2004

Annual

Report

Computer

Security

Division
Welcome Letter 1

Division Organization 2

The Computer Security Division Responds to the 

Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 3

Outreach, Awareness and Education 4

Security Management and Guidance 9

Security Testing and Metrics 20

Security Research and Emerging Technologies 23

Cryptographic Standards and Applications 39

Honors and Awards 44

Computer Security Division Publications – 2004 46

Ways to Engage Our Division and NIST 48

TABLE OF CONTENTS
T

his year can best be characterized

as one of significant challenges.

Advances in technology further

supported reduced paperwork,

streamlined processes, improved

control of assets, better communications, more

accurately verified identity, more appropriate

control of access to information and improved

government-business-consumer-taxpayer interchange. New and increasingly complex security

concerns accompanied these benefits. The

Computer Security Division played a key role in

addressing these issues.

Among the highlights of our work in 2004 was a

challenge from the President, issued in Homeland

Security Presidential Directive #12, to develop a

new standard for identification and verification

of Federal employees and contractors. We

continued making progress in fulfilling the

mandates of the Federal Information Security

Management Act of 2002 which resulted in

Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)

199, Standards for Security Categorization of

Federal Information and Information Systems,

and NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-53,

Recommended Security Controls for Federal

Information Systems. In addressing the

President’s challenge, we drew heavily upon our

ongoing smart card, biometric and cryptographic

work. As such, we made great strides towards a

framework for protecting Federal facilities,

systems and the employees who have access to

them. The long-term benefit of using FIPS 199,

SP 800-53 and a standards-based approach to

system security in general is more targeted, costeffective, consistent and improved security.

While the interconnection of information systems

often increases the risk to an organization’s operations and assets, FIPS 199 and our associated

suite of standards and guidelines provide a

common way to express information security

requirements. This in turn promotes greater

consistency across diverse organizations in

managing risks.

Scientists in the Computer Security Division

have been working with our partners for the

past several years to establish a Government

Smart Card (GSC) program to facilitate widespread deployment of interoperable smart card

systems. In recognition of this work, the NIST

Smart Card Team received the Department of

Commerce’s 2004 Gold Medal Award for the

development of a framework and specification

that dramatically advanced interoperability

among smart card applications, coalesced U.S.

government requirements and forged alliances

with the world’s foremost authorities on smart

cards.

The Division has had many other accomplishments this past year, including advancing development of our cryptographic standards toolkit,

further e-authentication work, expansion of our

Cryptographic Module Validation Program,

development of an IT product security configuration checklist program and more work with

digital forensics tools and methods. We have

begun new work, as well as continuing previous

work, on several key Internet security protocols

– IPSec, BGP and DNSSEC. We have also

provided technical expertise to several U.S.

government groups on the security implications

of spam e-mail and phishing attacks.

These are just some of the highlights of our

work this year. We invite you to read more

about our work – and to work with us – as we

address these and future challenges. Our

extraordinarily talented and knowledgeable

experts are recognized as leaders in their fields.

Many have come to us from the private sector

and other agencies, bringing with them a

diverse set of perspectives and expertise and a

solid commitment to public service. We are

proud to highlight their achievements in this

report and to note the honors and awards that

were received this year celebrating their

achievements.

As you browse this report of the Division’s activities for 2004, we hope you will want to learn

more. We invite you to visit the CSRC Web site,

http://csrc.nist.gov, or to contact any of the

Division experts noted in this report.

Welcome

Edward Roback

Division Chief

Alicia A. Clay

Deputy Division Chief
Division Organization

William Burr

Group Manager

Security Technology

Group

Joan Hash

Group Manager

Management &

Assistance Group

Edward Roback

Division Chief

Timothy Grance

Group Manager

Systems & Network

Security Group

Ray Snouffer

Group Manager

Security Testing &

Metrics Group

Alicia Clay

Deputy Division Chief

2

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

2
3

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, entitled the Federal Information Security

Management Act of 2002 (FISMA), included

duties and responsibilities for the Computer

Security Division in Section 303 “National

Institute of Standards and Technology.” In 2004,

we addressed these assignments as follows:

Standards to be used by Federal agencies

to categorize information and information systems based on the objectives of

providing appropriate levels of information security according to a range of risk

levels – Developed Special Publication (SP)

800-37, Guidelines for the Security

Certification and Accreditation of Federal

Information Technology Systems (final

version issued May 2004)

Guidelines recommending the types of

information and information systems to

be included in each category – Developed

and issued FIPS 199, Standards for

Security Categorization of Federal

Information and Information Systems

(final version issued February 2004)

Minimum information security requirements (management, operational and

technical security controls) for information and information systems in each

such category – Developed SP 800-53,

Security Controls for Federal Information

Systems (first public draft issued October

2003), and continued work on SP 800-53A,

Guide for Assessing the Security Controls

in Federal Information Systems (first public

draft to be issued January 2005)

Incident detection and handling guidelines – Developed SP 800-61, Computer

Security Incident Handling Guide (final

version issued January 2004)

Provide assistance to agencies and

private sector – Conduct ongoing, substantial reimbursable and non-reimbursable

assistance support, including many outreach

efforts such as the Federal Information

Systems Security Educators’ Association

(FISSEA), the Federal Computer Security

Program Managers’ Forum (FCSM Forum),

the Small Business Corner and the reimbursable Program Review for Information

Security Management Assistance (PRISMA)

Develop performance indicators/

metrics – Developed SP 800-55, Security

Metrics Guide for Information Technology

Systems (final version issued July 2003)

Evaluate security policies and technologies from the private sector and national

security systems for potential Federal

agency use – Host a growing repository of

Federal agency security practices,

public/private security practices and security

configuration checklists for IT products.

CSD, in conjunction with the Government 

of Canada’s Communications Security

Establishment, also leads the Cryptographic

Module Validation Program (CMVP). The

Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation

Scheme (CCEVS) and CMVP facilitate

security testing of IT products usable by the

Federal government.

Identification of national security

systems guidelines – Developed SP 800-

59, Guideline for Identifying an Information System as a National Security

System (final version issued August 2003)

Solicit recommendations of the

Information Security and Privacy

Advisory Board on draft standards and

guidelines – Solicit recommendations of

the Board regularly at quarterly meetings 

Annual NIST reporting requirement –

Produce an annual report as a NIST

Interagency Report (IR). The 2003 Annual

Report was issued as NIST IR 7111 and is

available via the Web or upon request.

The

Computer

Security Division

Responds to the 

Federal Information Security

Management Act of 2002
4

OVERVIEW

The CSD provides IT security standards and

guidelines to Federal government agencies

in the Executive Branch. One of our constant

challenges is to provide useful and timely materials to these agencies. When developing and

producing our products, we engage in

consensus-building with the IT industry,

academia and Federal agencies in order to keep

the quality of these products and services as high

as possible. As part of this consensus-building

process, every Federal Information Processing

Standard (FIPS) and Special Publication (SP)

produced by the CSD has an open, public

comment vetting process. At the same time, we

reach out to engage other governments, other

levels of U.S. government, small- and mediumsized businesses nationwide and even directly to

citizens.

One of the primary benefits of these outreach

efforts to the public is the large collection of nonproprietary, non-technology-biased knowledge

that is provided free of charge to the Federal

agencies and the public. Through a range of

organizations and efforts, the CSD provides

materials, information and services useful from

the Federal agency level to the home-user level.

The Division houses a Web site that is a central

repository for all of the materials and resources

we have developed, as well as pointers to other

types of IT security work and resources. The

Division also hosts several organizations that

address specific portions of government and

industry. These organizations are discussed in

greater detail later in this report.

In 2004, CSD greatly expanded its outreach

efforts with the private sector, especially the

healthcare community. We formed new coalitions

to support small business outreach, made significant enhancements to the Computer Security

Resource Center (CSRC) and continued utilizing

the Security Managers Forum to provide support

to information security officers throughout the

Federal sector. Numerous workshops and briefings were sponsored to support implementation

of newly developed guidance and feedback from

constituents was very positive.

As we look forward to fiscal year 2005, we will

continue to expand outreach efforts to new

communities, enhance the CSRC, support the

Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board

in its advisory capacity and support the Federal

Information Systems Security Educators

Association. The Security Managers Forum will

continue to be a valuable communication vehicle

for the Federal agencies and we will launch an

aggressive campaign to explore new methods to

get CSD's message out.

THE INFORMATION SECURITY

AND PRIVACY ADVISORY

BOARD

The Information Security and Privacy Advisory

Board (ISPAB) is a Federal advisory

committee that brings together senior professionals from industry, government and academia

to help advise the National Institute of Standards

and Technology, the Office of Management and

Budget, the Secretary of Commerce and appropriate committees of the U.S. Congress about

information security and privacy issues

pertaining to unclassified Federal government

information systems.

The membership of the Board consists of twelve

individuals and a Chairperson. The Director of

NIST approves membership appointments and

appoints the Chairperson. Each Board member

REACHING OUR GOAL

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

OUTREACH,

AWARENESS 

AND EDUCATION

STRATEGIC GOAL  The Computer Security Division (CSD) will engage in outreach activities to Federal government

agencies and, where appropriate, to industry, including small- and medium-sized businesses, in order to raise awareness of the

importance and need for information technology (IT) security. These activities will increase the understanding of IT security

vulnerabilities and possible corrective measures. Resulting raised awareness and knowledge will also assist appropriate persons in

framing requests for necessary resources to implement better IT security measures. Finally, these outreach activities will facilitate a

greater awareness of the Division’s programs, projects and resources available to Federal agencies and the public.
5

normally serves for a four-year term. The Board's

membership draws from experience at all levels

of information security and privacy work. The

members’ careers cover government, industry

and academia. Members have worked in the

Executive and Congressional Branches of the

Federal government, the civil service, the senior

executive service, the military, some of the

largest corporations worldwide, small- and

medium-sized businesses and some of the top

universities in the nation. The members' experience likewise covers a broad spectrum of activities including many different engineering disciplines, computer programming, systems analysis,

mathematics, management positions, information technology auditing, legal experience (two

Board members are attorneys), an extensive

history of professional publications and professional journalism. Members have worked (and in

many cases, are continuing to work in their fulltime jobs) on the development and evolution of

some of the most important pieces of information security and privacy in the Federal government, including the Privacy Act of 1974, the

Computer Security Act of 1987, the Federal Public

Key Infrastructure (PKI) effort and numerous egovernment services and initiatives.

This combination of experienced, dynamic and

knowledgeable professionals on an advisory

board provides NIST and the Federal government

with a rich, varied pool of people conversant with

an extraordinary range of topics. They bring great

depth to a field that has an exceptional rate of

change.

The ISPAB was originally created by the

Computer Security Act of 1987 (Public Law 100-

35) as the Computer System Security and Privacy

Advisory Board. As a result of Public Law 107-

347, The E-Government Act of 2002, Title III, The

Federal Information Security Management Act of

2002, the Board's name was changed and its

mandate was amended. The scope and objectives

of the Board are to:

Identify emerging managerial, technical,

administrative and physical safeguard

issues relative to information security and

privacy 

Advise NIST, the Secretary of Commerce

and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on information

security and privacy issues pertaining to

Federal government information systems,

including thorough reviews of proposed

standards and guidelines developed by

NIST

Annually report the Board's findings to the

Secretary of Commerce, the Director of

OMB, the Director of the National Security

Agency and the appropriate committees of

the Congress 

The Board meets quarterly and all meetings are

open to the public.

The Board has been very active in the past year.

One of the most significant pieces of work the

Board completed this previous year was a report

issued in June 2004, “The National Institute for

[sic] Standards and Technology Computer

Security Division: The Case for Adequate

Funding.”This paper reflects the results of a yearlong review by the Board with input from government and industry. One of the main findings of

the paper:

“While funding for the CSD program

in real terms has grown modestly over

time, it has not kept pace with the

growing demand for cyber security

guidelines and standards as a result of

the government’s and the nation’s

growing reliance of information technology, the growth and diversity of the

technologies on which we have come

to depend, and the increased threat

both from acts of negligence and

inadvertence and from those who

seek to disrupt or disable the nation’s

vital systems.”

