov/pqcrypto). These functionalities are much more complex than AES or SHA-3, and will require fundamentally new techniques to address several open research questions in this area (for example, how to measure security against quantum attacks when a quantum computer has not yet been built). Submitters from around the world are invited to propose quantum-resistant cryptosystems for consideration by NIST as part of the PQC standardization process. In December 2016, after resolving and assessing public comments, NIST issued the final submission requirements and evaluation criteria. NIST has received several proposals, and the final submission deadline is in November 2017.

In FY 2018, NIST will continue to explore the security and feasibility of purported quantum-resistant technologies submitted to the Post-Quantum Standardization Process. NIST will hold a public workshop in April 2018, co-located with the PQCrypto conference in Florida, during which submitters will be invited to present their algorithms. The Post-Quantum Standardization Process will proceed with multiple rounds of public evaluation and analysis, with the goal of selecting algorithms for standardization by NIST after three to five years of analysis.

https://www.nist.gov/pqcrypto

Email project team: pqc@nist.gov

Dr. Dustin Moody, (301) 975-8136, dustin.moody@nist.gov

Dr. Lily Chen, (301) 975-6974, lily.chen@nist.gov

Dr. Yi-Kai Liu, (301) 975-6499, yi-kai.liu@nist.gov

Cryptographic functions, such as those used for encryption, digital signatures, and hashing, are implemented as electronic circuits for a wide class of applications. In practice, it is important to be able to reduce the size and depth of these circuits. Size impacts energy consumption and power requirements. Depth largely determines the speed at which the functions are evaluated by the circuit. This reduction problem is closely related to designing small (and low-depth) combinational circuits, which contain only logical gates (i.e., no registers are used, and there is no clock). Figure 18 below shows one such circuit, for performing inversion in GF(2^4).

Finding optimal combinational circuits is MAX-SNP Complete. In practice, this means that it is necessary to settle for methods that design “good” circuits, as opposed to provably optimal circuits. CSD has developed and implemented new solutions for the circuit-minimization problem. There is a tradeoff between the size and depth of circuits. Heuristics that do well with respect to one of these metrics tend to do so at the expense of the other one. In cooperation with colleagues at the University of Southern Denmark, CSD developed a new heuristic that simultaneously reduces size and depth.

Figure 18: Inversion in GF(2^4)

CSD is also researching circuit-based security metrics for cryptographic functions. For a function to be secure (in particular, one-way), it must be the case that any circuit that implements it is sufficiently complex. In particular, a function is insecure if it can be implemented by a circuit containing too few Boolean AND gates. This security metric — the number of AND gates necessary and sufficient to implement a function — is called multiplicative complexity. Unfortunately, determining multiplicative complexity is extremely hard. In previous years, the CSD was able to determine the multiplicative complexity of all Boolean functions on up to five input bits. This year the team was able to do the same for all functions on six inputs (there are 2^64 such functions). ITL was able to exhibit specific functions on n bits which are impossible to calculate with fewer than n AND gates. Also as a result of this classification, it was possible to determine the multiplicative complexity of the symmetric function Σ(8,4) – problems that had remained unresolved for many years.

Secure multi-party computation is a technique that allows a group of people to compute a function of their inputs without revealing the inputs themselves. Examples of this are: 1) holding an election; 2) conducting closed-bid auctions in which only the winning bid is determined; 3) proving to a third party that a person’s encrypted attributes satisfy some requirement, such as being “over 21 and (U.S. citizen or Canadian citizen)”. The protocols that solve secure multi-party computation problems often encrypt bits using arithmetic modulo 2. The complexity of such protocols largely depends on the number of multiplications required. Hence, expressing functions as a circuit with only a few multiplication (AND) gates is important. Some of the circuits published are now a standard reference for the benchmarking of secure multi-party computation protocols.

The results on circuit size and depth, and on multiplicative complexity were presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Boolean Functions and their Applications (Bergen, Norway). Circuits are periodically posted at https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Circuit-Complexity/Circuit-Problems.

Dr. René Peralta, (301) 975-8702, rene.peralta@nist.gov

There are several emerging areas in which highly constrained devices are interconnected and working in concert to accomplish a task. Examples of these areas include automotive systems, sensor networks, healthcare, distributed control systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), cyber-physical systems, and the smart grid. Security and privacy can be very important in these areas. Because most of the modern cryptographic algorithms were designed for desktop/server environments, many of these algorithms cannot be implemented in the constrained devices used by these applications. When current NIST-approved algorithms can be engineered to fit into the limited resources of constrained environments, their performance may not be acceptable. For these reasons, NIST started a lightweight cryptography project in 2013 that was tasked with determining the need and developing a strategy for the standardization of lightweight cryptographic algorithms.