OUTREACH, AWARENESS AND EDUCATION

ISPAB Members and Secretariat at the December 2003 meeting (l to r): Sallie McDonald, Elaine Frye, Rebecca Leng, Leslie Reis, Morris Hymes, Howard Schmidt,

Steven Lipner, Charisse Castagnoli, Marilyn Bruneau, John Sabo, Susan Landau, Richard Guida, Joan Hash, Franklin Reeder, and Bruce Brody.
6

The paper is publicly available at http://csrc.

nist.gov/ispab/board-recommendations.html.

The Board also expressed its findings and recommendations to the Director of the Office of

Management and Budget on the issue of

agencies using Web-based transactions to

provide e-government services to members of

the public.

The Board has also received numerous briefings

from Federal and private sector representatives

on a wide range of privacy and security topics in

the past year. Topics have included the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) Report on

the Privacy Act, an overview of the Department

of Veterans Affairs' (VA’s) cyber security program, privacy challenges being faced by the

Department of Homeland Security (DHS),

updates on the review being conducted of the

National Information Assurance Partnership,

results of the first Privacy Trust Survey of the U.S.

government, customer relations management in

the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), specifications and

implementations of the Trusted Computing

Group's Secure Platform and security issues with

voice over IP (VoIP).

Several areas of interest that the Board will be

following in the coming year include credentialing of certification and accreditation organizations, privacy management issues within

government systems, insuring the authenticity of

government Web sites, NIST’s outreach and partnering approach and cyber security leadership in

the Executive Branch.

http://csrc.nist.gov/ispab/

Contacts: Ms. Joan Hash

(301) 975-5236

joan.hash@nist.gov

Ms. Elaine Frye

(301) 975-2819

elaine.frye@nist.gov

FEDERAL INFORMATION

SYSTEMS SECURITY

EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION

The Federal Information Systems Security

Educators Association (FISSEA) is an organization run by and for Federal information systems

security professionals. FISSEA assists Federal

agencies in meeting their computer security

training responsibilities. FISSEA strives to elevate

the general level of information systems security

knowledge for the Federal government and the

federally-related workforce. FISSEA serves as a

professional forum for the exchange of information and improvement of information systems

security awareness, training and education

programs. It also seeks to provide for the professional development of its members.

Membership is open to information systems

security professionals, trainers, educators and

managers who are responsible for information

systems security training programs in Federal

agencies, as well as contractors of these agencies

and faculty members of accredited educational

institutions. There are no membership fees for

FISSEA; all that is required is a willingness to share

products, information and experiences. Business is

administered by a twelve-member Executive Board

that meets monthly. Board members serve twoyear terms and elections are held during the

annual conference. Each year an award is

presented to a candidate selected as Educator of

the Year honoring distinguished accomplishments

in information systems security training programs.

There is also a contest for computer security

posters, Web sites and awareness tools with the

winning entries listed on the FISSEA Web site.

FISSEA has a quarterly newsletter, an actively

maintained Web site and a listserve as a means of

communication for members. Members are

encouraged to participate in the annual FISSEA

conference and to serve on the FISSEA ad-hoc task

groups. CSD assists FISSEA with its operations by

providing staff support for several of its activities

and by being FISSEA’s host agency.

FISSEA membership in 2004 spanned Federal

agencies, industry, military, contractors, state

governments, academia, the press and foreign

organizations to reach 1083 members in a total of

fourteen countries. The 635 Federal agency

members represent 88 agencies from the Executive

and Congressional Branches of government. The

Educator of the Year Award for 2003 was

presented to Jeff Recor, Walsh College, at the

FISSEA Annual Conference in March 2004.

FISSEA hosted its second free workshop,

“Developing Role-Based Training and Classroom

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

FISSEA Board Members for 2004-05 – Pictured left to right: Jeffrey Seeman (NSA), Peggy Himes (NIST), Louis

Numkin (NRC), Barbara Cuffie (retired SSA), Mary Ann Strawn (LOC, back), Tanetta Isler (HUD) and Lewis

Baskerville (SBA). Not pictured: LTC Curt Carver (USMA), Thomas Foss (UNC), Gretchen Morris (NASA), LTC

Will Suchan (USMA), Marvella Towns (NSA) and Mark Wilson (NIST).
7

Demonstrations,” in May 2004. The workshop was

presented by the U.S. Department of State’s

Diplomatic Security Training Center for Information

Assurance training team. Attendees were invited

to participate in this interactive workshop on the

process of designing information assurance

training programs to meet Federal guidelines. The

workshop began with an overview of the NIST

Special Publication (SP) 800-16, Information

Technology Security Training Requirements: A

Role- and Performance-Based Model. Next,

discussion provided attendees with an overview of

three primary information assurance (IA) training

categories: Management Controls, Operational

Controls and Technical Controls. Based on these

categories, attendees generated a list of topics,

learning objectives, presentation modes, learning

activities and learning measurement strategies for

three specific IA roles – Managers, System

Administrators and Information System Security

Officers (ISSOs). This gave the attendees realistic

training that would transfer to their agency’s

awareness and training program.

FISSEA will also be holding several free workshops

during late 2004 and early 2005 to assist Federal

employees in gaining a better understanding of

how to implement NIST SP 800-16 in their

agencies. These workshops will be conducted by

Mark Wilson, editor of SP 800-16 and a FISSEA

Executive Board Member.

The 2005 FISSEA Conference will be held in March

2005 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and

Conference Center in Bethesda, Maryland. This

two-day two-track conference will provide an

excellent opportunity to network with other

security professionals. Further information

regarding the conference is available on the

FISSEA Web site.

http://csrc.nist.gov/fissea/

Contacts: Mr. Mark Wilson

(301) 975-3870

mark.wilson@nist.gov

Ms. Peggy Himes

(301) 975-2489

peggy.himes@nist.gov

COMPUTER SECURITY

RESOURCE CENTER 

The Computer Security Resource Center (CSRC)

is the Computer Security Division’s Web site.

The CSD uses the CSRC to encourage broad sharing of information security tools and practices, to

provide “one-stop shopping” for information security standards and guidelines and to identify and

link key security Web resources to support the

industry. The CSRC is an integral piece to all of the

work we conduct and produce. It is our repository

for everyone – public or private sector – wanting

access to our documents and information. It

serves as a vital link to the various groups we wish

to reach.

In the last year the CSRC had over 26.1 million

requests – an average of over 2.1 million requests

per month. Every document released for public

comment or published through the Division has

been posted to the CSRC. In the summer of 2003

CSD conducted an evaluation and analysis project

of CSRC in order to allow the Division to deal with

issues of scale, organization and volume. The past

year has seen a great deal of work to make the

changes and improvements identified in the evaluation and analysis report. The site has been

streamlined and simplified to make items easier to

find and an extensive site map has been developed.

The CSRC will continue to grow and be updated in

2005. There is a survey under way in order to

obtain public opinion of the site’s recent changes

and the current usefulness and ease-of-use. It is

anticipated that the site will be further enhanced

as results of the survey and public comments are

received and taken into consideration.

http://csrc.nist.gov/

Contacts: Ms. Joan Hash

(301) 975-5236

joan.hash@nist.gov

Mr. Patrick O’Reilly Ms. Elaine Frye

(301) 975-4751 (301) 975-2819

patrick.oreilly@nist.gov elaine.frye@nist.gov

SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED

BUSINESS OUTREACH

What do a business’s invoices have in common with e-mail? If both are done on the

same computer, the business owner may want to

think more about computer security. Information

– payroll records, proprietary information, client or

employee data – is essential to a business’s success. A computer failure or other system breach

could cost a business anything from its reputation

to damages and recovery costs. The small business owner who recognizes the threat of computer crime and takes steps to deter inappropriate

activities is less likely to become a victim.

The vulnerability of any one small business may

not seem significant to many other than the

owner and employees of that business. However,

over 95 percent of all U.S. businesses – over 20

million – are small- and medium-sized businesses

(SMBs) of 500 employees or less. Therefore a vulnerability common to a large percentage of all

SMBs could pose a threat to the Nation's economic base. In the special arena of information security, vulnerable SMBs also run the risk of being compromised for use in crimes against governmental

or large industrial systems upon which everyone

relies. SMBs frequently cannot justify an extensive

security program or a full-time expert. Nonetheless, they confront serious security challenges and

must address security requirements based on

identified needs.

The difficulty for these organizations is to identify

needed security mechanisms and training that are

practical and cost-effective. Such organizations

also need to become more educated consumers in

terms of security so that limited resources are well

applied to meet the most obvious and serious

threats.

OUTREACH, AWARENESS AND EDUCATION
8

To address this need, NIST, the Small Business

Administration (SBA) and the Federal Bureau of

Investigation (FBI) entered into a Co-sponsorship

Agreement for the purpose of conducting a series

of training meetings on IT security for small businesses. The purpose of the meetings is to have

individuals knowledgeable in IT security provide

an overview of information security threats,

vulnerabilities and corresponding protective

tools and techniques with a special emphasis on

providing useful information that small business

personnel can apply directly or use to task

contractor personnel.

For the third year, a CSD representative has

attended the Annual Small Business Development Centers Conference to reach out to this

public-private organization sponsored by SBA.

This was the first year we were invited to conduct

a conference presentation detailing the program

and it was received very well with a large number of attendees.

In 2005 the SMB outreach effort will focus on

expanding opportunities to reach small businesses. Further development of our Web site is

planned. Discussions are under way with SBA

and the FBI to expand the original partnership

and determine new avenues for this outreach

project.

A CSD representative will attend planning meetings hosted by the State Department’s office on

the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). A

focus of these meetings is an information security education outreach for SMBs to be held during

APEC’s Spring 2005 meeting in Lima, Peru. Others attending these working meetings are representatives from the Carnegie Mellon Software

Engineering Institute, the Internet Security

Alliance, SBA and the Department of Justice.

CSD will also reach out through the U.S. Chamber

of Commerce and the National Cyber Security

Alliance (NCSA) to conduct a small and medium

business information security workshop in Fairfax, Virginia.

http://csrc.nist.gov/securebiz/

http://sbc.nist.gov/

Contacts: Mr. Richard Kissel

(301) 975-5017

richard.kissel@nist.gov

Ms. Tanya Brewer

(301) 975-4534

tbrewer@nist.gov

FEDERAL COMPUTER SECURITY

PROGRAM MANAGERS FORUM

The Federal Computer Security Program

Managers' Forum (Forum) is an informal

group of over 500 members sponsored by NIST

to promote the sharing of security related information among Federal agencies. The Forum

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 reduce

possible duplication of effort. It provides an

organizational mechanism for CSD to exchange

information directly with Federal agency information security program managers in fulfillment

of its leadership mandate under the Federal

Information Security Management Act of 2002

(FISMA). It assists CSD in establishing and

maintaining relationships with other individuals

or organizations that are actively addressing

information security issues within the Federal

government. Finally, it helps CSD and Federal

agencies in establishing and maintaining a

strong, proactive stance in the identification and

resolution of new strategic and tactical IT

security issues as they emerge.

The Forum hosts the Federal Agency Security

Practices (FASP) Web site, maintains an extensive e-mail list and holds an annual off-site

workshop and bi-monthly meetings to discusses

current issues and developments of interest to

those responsible for protecting sensitive

(unclassified) Federal systems [except "Warner

Amendment" systems, as defined in 44 USC

3502 (2)]. A CSD staff person serves as the

Chairperson of the Forum. CSD also serves as

the secretariat of the Forum, providing necessary administrative and logistical support.

Participation in Forum meetings is open to

Federal government employees who participate

in the management of their organization's information security program. There are no membership dues.

Topics of discussion at Forum meetings in the

last year have included briefings on certification

and accreditation, protecting critical infrastructure information, Project Matrix, Microsoft

Windows XP SP2, status reports on the NIST

FISMA Project, and a full-day workshop on

automated data collection and reporting tools.

This year's annual off-site meeting featured

updates on the computer security activities of

the Government Accountability Office, the

National Institute of Standards and Technology,

Office of Management and Budget and the

activities of the Department of Homeland

Security. Briefings were also provided on eauthentication, privacy issues and the

Department of Defense vulnerability assessment

and patching program.

In the next year there are plans to have a halfday workshop on the revised security planning

guidance and briefings on agency implementation of their certification and accreditation

programs and minimum security controls.

http://csrc.nist.gov/organizations/cspmf.html

Contact: Ms. Marianne Swanson

(301) 975-3293

marianne.swanson@nist.gov

Ms. Elaine Frye

(301) 975-2819

elaine.frye@nist.gov

2004 ANNUAL REPORT
9

OVERVIEW

I

nformation security is an integral element of

sound management. Information and

computer systems are critical assets that

support the mission of an organization.

Protecting them can be as critical as protecting

other organizational resources, such as money,

physical assets, or employees. However,

including security considerations in the management of information and computers does not

completely eliminate the possibility that these

assets will be harmed.

Ultimately, responsibility for the success of an

organization lies with its senior management.

They establish the organization’s computer

security program and its overall program goals,

objectives and priorities in order to support the

mission of the organization. They are also

responsible for ensuring that required resources

are applied to the program.

Collaboration with a number of entities is

critical for success. Federally, we collaborate

with the Office of Management and Budget

(OMB), the Government Accountability Office

(GAO), the National Security Agency (NSA), the

Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council and all

Executive Branch agencies. We also work

closely with a number of information technology organizations and standards bodies, as

well as public and private organizations.

Major initiatives in this area include the Federal

Information Security Management Act of 2002

(FISMA) Implementation Project, guidance for

implementing the Security Rule of the

Healthcare Information Portability and

Accountability Act (HIPAA), integrating security

into the capital planning and investment control

process, a guide to IT security in the system

development life cycle, extended outreach

initiatives and information security training,

awareness and education. Key to the success of

this area is our ability to interact with a broad

constituency – Federal and non-Federal – in

order to ensure that our program is consistent

with national objectives related to or impacted

by information security.

FISMA IMPLEMENTATION

PROJECT

F

ISMA places significant requirements on

Federal agencies, including NIST, for the

protection of information and information

systems. In response to this important legislation,

CSD is leading the development of key information system security standards and guidelines as

part of its FISMA Implementation Project. This

high-priority project includes the development of

security categorization standards and standards

and guidelines for the specification, selection and

testing of security controls for information

systems.

Publications that are specifically called for by

FISMA include Federal Information Processing

Standard (FIPS) 199, Standards for Security

Categorization of Federal Information and

Information Systems; FIPS 200, Minimum

Security Controls for Federal Information

Systems; NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-59,

Guideline for Identifying an Information System

as a National Security System; and SP 800-60,

REACHING OUR GOAL

Security

Management 

and Guidance

STRATEGIC GOAL  The Computer Security Division (CSD) will provide Federal agencies with relevant, timely

and useful computer security policy and management tools. The CSD will assist managers at all levels that deal with, or have

ultimate responsibility for, information technology (IT) security programs in understanding the activities that must be initiated

and completed to develop a sound information security program. This can include an awareness of and understanding of how

to deal with new issues solely from a management view and how to effectively apply NIST guidelines and recommendations.
10

Guide for Mapping Types of Information and

Information Systems to Security Categories.

Additional security guidance documents are being

developed in support of the project that are not

called out directly in the FISMA legislation,

including SP 800-37, Guidelines for the Security

Certification and Accreditation of Federal

Information Technology Systems; SP 800-53,

Recommended Security Controls for Federal

Information Systems; and SP 800-53A, Guide for

Assessing the Security Controls in Federal

Information Systems. It should be noted that CSD

continues to produce other security standards and

guidelines in support of FISMA, which may be

found in the CSD Web site’s publication section.

To gauge the impact of this project on the massive

inventory of Federal information systems, one

must first understand how the world of information technology has changed over the past two

decades. Not long ago, the information systems

that populated Federal enterprises consisted of

large, expensive, standalone mainframes, taking

up a significant amount of physical space in the

facilities and consuming substantial portions of

organizational budgets. Information systems were

viewed as “big ticket items” requiring specialized

policies and procedures to effectively manage.

Today, information systems are more powerful,

less costly (for the equivalent computational capability), networked and ubiquitous. The systems, in

most cases, are viewed by agencies as commodity

items, although items coupled more tightly than

ever to the accomplishment of agency missions.

However, as the technology raced ahead and

brought a new generation of information systems

into the Federal government with new access

methods and a growing community of users, some

of the policies, procedures and approaches

employed to ensure the protection of those

systems did not keep pace.

The administrative and technological costs of

offering a high degree of protection for all Federal

information systems at all times would be prohibitive, especially in times of tight governmental

budgets. Achieving adequate, cost-effective information system security (as defined in Office of

Management and Budget Circular A-130,

Appendix III) in an era where information technology is a commodity requires some fundamental changes in how the protection problem is

addressed. Information systems must be assessed

to establish priorities based on the importance of

those systems to agency missions.

There is clearly a criticality and sensitivity

continuum with regard to agency information

systems that affects the ultimate prioritization of

those systems. At one end of the continuum,

there are high-priority information systems

performing very sensitive, mission-critical operations, perhaps as part of the critical information

infrastructure. At the other end of the continuum,

there are low-priority information systems

performing routine agency operations. The application of safeguards and countermeasures

(specifically, security controls) to all these information systems should be tailored to the individual systems based on established agency

priorities (where the systems fall on the

continuum of criticality/sensitivity with regard to

supporting the agency’s missions). The level of

effort dedicated to testing and evaluating the

security controls in Federal information systems

and the determination and acceptance of risk to

the mission in operating those systems (security

certification and accreditation) should also be

based on the same agency priorities.

Until recently, there were a limited number of

standards and guidelines available to help

agencies implement a more granular approach to

establishing security priorities for their information systems. As a result, many agencies would

end up expending too many resources (both

administratively and technologically) to protect

information systems of lesser criticality/sensitivity

and not enough resources to protect systems of

greater criticality/sensitivity. Some “load

balancing” was needed.

The vision of the FISMA Implementation Project is

that the standards and guidelines developed to

support FISMA will lead to:

More consistent, comparable and repeatable evaluations of security controls

applied to information systems

A better understanding of enterprise-wide

mission risks resulting from the operation

of information systems

More complete, reliable and trustworthy

information for authorizing officials, facilitating more informed security accreditation decisions

More secure information systems within

the Federal government including the critical infrastructure of the United States

More information about the project, including a

schedule and links to publications, may be

found at the project’s Web site.

http://csrc.nist.gov/sec-cert

Contacts: Ms. Joan Hash

(301) 975-5236

joan.hash@nist.gov

Mr. Ray Snouffer

(301) 975-4293

stanley.snouffer@nist.gov

SECURITY CERTIFICATION AND

ACCREDITATION (C&A)

I

t is essential that agency officials have the most

complete and accurate information possible on

the security status of their information systems in

order to make credible, risk-based decisions on

whether to authorize operation of those systems.

Security evaluations are detailed and comprehensive assessments of the technical and non-technical aspects of information systems and

networks in operational environments by security

professionals. These provide senior executives

with the necessary information to authorize the

secure operation of those systems and networks.

The management responsibilities required by law

of executive agencies presume that responsible

agency officials understand the risks and other

2004 ANNUAL REPORT
11

SECURITY MANAGEMENT AND GUIDANCE

factors that could adversely affect their missions.

Moreover, these officials must understand the

current status of their security programs and the

security controls planned or in place to protect

their information and information systems in

order to make informed judgments and investments that appropriately mitigate risk to an

acceptable level. The ultimate objective is to

conduct the day-to-day operations of the agency

and to accomplish the agency’s stated missions

with what the Office of Management and Budget

(OMB) Circular A-130 defines as adequate

security, or security commensurate with risk,

including the magnitude of harm resulting from

the unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction of information.

Security accreditation is the official management decision to authorize operation of an information system. This authorization, given by a

senior agency official, is applicable to a particular environment of operation and explicitly

accepts the risk to agency operations (including

mission, functions, image, or reputation), agency

assets, or individuals, remaining after the implementation of an agreed upon set of security

controls. By accrediting an information system,

the agency official is not only responsible for the

security of the system but is also accountable for

adverse impacts to the agency if a breach of

security occurs. Security accreditation, which is

required under OMB Circular A-130, provides a

form of quality control and challenges managers

and technical staff at all levels to implement the

most effective security controls and techniques,

given technical constraints, operational

constraints, cost and schedule constraints and

mission requirements.

In addition to risk assessments and security plans,

security evaluation also plays an important role in

the security accreditation process. It is essential

that agency officials have the most complete,

accurate and trustworthy information possible on

the security status of their information systems in

order to make credible, risk-based decisions on

whether to authorize operation of those systems.

This information and supporting evidence for

system authorization is often developed during a

detailed security review of the information

system, typically referred to as security certification. Security certification is the comprehensive

evaluation of the management, operational and

technical security controls in an information

system. This evaluation, made in support of the

security accreditation process, determines the

effectiveness of these security controls in a particular environment of operation and the vulnerabilities in the information system after the implementation of such controls.

The results of the security certification are used to

reassess the risks and update the security plan for

the information system, thus providing the factual

basis for the authorizing official to render the

security accreditation decision. By accrediting the

information system, the agency official accepts

the risk associated with it and the implications on

agency operations (including mission, functions,

image, or reputation), agency assets, or individuals. Formalization of the security accreditation

process ensures that information systems will be

operated with appropriate management review,

that there is ongoing monitoring of security

controls and that reaccreditation occurs periodically and whenever there is a significant change

to the system or its environment.

While the initial goal of this effort, a piece of the

FISMA Implementation Project, was to develop a

methodology/approach for use by Federal, State

and Local governments, significant effort was

made to obtain input and consensus from the

commercial sector to achieve an additional goal

that the methodology/approach become an

industry-wide standard for the assessment of a

system’s IT security (for example, it could potentially be used by commercial sector organizations,

adopted by cyber-insurance companies and used

as the basis of issuing cyber-insurance policies).

The final version of Special Publication (SP) 800-

37, Guidelines for the Security Certification

and Accreditation of Federal Information

Technology Systems, was published in May

2004. This guideline is proposed in the context

of a broader security framework for categorizing

the criticality of an IT system and for selecting

and assessing/verifying the effectiveness of a

system’s security controls on a continuing basis.

http://csrc.nist.gov/sec-cert

Contacts: Dr. Ron Ross

(301) 975-5390

rross@nist.gov

SECURITY CATEGORIZATION OF

INFORMATION AND

INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Having a standard way to categorize information and information systems provides a

common framework and understanding for

expressing security that for the Federal government promotes: 1) effective management and

oversight of information security programs,

including the coordination of information

security efforts throughout the civilian, national

security, emergency preparedness, homeland

security and law enforcement communities; and

2) consistent reporting to OMB and Congress on

the adequacy and effectiveness of information

security policies, procedures and practices. Such

a standard is called for in the Federal Information

Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA), and

in Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)

199, Standards for Security Categorization of

Federal Information and Information Systems.

This standard, approved by the U.S. Secretary of

Commerce, is mandatory for Federal agencies.

FIPS 199 provides the first step toward bringing

some order and discipline to the challenge of

protecting the large number of information

systems supporting the operations and assets of

the Federal government. The standard is predicated on a simple and well-established concept –

determining appropriate priorities for agency

information systems and subsequently applying

appropriate measures to adequately protect

those systems. The security controls applied to a

particular information system should be

commensurate with the system’s criticality and
12

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

sensitivity. FIPS 199 assigns this level of criticality

and sensitivity based on the potential impact on

agency operations (mission, functions, image, or

reputation), agency assets, or individuals should

there be a breach in security due to the loss of

confidentiality (unauthorized disclosure of information), integrity (unauthorized modification of

information), or availability (denial of service).

FIPS 199 establishes security categories based on

the magnitude of harm that can be expected to

result from compromises rather than on the

results of an assessment that includes an attempt

to determine the probability of compromise. FIPS

199 requires Federal agencies to do a “triage” on

all of their information types and systems, categorizing each as low, moderate, or high impact

for the three security objectives of confidentiality,

integrity (including authenticity and non-repudiation) and availability.

While FIPS 199 defines the security categories,

security objectives, and impact levels, SP 800-60,

Guide for Mapping Types of Information and

Information Systems to Security Categories, is

designed to assist agencies in mapping their

information to these categories. Appendixes to

SP 800-60 recommend provisional impact levels

for specific information types. They also provide

some rationale for these recommended provisional levels and discuss some of the circumstances that might result in assignment of impact

levels higher or lower than the recommended

provisional levels.