In October 2016, CSD held the Second Lightweight Cryptography Workshop for representatives from government, industry, and academia. The workshop led to the publication of NISTIR 8114, Report on Lightweight Cryptography. This report provides an overview of the lightweight cryptography project at NIST, and describes a plan for the standardization of lightweight cryptographic algorithms. A draft whitepaper, Profiles for the Lightweight Cryptography Standardization Process, was released for public comment in order to receive community feedback on the goals for the first set of NIST lightweight cryptography standards. The functionality that will be requested for this first set of standards are authenticated encryption with associated data (AEAD) with optional hashing. A call for algorithm submissions for the lightweight cryptography portfolio will be announced in FY 2018, along with details of the selection process.

NISTIR 8114 and the Lightweight Cryptography project were featured in the June 2017 ITL bulletin, and CSD presented a poster on the project during ITL Science Day in October 2016. The Lightweight Cryptography project was presented at several venues in FY 2017, including Real World Crypto, HighLight: High Security Lightweight Cryptography, and the rump sessions of the Eurocrypt and Crypto conferences.

https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/lightweight-cryptography

https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/itl-bulletin/2017/06/toward-standardizing-lightweight-cryptography/final

Mr. Lawrence Bassham, (301) 975-3292, lawrence.bassham@nist.gov

Dr. Kerry McKay, (301) 975-4969, kerry.mckay@nist.gov

Dr. Meltem Sönmez Turan, (301) 975-4391, meltem.turan@nist.gov

Today, wireless networks have been integrated into modern communication systems that connect mobile devices using multiple radio technologies. Such heterogeneous networks demand integrated security solutions. CSD has worked closely with different working groups in the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee since 2006 and made solid contributions to the security solutions for wireless networks. The NIST team has been involved in the IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.21 working groups to develop standards for cryptographic key management schemes for the mobility environment. NIST cryptographic standards have been extensively used in the wireless standards developed in the IEEE 802 community.

In FY 2017, NIST researchers continuously collaborated with the IEEE 802.21 Working Group. IEEE 802.21 “Media Independent Handover Services Framework” was published, and IEEE 802.21.1 “Media Independent Services” was finalized for publication. These new standards address the future connectivity and management requirements of Smart Grid, IoT and Smart Home networks, where multimode wireless devices and smart end nodes incorporate different wireless interfaces, and need to switch among the networks during an ongoing communication session, while maintaining the same security posture. IEEE 802.21 and IEEE 802.21.1 adopted NIST standardized cryptographic algorithms, such as ECDSA, as specified in FIPS 186-4, and AES-CCM, as specified in SP 800-38C.

The recently revealed KRACK attack on the IEEE 802.11 wireless network leads to generating the same key stream in the case of AES-CCM, or recovering the authentication key, in the case of AES-GCM through a man-in-the-middle attack to create a counter reset condition. The KRACK attack confirms that it is essential to make sure that the special features and assumptions for using each cryptographic algorithm are considered in the protocol design so that the requirements are satisfied to assure security in any circumstance.

In FY 2018, CSD will continue to contribute to IEEE 802 wireless standards. CSD will work with the IEEE 802.11 working group to develop countermeasures for the KRACK attack.

Dr. Lily Chen, (301) 975 -6974, lily.chen@nist.gov

CSD began studying the use of blockchains, which have been suggested as a solution for many applications. A blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of records called blocks that are secured from undetected modification using a hash function. Each block contains a link to the previous block. A new block is added to the chain only when multiple parties (possibly mutually untrusted parties) agree to its accuracy. In essence, a blockchain is a mutually agreed-upon record of history.

Figure 19 illustrates three blocks in a blockchain, where each block contains at least one transaction, a nonce and the hash value of the previous block in the chain.

The most well-known example of the use of a blockchain is BitCoin and similar digital currencies. However, the use of blockchains has been proposed for other applications, such as smart contracts and various ledgering applications.