The basis employed in SP 800-60 for the identification of information types is the Office of

Management and Budget’s Federal Enterprise

Architecture Program Management Office June

2003 publication, The Business Reference

Model Version 2.0 (BRM). The BRM describes

functions relating to the purpose of government

(missions, or services to citizens), the mechanisms the government uses to achieve its

purpose (modes of delivery), the support functions necessary to conduct government (support

services), and the resource management functions that support all areas of the government’s

business (management of resources). The information types associated with support services

and management of resources functions are

treated as management and support types.

Some additional information types have been

added at the request of Federal agencies.

The long-term effect of employing a FIPS 199

standards-based approach is more targeted,

more cost-effective and improved security for

Federal information and information systems.

While the interconnection of information

systems often increases the risk to an agency’s

operations and assets, FIPS 199 and the associated suite of standards and guidelines provide a

common framework and understanding for

expressing information security, and thus,

promote greater consistency across diverse

organizations in managing that risk. Agencies

will determine which information systems are

the most important to accomplishing assigned

missions based on the security categorization of

those systems and will protect the systems

appropriately. Agencies will also determine

which systems are the least important to their

missions and will not allocate excessive

resources for the protection of those systems.

http://csrc.nist.gov/sec-cert

Contacts: Dr. Ron Ross

(301) 975-5390

rross@nist.gov

Mr. Wm. Curt Barker Ms. Annabelle Lee

(301) 975-8443 (301) 975-2941

william.barker@nist.gov annabelle.lee@nist.gov

POTENTIAL IMPACT DEFINITIONS FOR SECURITY OBJECTIVES

SECURITY OBJECTIVE

POTENTIAL IMPACT

Low Moderate High

Confidentiality

Preserving authorized restrictions on

information access and disclosure,

including means for protecting personal

privacy and proprietary information.

[44 U.S.C., SEC. 3542]

The unauthorized disclosure of

information could be expected to

have a limited adverse effect on

organizational operations,

organizational assets, or individuals.

The unauthorized disclosure of

information could be expected to

have a serious adverse effect on

organizational operations,

organizational assets, or individuals.

The unauthorized disclosure of

information could be expected to

have a severe or catastrophic

adverse effect on organizational

operations, organizational assets, 

or individuals.

Integrity

Guarding against improper information

modification or destruction, and includes

ensuring information non-repudiation and

authenticity.

[44 U.S.C., SEC. 3542]

The unauthorized modification or

destruction of information could be

expected to have a limited adverse

effect on organizational operations,

organizational assets, or individuals.

The unauthorized modification or

destruction of information could be

expected to have a serious adverse

effect on organizational operations,

organizational assets, or individuals.

The unauthorized modification or

destruction of information could be

expected to have a severe or

catastrophic adverse effect on

organizational operations,

organizational assets, or individuals.

Availability

Ensuring timely and reliable access to and

use of information.

[44 U.S.C., SEC. 3542]

The disruption of access to or use of

information or an information system

could be expected to have a limited

adverse effect on organizational

operations, organizational assets, 

or individuals.

The disruption of access to or use of

information or an information system

could be expected to have a serious

adverse effect on organizational

operations, organizational assets, 

or individuals.

The disruption of access to or use of

information or an information system

could be expected to have a severe

or catastrophic adverse effect on

organizational operations,

organizational assets, or individuals.
13

SECURITY MANAGEMENT AND GUIDANCE

SECURITY CONTROLS FOR

FEDERAL INFORMATION

SYSTEMS

The selection of appropriate security controls

for an information system is an important

task that can have major implications on the

operations and assets of an organization.

Security controls are the management, operational and technical safeguards and countermeasures prescribed for an information system

which, taken together, adequately protect the

confidentiality, integrity and availability of the

system and its information. There are three

important questions that should be answered by

organization officials when addressing the

security considerations for their information and

information systems:

What security controls are needed to adequately protect the information and information system that supports the operations and assets of the organization in

order to accomplish its assigned mission,

protect its assets, fulfill its legal responsibilities, maintain its day-to-day functions

and protect individuals?

Have the selected security controls been

implemented or is there a realistic plan for

their implementation?

What is the desired or required level of

assurance (for example, what would be the

grounds for confidence) that the selected

security controls, as implemented, are

effective in their application?

The answers to these questions cannot be given

in isolation but rather in the context of an information security program for the organization

that identifies, controls and mitigates risks to its

information and information systems.

During the last two years we have worked to

create a list of security controls to be recommended for use by organizations in protecting

their information systems in conjunction with,

and as part of, a well-defined information

security program. In an attempt to create the

most technically sound and broadly applicable

set of security controls for information systems,

a variety of sources were considered during the

development of Special Publication (SP) 800-53,

Recommended Security Controls for Federal

Information Systems. The sources included

security controls from the defense, audit, financial, healthcare and intelligence communities as

well as controls defined by national and international standards organizations. The objective of

SP 800-53 is to provide a sufficiently rich set of

security controls that satisfies the breadth and

depth of security requirements for information

systems and that are consistent with and

complementary to other established security

standards.

The catalog of security controls provided in SP

800-53 can be effectively used to demonstrate

compliance with a variety of governmental,

organizational, or institutional security requirements. It is the responsibility of organizations to

select the appropriate security controls, to

implement the controls correctly and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the controls in satisfying their stated security requirements. The

security controls in the catalog facilitate the

development of assessment methods and procedures that can be used to demonstrate control

effectiveness in a consistent and repeatable

manner, thus contributing to the organization’s

confidence that there is ongoing compliance

with its stated security requirements.

Organizations should use FIPS 199 to define

security categories for their information

systems. SP 800-53 associates recommended

minimum security controls with the FIPS 199

low-, moderate- and high-impact security categories. The recommendations for minimum

security controls from SP 800-53 can subsequently be used as a starting point for and input

to the organization’s risk assessment process.

The risk assessment process refines the initial

set of minimum security controls with the

resulting set of agreed-upon controls documented in the development of security plans for

those information systems. While the FIPS 199

security categorization associates the operation

of the information system with the potential

impact on an organization’s operations and

assets, the incorporation of refined threat and

vulnerability information during the risk assessment process facilitates the tailoring of the

baseline security controls to address organizational needs and tolerance for risk. Deviations

from the recommended baseline security

controls should be made in accordance with the

scoping guidance provided in SP 800-53 and

documented with appropriate justification and

supporting rationale in the security plan for the

information system. The use of security controls

from SP 800-53 and the incorporation of

baseline (minimum) controls as a starting point

in the control selection process facilitate a more

consistent level of security in an organizational

information system. It also offers the needed

flexibility to tailor the controls based on specific

organizational policy and requirements documents, particular conditions and circumstances,

known threat and vulnerability information, or

tolerance for risk to the organization’s operations and assets.

FIPS 199 was finished during the last year and

was published in February 2004. Work has

continued on SP 800-53 this past year and this

document will be issued early in 2005.

http://csrc.nist.gov/sec-cert

Contacts: Dr. Ron Ross

(301) 975-5390

rross@nist.gov

Mr. L. Arnold Johnson

(301) 975-3247

l.johnson@nist.gov
14

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

ORGANIZATIONAL

ACCREDITATION PROGRAM

The second phase of the FISMA

Implementation Project will focus on the

development of a program for accrediting public

and private sector organizations to provide

security certification services for Federal

agencies. The term accreditation is used in two

different contexts in the FISMA Implementation

Project. Security accreditation is the official

management decision to authorize operation of

an information system. Organizational accreditation involves comprehensive proficiency

testing and the demonstration of specialized

skills in a particular area of interest.

A security certification is a comprehensive

assessment of the management, operational and

technical security controls in an information

system, made in support of security accreditation, to determine the extent to which the

controls are implemented correctly, operating as

intended and producing the desired outcome

with respect to meeting the security requirements for the system. Organizations that participate in the accreditation program will be able to

demonstrate competence in the application of

the NIST security standards and guidelines associated with the security certification and accreditation of an information system. Developing a

network of accredited organizations with

demonstrated competence in the provision of

security certification services will give Federal

agencies greater confidence in the acquisition

and use of such services and lead to increased

information security for the Federal government.

The organizational accreditation project consists

of four phases:

Development and selection of an appropriate accreditation model for determining the

competency of organizations desiring to

provide security certification services in

accordance with SP 800-37, Guide for the

Security Certification and Accreditation

of Federal Information Systems.

Development of detailed and comprehensive assessment methods and procedures

for security controls in SP 800-53, Recommended Security Controls for Federal

Information Systems.

Development of appropriate proficiency

tests to determine the competency of

prospective organizations seeking accreditation in key NIST Special Publications associated with the certification and accreditation of Federal information systems.

Development of a strategy for implementing the accreditation program and selection

of an appropriate accreditation body to

conduct the organizational accreditations.

There will be extensive public vetting of the

accreditation program during each phase of

development as described above. The vetting

process will include public workshops to discuss

various accreditation approaches and models, a

public review of the proposed assessment

methods and procedures contained in SP 800-

53A, Guide for Assessing the Security Controls

in Federal Information Systems, and a public

review of the implementation strategy for the

accreditation program.

The earliest initial planning for this phase of the

FISMA Implementation Project will begin in the

coming year. The methodology for this project

will be developed following the production of SP

800-53A, Guide for Assessing the Security

Controls in Federal Information Systems, and

Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)

200, Minimum Security Controls for Federal

Information Systems. FIPS 200 will be issued, in

conformance with legislative requirements, in

December 2005. SP 800-53A will be issued in

early 2006.

http://csrc.nist.gov/sec-cert

Contacts: Dr. Ron Ross

(301) 975-5390

rross@nist.gov

Mr. Ray Snouffer Ms. Joan Hash

(301) 975-4293 (301) 975-5236

stanley.snouffer@nist.gov joan.hash@nist.gov

SECURITY PRACTICES 

AND POLICIES

Today's Federal networks and systems are

highly interconnected and interdependent

with non-Federal systems. Protection of the

Nation's critical infrastructure is dependent

upon effective information security solutions

and practices that minimize vulnerabilities associated with a variety of threats. The broader

sharing of such practices will enhance the

overall security of the Nation. Information

security practices from the public and private

sector can sometimes be applied to enhance the

overall performance of Federal information

security programs. CSD is helping to facilitate a

sharing of these practices and implementation

guidelines in multiple ways.

The Federal Agency Security Practices (FASP)

effort was initiated as a result of the success of

the Federal Chief Information Officers Council’s

Federal Best Security Practices (BSP) pilot effort

to identify, evaluate and disseminate best practices for critical infrastructure protection and

security. CSD was asked to undertake the transition of this pilot effort to an operational

program. As a result, we developed the FASP

Web site. The FASP site contains agency policies,

procedures and practices, the CIO pilot BSPs and

a Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQ) section.

The FASP site differs from the BSP pilot in

material provided and complexity.

The FASP area contains a list of categories found

in many of the NIST Special Publications. Based

on these categories, agencies are encouraged to

submit their information technology (IT) security

information and IT security practices for posting

on the FASP site so they may be shared with

others. Any information on, or samples of,

position descriptions for security positions and

statements of work for contracting security-
15

SECURITY MANAGEMENT AND GUIDANCE

related activities are also encouraged. In the

past year, eleven practices and examples were

added to the collection bringing the total to 126.

CSD also invites public and private organizations to submit their information security practices for consideration to be included in the list

of practices maintained on the Web site. Policies

and procedures may be submitted to NIST in any

area of information security, including accreditation, audit trails, authorization of processing,

budget planning and justification, certification,

contingency planning, data integrity, disaster

planning, documentation, hardware and system

maintenance, identification and authentication,

incident handling and response, life cycle,

network security, personnel security, physical

and environmental protection, production

input/output controls, security policy, program

management, review of security controls, risk

management, security awareness training and

education (to include specific course and awareness materials) and security planning. Current

participants include Computer Associates, the

Internet Security Task Force, Microsoft, the SANS

Institute, the Carnegie Mellon University CERT

Coordination Center, the American Bankers

Association, Ars Technica and EDUCAUSE. This

area added twelve practices in the past year

bringing the total number of listings to twenty.

The coming year will see an effort to continue

the momentum to expand the number of

sample practices and policies made available to

Federal agencies and the public. We are

currently identifying robust sources for more

samples to add to this growing repository.

http://fasp.nist.gov/

Contact: Ms. Pauline Bowen

(301) 975-3293

pauline.bowen@nist.gov

Mr. Mark Wilson

(301) 975-3870

mark.wilson@nist.gov

SECURITY TECHNICAL

IMPLEMENTATION GUIDES 

AND CHECKLISTS

Security technical implementation guides

(STIGs) assist in securing IT products and

systems. By using one of these guides, a

product or system may be made more secure

without an individual having to develop and

test settings and specifications. After using a

STIG, an accompanying checklist may be used to

verify that the guide was correctly applied.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)

issues STIGs and checklists for a variety of information technologies and hosts these on its Web

site. Many of these resources deal with classified

system requirements, and hence access is

restricted to military and government personnel

only. Some of these resources, however, are

suitable for non-classified system use. CSD,

through an agreement with DISA, houses a repository of the STIGs and checklists that are suitable

for non-classified systems so they may be

accessed by contractors that handle Federal information systems. These guides and checklists are

also available for voluntary adoption by others.

http://csrc.nist.gov/pcig/cig.html

Contacts: Mr. Richard Kissel

(301) 975-5017

richard.kissel@nist.gov

PROGRAM REVIEW FOR

INFORMATION SECURITY

MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE

The NIST Program Review for Information

Security Management Assistance (PRISMA)

is a new capability that builds upon NIST's

former Computer Security Expert Assistance

Team (CSEAT) function and has been revised to

include more review options and incorporate

guidance contained in Special Publication (SP)

800-53, Recommended Security Controls for

Federal Information Systems. The PRISMA is

based upon existing Federal directives including

the Federal Information Security Management

Act of 2002 (FISMA), NIST guidance and other

proven techniques and recognized best practices in the area of information security.

A base set of criteria has been developed by

CSD to support PRISMA activity and is updated

as lessons are learned and feedback is received

at the conclusion of each review.

PRISMA has three primary objectives:

To assist agencies in improving their information security programs 

To support Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Planning 

To facilitate exchange of effective security

practices within the Federal community 

PRISMA provides an independent review of the

maturity of an agency's IT security program. The

review is based upon a combination of proven

techniques and best practices, and results in an

action plan that provides a Federal agency with

a business case-based roadmap to cost-effectively enhance the protection of their information system assets. The PRISMA review, which is

not an audit or an inspection, begins with an

assessment of the maturity of the agency's IT

security program. This includes the agency's IT

security policies, procedures and security

controls implementation and integration across

all business areas. The PRISMA team performs a

comparable review of the agency's organizational structure, culture and business mission.

After the assessment is performed, the PRISMA

team documents issues identified during the

assessment phase, and provides corrective

actions associated with each issue.These corrective actions are then provided as a prioritized

action plan for the agency to use to improve its

computer security program. The resulting action

plan is weighted to provide the agency the

greatest improvements most cost-effectively.
16

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

The corrective actions the PRISMA team identifies include the time frame for implementation

and the projected resource impact. The action

plan can readily be used to develop scopes of

work for quick "bootstrapping" of a cyber

security program.

PRISMA focuses on nine primary review areas,

each of which was derived from a combination

of SP 800-26, Self-Assessment Guide for

Information Technology Systems, as supplemented by other criteria from requirements and

guidance found in SP 800-53. Agencies may

choose one of two pre-defined review options

or work with the PRISMA team to further tailor

their reviews.

The PRISMA review is based upon five levels of

maturity: policy, procedures, implementation,

test and integration. The PRISMA team assesses

the maturity level for each of the review criteria.

A higher maturity level can only be attained if

the previous maturity level is attained.

Therefore, if there is an implementation, but

there is not a policy for a specific criteria, none

of the maturity levels are attained for the

specific criteria.

Information from self-assessments generated by

using SP 800-26 can be used as inputs to the

PRISMA review process as they are self-assessments of individual systems. However, limited

value can be obtained from any self-assessment. PRISMA requires evidence of policies,

procedures, implementation, testing and integration of each of the PRISMA criteria. This

evidence can be provided in the form of policy

and procedure documents, independent assessments of systems, etc.

A PRISMA review is available in two versions.

Option One of a PRISMA review focuses on the

strategic aspects of the overall information

security program. This review identifies the level

of maturity of the information security program

and the agency's ability to comply with existing

requirements in eight areas. Option Two focuses

on the strategic aspects and the technical

aspects of the overall information security

program. This option identifies the level of

maturity of the information security program

and the agency's ability to comply with existing

requirements in nine areas. This review includes

all of the criteria in Option One and one additional area of security controls.

Agencies may request a review by the PRISMA

team via email at: prisma@nist.gov. Agencies

being reviewed will need to provide a liaison

knowledgeable about computer security and

systems included in the review in order to work

with the PRISMA team and collect and organize

information received.

Future plans include publication of the review

methodology to enable agencies and Inspector

Generals (IGs) to employ it as a supplement to

other tools.

http://prisma.nist.gov

Contacts: Ms. Joan Hash

(301) 975-5236

prisma@nist.gov

Ms. Pauline Bowen Mr. Richard Kissel

(301) 975-2938 (301) 975-5017

prisma@nist.gov prisma@nist.gov

INFORMATION SECURITY

WITHIN THE SYSTEM

DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE

Many methods exist that can be used by an

organization to effectively develop an

information system. A traditional system development life cycle (SDLC) is called a linear sequential model, which assumes that the system will be

delivered near the end of the life cycle. Another

SDLC method uses the prototyping model, which

is often used to develop an understanding of

system requirements without developing a final

operational system. More complex models have

been developed and successfully used to address

the evolving complexity of advanced and large

information system designs. The SDLC model is

TA Management, Operational, and Technical Areas Policy Procedures Implemented Tested Integrated

1 Information Security Management & Culture 0.63 0.60 0.30

2 Information Security Planning 0.20 0.20

3 Security Awareness, Training, and Education 0.40

4 Budget and Resources 0.60

5 Life Cycle Management

6 Certification and Accreditation 0.80 0.30

7 Critical Infrastructure Protection 0.60 0.30

8 Incident and Emergency Response 0.80 0.50

9 Security Controls 0.80 0.60 0.60

Sample maturity level review results by topic area – The color indicates the level of compliancy with requirements. Green is compliant, yellow is partially compliant

and red is non-compliant.
17

SECURITY MANAGEMENT AND GUIDANCE

embedded in any of the major system developmental approaches: spiral, incremental development, evolutionary and waterfall.

The expected size and complexity of the system,

development schedule and length of a system’s

life will affect the choice of which SDLC model to

use. In most cases, the choice of SDLC model will

be defined by an organization’s acquisition

policy. Including security early in the SDLC typically results in less expensive and more effective

security than adding security to an operational

system.

The following questions are some high-level

starting points that should be addressed in

determining the security controls/countermeasures that will be required for a system:

How critical is the system in meeting the

organization's mission?

What are the security objectives required

by the system, such as integrity, confidentiality and availability?

What regulations and policies are applicable in determining what is to be protected?

What are the threats that are applicable in

the environment where the system will be

operational?

Who selects the protection mechanisms

that are to be implemented in the system?

Security should be incorporated into all phases

of an SDLC model. A general SDLC includes five

phases. Each of the five phases – initiation,

acquisition/development, implementation, operations/maintenance and disposition – includes a

minimum set of information security tasks

needed to effectively incorporate security into a

Phase 4: Operat

oi ns

M/

aintenance

Phase 5: Sunset (Disposition)

hP sa 3 e mI :

ess A/ noit at ne mel p

mss

ne t

B E G I N

KEY TASKS

1 Transition planning

2 Component disposal

3 Media sanitization

4 Information archiving

a) Confidentiality

b) Integrity

c) Availability

Phase 1: Initiation

KEY TASKS

1 Business partner engagement

2 Document enterprise architecture

a) Security environment

b) Interconnections to external systems

3 Identify/specify applicable policies & laws

4 Develop C, I, & A objectives

5 Information & information system security

categorization

6 Procurement specification development

a) FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic algorithms

and modules

b) CC evaluated products

7 Preliminary risk assessment

KEY TASKS

1 CM change control & auditing

2 Continuous monitoring

a) Installing patches

b) FIPS 140-2 crypto module revalidation

c) CC product reevaluation

d) Assess operational controls

i. Administrative/personnel

ii. Physical

3 Recertification

4 Reaccreditation

5 Incident handling

6 Auditing

7 Intrusion detection & monitoring

8 Contingency plan testing

(including continuity of

operations plan)

 KEY TASKS

1 Product/component 

inspection & acceptance

2 Security control integration

3 User/administrative guidance

a) Procedures

b) Security checklists and 

 configuration

c) Key management

4 System ST&E plan

5 Security certification

6 Statement of residual risk

7 Security accreditation

Phase 2: Acquisit oi n

D/

eve

ol pment

KEY TASKS

1 Risk assessment

2 Select inital baseline of security

controls

a) System specific controls

b) Agency common controls

3 Refinement - security control baseline

4 Security control design

5 Cost analysis & reporting

6 Security planning

a) Security plan

b) Configuration management

(CM) plan

c) Contingency plan (including

continuity of operations plan)

d) Training plan

e) Incidence response plan

7 Unit/integration ST&E

Phase-to-Phase Iterations

LEGEND

Phase 2, Tasks 5 & 6 Phase 1, Task 1

Phase 3, Task 2 Phase 2, Task 4

Phase 4, Tasks 2 & 3 Phase 1, Task 4

Feedback

A General System Development Life Cycle Model
18

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

system during its development. There are

several NIST documents that are applicable to

every phase of the SDLC, including Special

Publication (SP) 800-27, Engineering Principles

for Information Technology Security (A

Baseline for Achieving Security), and SP 800-

64, Security Considerations in the Information

System Development Life Cycle.

During the past year, CSD developed and

published SP 800-64, Security Considerations

in the Information System Development Life

Cycle. CSD also developed and produced

several documents that identify the NIST publications that are applicable in each phase of a

general SDLC model. These documents include

a brochure with a list of the major publications

and a poster with a full listing of all primary and

secondary reference materials. The brochure

and poster have been widely distributed to

Federal agencies and are available on the CSD

Web site. Finally, CSD issued an Information

Technology Laboratory Bulletin in September

2004 with a full-text version of the information

listed on the poster.

http://csrc.nist.gov/SDLCinfosec

Contacts: Ms. Annabelle Lee

(301) 975-2941

SDLCinfosec@nist.gov

Ms. Tanya Brewer

(301) 975-4534

SDLCinfosec@nist.gov

AUTOMATED SECURITY SELFEVALUATION TOOL

An important element of measuring the

status of information technology (IT)

security within an organization is to perform

routine self-assessments of an organization’s IT

systems. There are many methods and tools

available to help agency officials determine the

current status of their security programs relative

to existing policy. Ideally many of these methods

and tools would be implemented on an ongoing

basis to systematically identify programmatic

weaknesses and, where necessary, establish

targets for continuing improvement. For a selfassessment to be effective, a risk assessment

should be conducted in conjunction with or prior

to the self-assessment. A self-assessment does

not eliminate the need for a risk assessment.

The Automated Security Self-Evaluation Tool

(ASSET) automates the process of completing a

system self-assessment. ASSET will assist organizations in completing the self-assessment questionnaire contained in SP 800-26, Security

Self-Assessment Guide for Information

Technology Systems.

ASSET may be used to gather data and generate

reports related to the status of the self-assessment. The intent of this tool is to provide a

centralized place for the collection of data used

to assess a system. ASSET contains the specific

control objectives and suggested techniques for

measuring the security of a system or group of

interconnected systems as described in SP 800-

26. The control objectives and techniques are

taken from long-standing requirements found in

statute, policy and guidance on security.

The reporting features of ASSET are designed to

provide users with a clear picture of the security

status of their resources, as specified in SP 800-

26. ASSET generates a system summary report,

which provides a snapshot of assessment

results. Unformatted reports can be exported to

any popular spreadsheet or charting program.

Formatted reports are available for export to

Microsoft Excel. The results of the questionnaire

can be used as input to a report evaluating an

organization-wide IT security program. By

sampling completed questionnaires, an agency

can determine how well their policies and

procedures are being followed and where

resources should be expended. A Federal

Information Security Management Act of 2002

(FISMA) reporting template has been developed

to facilitate the extraction of data from

ASSET–Manager to use in FISMA-required

reports to the Office of Management and

Budget.