Many organizations have suggested applications for the use of blockchains, some of which may not be appropriate. CSD is investigating the use of blockchains to determine which application types are appropriate for using blockchains and which are not. CSD is monitoring the proposed uses of cryptography to assure that current cryptographic techniques are used properly and whether new techniques are required.

During FY 2017, NIST participated in standards activities exploring blockchain technologies, architectures, and use cases. These included participation in a new blockchain study group sponsored by American Standards Committee X9, the financial services committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and continued work in the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) for Blockchains and Distributed Ledger Technologies (ISO/TC 307). Established in 2016, the initial objectives of ISO/TC 307 include defining key terms and concepts, exploring reference architectures, investigating use cases, and identifying identity and privacy implications within blockchain technologies and architectures. NIST has been participating in these activities via the national mirror committee within the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS). ISO/TC 307 will meet in November 2017, where the reports on these topics will be reviewed and new work will be established.

Figure 19: Example of a Blockchain

During FY 2017, CSD established the NIST Internal Blockchain Workbench to support internal research exploring blockchain technologies and use cases. The workbench itself is hosted on internal servers, and is currently running two blockchains – the first is a permissioned blockchain utilizing the MultiChain blockchain platform; the second is Ethereum, which has been configured to run only within the workbench. In addition to the blockchain software itself, the workbench has demonstration applications with source code, software development tools and several diagnostic tool suites available for researchers to utilize. NIST/ITL plans to continue advancing the capabilities of the workbench and expanding the types of blockchains available in FY 2018.

Ms. Elaine Barker, (301) 975-2911, ebarker@nist.gov

Mr. John Kelsey, (301) 975-5101, john.kelsey@nist.gov

Dr. René Peralta, (301) 975-8702, rene.peralta@nist.gov

Mr. Andrew Regenscheid, (301) 975-5155, andrew.regenscheid@nist.gov

Mr. Dylan Yaga, (301) 975-6004, dylan.yaga@nist.gov

Federal agencies, industry, and the public rely on many of the standards and specifications supported by ITL. Poor implementations of these standards or specifications may render a product insecure, potentially placing sensitive information at risk. ITL operates several validation programs that help provide a level of assurance that products meet established security requirements and conform to published specifications. To that end, the CSD develops test suites and test methods; provides implementation guidance and technical support to industry forums; and conducts education, training, and outreach programs.

CSD’s validation programs work together with independent laboratories that are accredited by the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP). Based on independent laboratory test reports and test evidence provided by the labs, the validation programs described below validate the implementation-under-test. Awarded validations are subsequently published on NIST websites.

The Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program (CAVP) provides federal agencies in the United States and Canada with assurance that a cryptographic algorithm has been implemented completely and correctly, as specified in its approved Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS-Approved) or NIST-recommended cryptographic algorithm standard. The CAVP was established in 2013 as a joint program in collaboration between NIST and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada. Prior to this date, the CAVP’s functions were included in the Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP). With the increase in the number and complexity of FIPS-Approved and NIST-recommended cryptographic algorithms, it was deemed necessary to establish the CAVP as an independent program.

The CAVP’s goal is to provide federal agencies with a security metric list to use in validating cryptographic algorithm implementations, and promote the use of validated algorithms by industry and the public. The testing is carried out by independent third-party laboratories accredited by the NVLAP, and the validations performed by the CAVP program provide this metric. Federal agencies, industry, and the public can choose validated implementations of cryptographic algorithms from the CAVP Validated Algorithms List and have confidence in the claimed level of security and assurance of correct implementation.

The validation of cryptographic algorithms by the CAVP is a prerequisite to the validation of a

cryptographic module by the CMVP and is also used by other programs outside of NIST as well. Since federal agencies are required to use validated cryptographic modules for the protection of sensitive unclassified information, the validated modules and the validated algorithms that the modules contain represent the culmination and delivery of CSD’s cryptography-based work to the end user.

The CAVP validation program provides documented methodologies for conformance testing through defined sets of security requirements. For the CAVP, a validation system document is designed for each FIPS-approved or NIST-recommended cryptographic algorithm. See the website for a listing (see https://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cavp/). The four Annexes to FIPS 140-2 reference the underlying cryptographic algorithm standards or methods.

By the end of FY 2017, the CAVP had issued approximately 28,710 validations, representing the algorithm validations of approximately 18 approved algorithms, including 5 modes of operation.

Figure 20: CAVP Validation Status by Fiscal Year

Figure 21: CAVP Validation Status for FY 2017