The fourth version of ASSET, version 2.0, will be

released in December 2004. A new user’s

manual will be issued at this time as NIST

Interagency Report (IR) 6885, Automated

Security Self-Evaluation Tool User Manual

2004 Edition. This manual is intended to help

users of ASSET–System understand each

function of the tool and how the tool can be

used to complete self-assessments.

http://csrc.nist.gov/organizations/cspmf.html

Contact: Ms. Marianne Swanson

(301) 975-3293

marianne.swanson@nist.gov

ANTI-SPAM TECHNOLOGIES

Today unsolicited bulk e-mail, or spam, is

often used to deliver viruses or initiate

fraudulent activity. Spammers have begun to

use viruses to take control of insufficiently

protected computers in order to route their

messages through these machines, or even to

have the controlled computer, or “zombie,”

send the messages with virtually no further

control or effort needed. Virus makers have

begun to use spammer techniques to deliver

their cyber payloads to large numbers of recipients. This combination of techniques is

commonly known as a “blended threat.”

In addition to blended threats, another new

development in the use of spam is quickly

becoming a greater security threat. “Phishing,”

also called "carding," is a high-tech scam that

uses spam to send fraudulent e-mail messages

in order to deceive consumers into disclosing

their credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security numbers, passwords and

other sensitive information. Phishers have

recently become even more aggressive and have
19

SECURITY MANAGEMENT AND GUIDANCE

begun using a combination of DNS poisoning

and domain hijacking to cause users who type

a legitimate URL into their browser to be redirected to a criminal Web site that is set up to

capture sensitive personal information.

As awareness of these new security issues rises,

many entities that rely increasingly on the

Internet as an important infrastructure are

reassessing their responsibilities in dealing with

spam, reassessing the risks they face and

making changes in how they manage their

responses to these security issues. Spam, and

particularly phishing, must now be included in

the ever-growing list of security issues they

must consider when designing and managing

their information technology systems.

In February 2004, CSD and the Advanced

Network Technologies Division (ANTD) sponsored a Spam Technology Workshop, which was

attended by 120 people from industry, nonprofit organizations and government agencies.

The purpose of the workshop was to discuss

technological methods used to address spam, to

identify major issues associated with spam

detection and reduction, to solicit input from

standards bodies on activities related to this

area, to get input from Internet service providers

on current and future plans in this area and to

hear from government and private entities on

internal processes being used to address the

issue. Finally, the workshop was to assist NIST in

developing ideas for criteria and procedures for

improving effectiveness of spam controls.

In the past year, CSD has contributed a staff

member to the U.S. Delegation to the

Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and

Development (OECD) Working Party on

Information Security and Privacy (WPISP). We

have also contributed a staff member as a

member of the newly created OECD Task Force

on Spam. The Task Force is a joint effort

between the OECD Committee for Information,

Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP),

the WPISP and the OECD Committee on

Consumer Policy (CCP), and was established in

order to enhance co-ordination of all work on

spam within the OECD.

We will continue to participate in broader U.S.

government initiatives to combat spam,

including a conference to be held in Winter 2004

in conjunction with the Federal Trade

Commission and participation in OECD activities. CSD will also consider ways it can further

assist agencies or conduct relevant, useful

research on spam technologies.

http://csrc.nist.gov/spam/

Contacts: Ms. Tanya Brewer

(301) 975-4534

tbrewer@nist.gov

Dr. David Griffith

(301) 975-3512

david.griffith@nist.gov
20

OVERVIEW

Every IT product available makes a claim.

When protecting sensitive data, government

agencies need to have a minimum level of

assurance that a product’s stated security claim

is valid. There are also legislative restrictions

regarding certain types of technology that

require Federal agencies to use only tested and

validated products.

The CSD’s testing-focused activities include the

validation of cryptographic modules and cryptographic algorithm implementations, assisting

with Common Criteria (CC) evaluation and validation programs, facilitation of and participation in international recognition arrangements,

accreditation of testing laboratories, development of test suites, providing technical support

to industry forums and conducting education,

training and outreach programs.

Activities in this area have historically, and

continue to, involve large amounts of collaboration and the facilitation of relationships with

other entities. The Federal agencies that have

collaborated recently with these activities are

the Department of State, the Department of

Commerce, the Department of Defense, the

General Services Administration, the National

Aeronautics and Space Administration, the

National Security Agency, the Department of

Energy, the Office of Management and Budget,

the Social Security Administration, the United

States Postal Service, the Department of

Veterans Affairs, the Federal Aviation

Administration and the National Voluntary

Laboratory Accreditation Program. The list of

industry entities that have worked with CSD in

this area is long, and includes the American

National Standards Institute (ANSI), Oracle,

CISCO Systems, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft

Corporation, International Business Machines

(IBM), VISA, Mastercard, AMEX, Computer

Associates, RSA Security, Research in Motion,

Sun Microsystems, Network Associates, Entrust

and Fortress Technologies. The division also has

collaborated at the global level with Canada,

the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan

and Korea in this area.

LABORATORY ACCREDITATION

The goals of this project are to accredit fullyqualified Common Criteria Testing laboratories and Cryptographic Module Testing laboratories and to promote the technical competence of

accredited and applicant laboratories. Vendors

use independent, National Voluntary

Accreditation Laboratory Accreditation Program

(NVLAP) accredited testing laboratories when

having their products evaluated. This project

develops new methods of proficiency testing for

accreditation and re-accreditation of these laboratories, as well as continuous training opportunities for laboratories. This leads to consistent

evaluation and validations of products for use

by Federal government agencies and the private

sector, as well as to highly-qualified accredited

laboratories.

In 2004, one Common Criteria testing laboratory

and two Cryptographic Module testing laboratories were re-accredited. Two new laboratories

were accredited for Cryptographic Module

REACHING OUR GOAL

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

SECURITY 

TESTING AND METRICS

STRATEGIC GOAL  The Computer Security Division (CSD) will provide Federal government agencies, industry

and the public with a proven set of information technology (IT) security services based upon sound testing methodologies and

test metrics. To this end, the CSD will engage in activities to develop, manage and promote security assessment tools,

techniques and services, and will support programs for the testing, evaluation and validation of certain IT products. The CSD

will also provide guidance to Federal agencies on the use of evaluated and tested products.
21

Testing and three new accreditations were

issued for Common Criteria testing. This past

year was also a transitional period. Beginning in

fiscal year 2005, the National Security Agency

(NSA) and NVLAP will be handling all Common

Criteria testing laboratory accreditation.

Currently there are nine laboratories accredited

to perform Cryptographic Module testing: five

in the United States, two in Canada and two in

the United Kingdom. Seven laboratories are to

be re-accredited in 2005 and three or more new

laboratories should complete accreditation.

Currently there are nine Common Criteria

testing laboratories.

http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/210/214/214.htm

Contacts: Mr. Jeffrey Horlick

Standards Services Division

(301) 975-4020

jeffrey.horlick@nist.gov

Ms. Pat Toth

(301) 975-5140

patricia.toth@nist.gov

CRYPTOGRAPHIC MODULE

VALIDATION PROGRAM AND

CRYPTOGRAPHIC ALGORITHM

VALIDATION PROGRAM

F

ederal agencies, industry and the public now

regularly rely on cryptography for the protection of information and communications used in

electronic commerce, critical infrastructure and

other application areas. At the core of all

products offering cryptographic services is the

cryptographic module. Cryptographic modules

are used in products and systems to provide

security services such as confidentiality, integrity

and authentication. Though cryptography is

used to provide security, weaknesses such as

poor design or weak algorithms can render the

product insecure and place highly sensitive

information at risk. Adequate testing and validation of the cryptographic module and cryptoSECURITY TESTING AND METRICS

graphic algorithms against established standards is essential to provide security assurance.

Vendors of cryptographic modules and algorithms use independent, private-sector testing

laboratories accredited as Cryptographic

Module Testing (CMT) laboratories by NVLAP to

have their cryptographic modules tested by the

Cryptographic Module Validation Program

(CMVP) and their cryptographic algorithms validated by the Cryptographic Algorithm Validation

Program (CAVP). The CMVP and the CAVP are

collaborative programs involving CSD and the

Communication Security Establishment (CSE) of

the Canadian Government that provide Federal

agencies – in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. –

with confidence that a validated cryptographic

product meets a claimed level of security and

that a validated cryptographic algorithm has

been implemented correctly. The CMVP validates modules used in a wide variety of

products including secure Internet browsers,

secure radios, tokens and products supporting

Public Key Infrastructure and electronic

commerce. One module may be used in several

products, so that a small number of modules

may account for hundreds of products.

Likewise, the CAVP validates cryptographic

algorithms that may be housed in a single or

multiple cryptographic modules. To give a sense

of the quality improvement that both the CMVP

and the CAVP achieve, consider that our statistics from the testing laboratories show that out

of the first 200 modules tested 48% of the cryptographic modules and 27% of the cryptographic algorithms brought in for voluntary

testing had security flaws that were corrected

during testing. In other words, without this

program, the Federal government would have

had only a 50/50 chance of buying correctly

implemented cryptography. To date, over 460

certificates have been issued for validated

products by the CMVP, representing over 120

vendors. Over 110 of these certificates were

issued during 2004. Likewise, over 1,312 certificates have been issued for validated cryptographic algorithms. Over 336 of these certificates were issued in 2004.

The CMVP Symposium, “FIPS 140-2: Where

Security Starts,” was held in Rockville,

Maryland, in September 2004. The CMVP

symposium included presentations and discussions on FIPS 140-2, Security Requirements for

Cryptographic Modules, supporting documents

such as the Derived Test Requirements and

Implementation Guidance, cryptographic algorithm testing suites, expectations, future direction, panel discussions from Federal and user

agencies and laboratory panel discussions. The

symposium was planned to be useful for

security IT developers (hardware and software),

security IT users, cryptographic module/algorithm vendors, procurement specialists, testing

laboratories and IT managers.

One of the topics discussed at the Symposium is

the work that will begin in 2005 to draft and

issue FIPS 140-3. This FIPS will be an update to

the current FIPS 140-2. There have been

tremendous advances in technology since the
22

issuance of FIPS 140-2 in May 2001. FIPS 140-

2 is becoming more difficult to generically apply

to new technologies. Updating this type of

document is a very lengthy process, so the work

will begin in order to produce FIPS 140-3 before

FIPS 140-2 loses its usefulness. Current plans

are to begin a public comment period in January

2005 to gain input on the possibility of using

FIPS 140-2 as a starting point for FIPS 140-3.

Work on the first draft is planned to begin in

April 2005 with the first draft being made available for public comment in October 2005. It is

thought that the final FIPS 140-3 will become

effective in November 2006.

This past year has seen a number of new algorithm validation tests developed in the CAVP.

Some of these tests now allow for testing of a

number of “legacy algorithms,” including

Random Number Generators (RNGs), the RSA,

the Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code

(HMAC) and the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature

Algorithm (ECDSA). These legacy algorithms are

cryptographic algorithms that were accepted for

use in the CMVP, but did not have validation

tests developed in the CAVP. Modules using

these legacy algorithms were previously issued

certificates based on the general trust of the

inherent security of the algorithm and with a

distinction that showed that the implementation of the algorithm was being affirmed as

correct by the vendor. All modules using these

algorithms from this point forward will be

required to go through the full cryptographic

algorithm validation testing. This new level of

testing will significantly raise the trust and

confidence in these modules.

In addition to the above-mentioned cryptographic algorithms, the CAVP has developed a

new test suite for the Secure Hash Algorithm-2

(SHA-2) and a new test suite for the CCM

(Counter with CBC MAC) algorithm. SHA-2

contains the SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384 and

SHA-512 sub-algorithms. SHA-1 could only

produce a message digest (hash value) of 160

bits, providing no more than 80 bits of security

against collision attacks. For the U.S. Advanced

Encryption Standard (AES), which uses keys of

128, 192 or 256-bit size, the newer SHA-2 was

proposed because it can produce hash sizes of

224, 256, 384 or 512-bits with collision protection levels of 112, 128, 192 and 256-bits respectively. This provides for a better balancing of the

security of the hash algorithm with that of the

encryption algorithm. The new mode of operation for AES – the CCM algorithm – is a

combined confidentiality-authentication mode

that was developed for the Institute of Electrical

and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11

standard for wireless local area networks

(LANs).

Work progressed during 2004 with the establishment of FIPS 140-2 as International

Organization of Standardization (ISO) standard

19790. The draft of the standard is a new

project registered in the work program of the

International Organization for Standardization/

International Electrotechnical Commission Joint

Technical Committee 1 Subcommittee 27 on IT

Security Techniques (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27-IT

Security Techniques). It is expected that the

draft will see progress in the SC’s process in the

early part of 2005. Also in SC 27, a proposal has

been made to devote six months to a study of

the development of a methodology for cryptographic module evaluation. A CSD staff member

will lead this study.

http://csrc.nist.gov/cryptval/

CMVP Contact: Mr. Randall Easter

(301) 975-4641

randall.easter@nist.gov

CAVP Contact: Ms. Sharon Keller

(301) 975-2910

sharon.keller@nist.gov

2004 ANNUAL REPORT
23

OVERVIEW

The CSD’s security research focus is to

identify emerging technologies and

conceive of new security solutions that will have

a high impact on the critical information infrastructure. We perform research and development on behalf of government and industry

from the earliest stages of technology development through proof-of-concept, reference and

prototype implementations and demonstrations.

We work to transfer new technologies to

industry, to produce new standards and to

develop tests, test methodologies and assurance

methods.

To keep pace with the rate of change in emerging

technologies we conduct a large of amount of

research into existing and emerging technologies. Some of the many topics we research

include smart card infrastructure and security,

wireless and mobile device security, voice over IP

security issues, digital forensics tools and

methods, access control and authorization

management, Internet Protocol security, intrusion

detection systems, quantum information system

security and quantum cryptography and vulnerability analyses. Our research helps fulfill specific

needs by the Federal government that would not

be easily or reliably filled otherwise.

We collaborate extensively with government,

academia and private sector entities, recently

including International Business Machines

(IBM), Microsoft Corporation, Sun

Microsystems, the Boeing Company, Intel

Corporation, Lucent Technologies, Oracle

Corporation, MITRE, the SANS Institute, the

University of Maryland, Ohio State University,

the University of Tulsa, George Mason

University, Rutgers University, Purdue University,

George Washington University, the University of

West Florida, University of California–San

Diego, University of Maryland-Baltimore County,

the National Security Agency, the Department of

Defense, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

and the Department of Justice.

SECURITY CONFIGURATION

CHECKLISTS FOR COMMERCIAL

IT PRODUCTS

There are many threats to users’ computers,

ranging from remotely launched network

service exploits to malicious code spread

through e-mails, malicious Web sites and file

downloads. Vulnerabilities in IT products are

REACHING OUR GOAL

discovered on an almost daily basis and many

ready-to-use exploits are widely available on

the Internet. Because IT products are often

intended for a wide variety of audiences, restrictive security controls are usually not enabled by

default so many IT products are immediately

vulnerable out-of-the-box. It is a complicated,

arduous and time-consuming task for even

experienced system administrators to identify a

reasonable set of security settings for many IT

products. While the solutions to IT security are

complex, one basic yet effective tool is the

security configuration checklist.

The Cyber Security Research and Development

Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-305) tasks NIST to

“develop, and revise as necessary, a checklist

setting forth settings and option selections that

minimize the security risks associated with each

computer hardware or software system that is,

or is likely to, become widely used within the

Federal Government.” In addition, the Common

Configuration Working Group Report of the

Technical Standards and Common Criteria Task

Force, formed at the Department of Homeland

Security's (DHS’s) first National Cyber Security

Summit in 2003, recommended government

promotion of the use of a NIST central

repository for IT security configuration

checklists. In response, NIST, with sponsorship

SECURITY 

RESEARCH AND 

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

STRATEGIC GOALThe Computer Security Division (CSD) will support and conduct research activities that will

enhance information technology (IT) security for Federal agencies in the Executive Branch. The CSD will work to understand

and enhance the security utility of new technologies through research. The identification and mitigation of vulnerabilities in

IT technologies will be a piece of the research that will be undertaken.
24

from DHS, has created the Security

Configuration Checklists Program for IT

Products to facilitate the development and

dissemination of security configuration

checklists so that organizations and individual

users can better secure their IT products.

The goals of this program are:

To facilitate the development and sharing

of security configuration checklists by

providing a framework for developers to

submit checklists to NIST

To assist developers in making checklists

that conform to common baseline levels of

security

To assist developers and users by providing

guidelines for making checklists better

documented and more usable

To provide a managed process for the review,

update and maintenance of checklists

To provide an easy-to-use repository of

checklists

This program also serves to assist vendors in the

process of making their checklists available to

users out-of-the-box. In such cases, it will still be

advisable for product users to consult the checklist

repository for updates to pre-installed checklists.

A security configuration checklist (sometimes

called a lockdown, hardening guide, or benchmark) is in its simplest form a series of instructions for configuring a product to a particular

security level (or baseline). Typically, checklists

are created by IT vendors for their own

products; however, checklists are also created by

other organizations such as consortia, academia

and government agencies. The use of wellwritten, standardized checklists can markedly

reduce the vulnerability exposure of IT products.

Checklists may be particularly helpful to small

organizations and individuals that have limited

resources for securing their systems.

A checklist might include any of the following:

Configuration files that automatically set

various security settings (such as executables, security templates that modify settings,

scripts)

Documentation (for example, a text file) that

guides the checklist user to manually

configure software

Documents that explain the recommended

methods to securely install and configure a

device

Policy documents that set forth guidelines

for such things as auditing, authentication

security (for example, passwords) and the

perimeter security

Checklists can also include administrative practices (such as management and operational

controls) for an IT product that go hand-in-hand

with improvements to the product’s security.

Many organizations have created various checklists. However, these checklists may vary widely in

terms of quality and usability and may have

become outdated as software updates and

upgrades have been released. Because there is no

central checklist repository, they can be difficult to

find. They may not be well documented with the

result being that one checklist may differ significantly from another in terms of the level of

security provided. It may be difficult to determine

if the checklist is current, or how the checklist

should be implemented. While many existing

checklists are of high quality and quite usable, the

majority of checklists aren’t accessible or directly

usable by most audiences.

Some of the benefits that organizations and individuals can achieve by using checklists are:

Providing a baseline level of security to

protect against common and dangerous

local and remote threats and a consistent

approach to securing systems

Significantly reducing the time required to

research and develop appropriate security

configurations for installed IT products

Allowing smaller organizations to leverage

outside resources to implement recommended practice security configurations

Preventing public loss of confidence or

embarrassment due to compromise of

publicly accessible systems

While the use of security configuration checklists

can greatly improve overall levels of security in

organizations, no checklist can make a system or

a product 100% secure. However, use of checklists

that emphasize hardening of systems against

flaws or bugs inherent in software will typically

result in greater levels of product security and

protection from future threats.

CSD will begin to maintain a checklist repository

in Winter 2005 containing checklists and 

descriptions, which will be located at

http://checklists.nist.gov. Users will be able to

search on the descriptions to locate a particular

checklist using a variety of different fields,

including the product name, vendor name and

operational environment/category.

We recognize that checklists are significantly

more useful when they follow common security

baselines. This program identifies several broad

and specialized operational environments, any

one of which should be common to most audiences. By identifying and describing these environments, developers can better target their

checklists to the general security baselines associated with the environments and users can better

select the checklists that are most appropriate for

2004 ANNUAL REPORT
25

SECURITY RESEARCH AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

their operating environments. The operational

environments are:

Standalone (or Small Office/Home Office -

SOHO) describes small computer installations that are used for home or business

purposes. Standalone encompasses a variety

of small-scale environments and devices,

ranging from laptops, mobile devices, or

home computers, to telecommuting systems,

to small businesses and small branch offices

Managed (or Enterprise) are typically

centrally-managed environments with

defined, organized suites of hardware and

software configurations, usually consisting

of centrally-managed workstations and

servers protected from the Internet by firewalls and other network security devices

Specialized Security-Limited Functionality

are systems and networks at high risk of

attack or data exposure, with security taking

precedence over functionality. It assumes

systems have limited or specialized (not

general-purpose workstations or systems)

functionality in a highly threatened environment – such as an outward facing firewall or

public Web server – or whose data content

or mission purpose is of such value that

aggressive trade-offs in favor of security

outweigh the potential negative consequences to other useful system attributes

such as legacy applications or interoperability with other systems. Checklists for this

environment are not recommended for

home users or for large-scale, generalpurpose systems. This environment could be

a subset of other environments

Custom environments contain specialized

systems in which the functionality and

degree of security do not fit the other environments. Legacy is a typical Custom environment. A legacy environment contains

older systems or applications that may use

older, less-secure communication mechaSTEPS FOR

CHECKLIST END-USERS

Feedback on

Checklist

IT Product,

Checklist Included

IT Product,

Out-of-the-box

OR IT Product

Checklist

Checklist Repository,

http://checklists.nist.gov

User Life Cycle

1. Determine Local Operational,

Product Requirements

2. Search, Retrieve New or

Updated Checklists

3. Review, Test, Document

Checklist in Local Environment

4. Apply Checklist to IT Product

IT Product Secured

nisms. A Custom environment could be a

subset of other environments 

The NIST Security Configuration Checklists

Program for IT Products provides a process and

guidance for developing and using checklists in a

consistent fashion. For checklist users, steps

include gathering local requirements, researching

and retrieving checklists that match the user's

operational environment and security requirements, modifying and documenting the checklist

as necessary to take into account local policies

and needs, testing the checklist and providing any

feedback to NIST and the checklist developers. The

final step involves preparation for applying the

checklist, such as making configuration or data

backups, and then applying the checklist in

production.

For checklist developers, steps include the initial

development of the checklist, checklist testing,

documenting the checklist according to the guidelines of the program and submitting a checklist

package to NIST. We will screen the checklist

submission in accordance with the program

requirements prior to a public review of the checklist. After the public review period and any subsequent issue resolution, it will be listed on the

checklist repository with a detailed description.

We will periodically ask checklist developers to

review their checklists and provide updates as

necessary. Checklists will be retired or archived as

they become outdated or incorrect.

The NIST program is in cooperation with checklist

development activities at the Defense Information

Systems Agency, the National Security Agency and

the Center for Internet Security, and is in the

process of establishing participation agreements

with vendors and other checklist-producing

organizations. CSD gratefully acknowledges sponsorship for its checklist program from the

Department of Homeland Security.

http://checklists.nist.gov/

Contact: Mr. John Wack

(301) 975-3411

john.wack@nist.gov
26

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

WINDOWS XP SYSTEMS

ADMINISTRATION GUIDANCE

When an IT security configuration checklist

(also known as a hardening or lockdown

guide) is applied to a system in combination with

trained system administrators and a sound and

effective security program, a substantial reduction

in vulnerability exposure can be achieved. During

the past year, CSD has produced the draft of

Special Publication (SP) 800-68, Guidance for

Securing Microsoft Windows XP Systems for IT

Professionals: A NIST Security Configuration

Checklist, in order to assist personnel responsible

for the administration and security of Windows XP

systems. This guide contains information that can

be used to secure desktop Windows XP workstations, mobile computers and telecommuter systems

more effectively in a variety of environments,

including small offices, home offices (SOHO) and

managed enterprise environments. This guidance

should only be applied throughout an enterprise by

trained and experienced system administrators.

This guide provides detailed information about the

security of Windows XP, security configuration

guidelines for popular applications and security

configuration guidelines for the Windows XP operating system. The principal goal of the document

is to recommend and explain tested, secure

settings for Windows XP workstations with the

objective of simplifying the administrative burden

of improving the security of Windows XP systems

in four types of environments: SOHO, Enterprise,

Specialized Security-Limited Functionality and

Legacy.

This guide includes security templates that will

enable system administrators to apply the security

recommendations rapidly. The NIST Windows XP

Security Templates are text-based configuration

files that specify values for security-relevant

system settings. The security templates modify

several key policy areas of a Windows XP system,

including password policy, account lockout policy,

auditing policy, user rights assignment, system

security options, event log policy, system service

settings and file permissions. The templates are

based on security templates previously developed

by the National Security Agency (NSA), Defense

Information Systems Agency (DISA) and Microsoft.

Most of the settings in the templates represent

consensus recommendations as proposed by

various security experts from the Department of

Homeland Security (DHS), Center for Internet

Security (CIS), DISA, NSA, Microsoft and NIST.

The NIST templates and additional settings

described in SP 800-68 have been applied to test

systems and tested according to detailed functional and security test plans. The functionality of

common office productivity tools, Web browsers,

e-mail clients, personal firewalls, anti-virus

software and spyware detection and removal utilities was also tested against the NIST templates

and additional settings to identify potential

conflicts. By implementing the recommendations

described throughout this publication, in addition

to the NIST Windows XP security templates themselves and general prescriptive recommendations,

organizations should be able to meet a secure

common configuration baseline for operating a

Windows XP system.

Although the guidance presented in SP 800-68

has undergone considerable testing, every system

and environment is unique, so system administrators should perform their own testing. The development of the NIST Windows XP Security

Templates was driven by the need to create more

secure Windows XP workstation configurations.

Because some settings in the templates may

reduce the functionality or usability of the system,

caution should be used when applying the

baseline security templates. Specific settings in

the templates should be modified as needed so

that the settings conform to local policies and

support required system functionality. NIST

strongly recommends that organizations fully test

the templates on representative systems before

widespread deployment. Some settings may inadvertently interfere with applications, particularly

legacy applications that may require a less restrictive security profile.

SP 800-68 is due to be finalized early in 2005.

http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP.html

Contacts: Mr. Murugiah Souppaya

(301) 975-4758

murugiah.souppaya@nist.gov

1

2

5

4

6

3

Implementation

and

Testing

System Roles

and Functional

Requirements

Security

Categorization

of Information

and Information

Systems

System

Monitoring and

Maintenance

Windows XP

Baseline

Security Controls

and Threats

Analysis

Environments

and Security

Controls

Documentation

The Facets of

Windows XP Security
27

SECURITY RESEARCH AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

GOVERNMENT SMART CARD

PROGRAM

Many Federal agencies are interested in

using smart cards because of their

intrinsic portability and security. A smart card is

able to store and actively process information,

in particular, cryptographic keys and algorithms

for providing digital signatures and for use with

other cryptographic functions.

Scientists in CSD have been working with

Federal agencies and industry partners for the

past several years to establish a Government

Smart Card (GSC) program to facilitate widespread deployment of interoperable smart card

systems. The Information Technology Laboratory

(ITL) set out to build a framework for smart card

interoperability, enabling broad adoption of this

critical technology by the public and private

sectors. The mechanism and technical foundation for this framework is the Government

Smart Card Interoperability Specification (GSCIS). The GSC-IS version 2.1 was published in July

of 2003.

The GSC-IS lays the groundwork for smart cards

to work in an open environment. It defines an

architectural model for interoperable smart card

service provider modules, compatible with both

file system cards and virtual machine cards, that

allows smart card application developers to

obtain various services (for example, encryption,

authentication, and digital signatures) from

GSC-compliant smart cards through a common,

interoperable smart card services interface.

Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12

(HSPD-12) mandated the Secretary of

Commerce to develop a Federal standard for

government-wide secure and reliable forms of

identification and a smart card is the chosen

technology. The Federal government has

embraced smart card technology because of the

inherent security features and versatility of this

technology. For example, a single smart card

GSC-IS Architectural Model

Smart Card

Smart Card Reader

Basic Services Interface (BSI)

Client Application

Virtual Card Edge Interface (VCEI)

Card Reader Driver

Card Reader

GSC-IS Compliant Smart Card

CCC & VCEI Protocol

Data Model Object (DMO)

Extended Service Interface(s) (XSI)

SPS

SPM

Host PC

could be used as an identification card, to

provide access to secure buildings, to securely

logon to computer systems and to make small

purchases. Approximately 30 to 40 million

smart cards are due to be issued within the next

few years for government purposes.

The Government Smart Card Inter-Agency

Advisory Board (IAB) established the Technical

Working Group (TWG), which consists of representatives from the Federal agencies and

industry partners. The TWG is co-chaired by NIST

and chartered to develop technical solutions for

identified government requirements. The IAB

and TWG fall under the purview of the Federal

Identity Credential Committee (FICC), a

committee under the Chief Information Officers

(CIO) Council e-Authentication activity.

NIST represents the GSC program in industry,

government and formal standards organizations. NIST is also charged with developing a

comprehensive GSC conformance test program.

CSD has partnered with the Software

Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division

(SDCT) for the work of this program.

The fundamental framework of GSC-IS v2.1 was

submitted for consideration as an international

formal standard. The international ballot was

approved with overwhelming success and NIST

now provides the Convener of the International

Organization for Standardization/ International

Electrotechnical Commission Joint Technical

Committee 1 on Information Technology,

Subcommittee 17 on Cards and Personal

Identification, Work Group 4 on Integrated

Circuit Cards with Contacts, Task Force 9.

A new suite of interoperability standards,

ISO/IEC 24727, is under development. In the

coming year, NIST will work with ISO and the

InterNational Committee for Information

Technology Standards/American National

Standards Institute (INCITS/ANSI) B10, the U.S.

Technical Advisory Group to ISO SC17, on these

formal standardization efforts. Continued

collaboration with the International Civil

Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United

Nations organization responsible for travel

documents, during the development of the next

generation passport, which includes contactless
28

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

technology, will ensure harmonization of

selected protocols with GSC-IS. Finally, close

collaboration with the FICC will continue to

ensure synchronization of policy, standardization and technical activities of the Federal

community.

http://smartcard.nist.gov/

Contacts: Mr. James Dray, technical lead

(301) 975-3356

james.dray@nist.gov

Ms. Teresa Schwarzhoff, ANSI/INCITS and ISO Chair,

standards lead

(301) 975-5727

teresa.schwarzhoff@nist.gov

GOVERNMENT-WIDE

PERSONAL IDENTITY

VERIFICATION

Authentication of an individual’s identity is a

fundamental component of physical and

logical access control processes. When individuals

attempt to access security-sensitive buildings,

computer systems, or data, an access control

decision must be made. An accurate determination of identity is an important component in

making sound access control decisions.

A wide range of mechanisms is employed to

authenticate identity, leveraging many different

classes of identification identity credentials. For

physical access, individual identity has traditionally been authenticated by use of paper credentials, such as driver’s licenses and badges. Access

to computers and data has traditionally been

authenticated through user-selected passwords.

More recently, cryptographic mechanisms and

biometric techniques have been applied to

physical and computer security, replacing or

supplementing the traditional credentials. The

strength of the authentication that is achieved

varies, depending upon the type of credential, the

process used to issue the credential and the

authentication mechanism used to validate the

credential.

HSPD-12, signed by the President on August 27,

2004, established the requirements for a common

standard for identification issued by Federal

departments and agencies to Federal employees

and contractors (including contractor employees)

for gaining physical access to Federally-controlled

facilities and logical access to Federallycontrolled information systems. HSPD-12

addressed the wide variations in the quality and

security of forms of identification used to gain

access to secure Federal and other facilities where

there is potential for terrorist attacks. Limiting

these variations will enhance security, increase

Government efficiency, reduce identity fraud and

protect personal privacy by establishing a mandatory, Government-wide standard for secure and

reliable forms of identification issued by the

Federal government to its employees and

contractors (including contractor employees).

In accordance with HSPD-12, CSD has begun

work on Federal Information Processing Standard

(FIPS) 201, Personal Identity Verification (PIV)

for Federal Employees and Contractors. FIPS

201 will be signed by the Secretary of Commerce

by February 25, 2005, in order to comply with the

deadlines set out in HSPD-12.

This standard will define the technical requirements for an identity credential that will be:

Issued based on sound criteria for verifying

an individual employee’s identity

Resistant to identity fraud, tampering, counterfeiting and terrorist exploitation

Rapidly authenticated electronically

Issued only by providers whose reliability

has been established by an official accreditation process

Applicable to all government organizations

and contractors

Used to grant access to Federally-controlled

facilities and information systems

Flexible enough for agencies to select the

appropriate security level for each application by providing graduated criteria from

least secure to most secure

Not applicable to identification associated

with national security systems

Implemented in a manner that protects

citizens’ privacy

The FIPS 201 standard will establish requirements

for the following processes and the supporting

infrastructure:

Identity Token (ID card) Application by

Person — this establishes the requirements

for an application for the standardized identification.

Identity Source Document Request by

Organization – every Federal organization is

different but its security needs can be

grouped into one of four assurance levels.

Depending on which assurance level is

needed, a given agency will require specific

forms of documentation in order to verify

the identity of the potential grantee of the

ID Card.

Identity Registration and ID Card Issuance

by Issuer – after a person’s legal identity has

been authenticated that person needs to be

registered with the PIV system and that

person’s card needs to be issued. The PIV

standard provides specifications for this

process.

Access Control (Determined by resource

owner) – this refers to how users are

granted access to Federal resources. The

government agencies (resource owner) will

determine if the person is granted access

based on the security level of the card and

the sensitivity level of the resource that is

being accessed.
29

SECURITY RESEARCH AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Life Cycle Management – the information

associated with a user’s identity is subject to

change – the user may change employers,

gain new security clearances, leave an

agency, or any one of a host of possibilities.

This framework will recommend guidelines

for managing these changes through the life

cycle of both the card and the associated

cardholder.

Upon completion of the FIPS 201 standard, CSD

will begin Phases II and III of the PIV project.

Under Phase II, we will provide additional specifications for the issuer software and implementation guidance for interoperability among government agencies. The consequences of not accomplishing activities of Phase II will result in lack of

early operational interoperability due to varying

implementations of the standard. Also, the proper

authorities will be unable to validate initial implementations due to the absence of conformance

criteria and tests. For some agencies, lack of

Phase II support may result in delayed implementation of the FIPS 201 standard.

Upon completion of Phase II activities, CSD will

begin Phase III of the PIV project. Phase III will

entail maintenance support activities such as

implementation guidance, reference implementation and conformance testing. Failure to accomplish activities of Phase III may result in breakdown of interoperability among Federal government identity verification systems. Also, the

proper authorities will be unable to validate

implementations and upgrades due to the

absence of conformance criteria and tests.

Agencies may potentially fail to maintain security

of their systems due to lack of the standard at

other agencies. Some incompatibilities will also

arise in Federal implementation of additional

applications if the base system is not strong.

http://csrc.nist.gov/piv-project/

Contacts: Mr. Wm. Curt Barker

(301) 975-8443

william.barker@nist.gov

MOBILE AD HOC NETWORK

SECURITY

Ad hoc networks are well suited for sensor

networks comprised of small wireless electronic devices that can measure and monitor

events and physical properties such as temperature, movement, pressure and location. These

sensors can be used to provide visual and audio

feedback in environments not easily accessible

by humans. Inexpensive wireless sensors can be

used to monitor bridges, factories, highways and

buildings, for example, to help improve public

safety. Mobile handheld devices such as

personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptops

can be used by first responders and by today's

emerging mobile workforce to easily and quickly

set up networks to communicate with their

peers. The goal of this research is to develop and

test security mechanisms that support secure

routing, communication and intrusion detection

within small-scale wireless mobile ad-hoc

networks (MANET).

PIV System Concept and Model

PIV Card Issuance and

Management Infrastructure

Direction of Information Flow

Subscriber and PIV Card

PIV Card Operation/Use

Infrastructure

Policies and

Procedures Subscriber

Data and

Key Info

Registration

Data

Key Management

Card

Issuance

Biometric

Data Management

Subscriber

Registration

Audit Policies

Security Policies Card

Reader

PIN Input

Device

PIV Card

Subscriber

Authorization

Data

Physical

Resource

Physical Access

Control

Authorization

Data

Logical

Resource

Logical Access

Control Biometric

Reader
30

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

The majority of the routing protocols proposed in

the literature assume non-hostile environments.

Due to their dynamically changing topologies,

open environment and lack of centralized security

infrastructure, MANETs are susceptible to routing

attacks by malicious nodes. NIST has developed a

proof-of-concept implementation of a secure ad

hoc routing algorithm that provides on-demand

trust establishment among the nodes that are

collaborating to detect malicious activities.A trust

relationship is established based on a dynamic

evaluation of the sender's "secure IP address"

and of signed evidence. This routing protocol

enables the source and destination nodes to

establish a secure communication channel

between them based on a concept of "statistically unique and cryptographically verifiable"

(SUCV) identifiers which ensure a secure binding

between IP addresses and keys without assuming

the availability of any trusted certification

authority (CA) or key distribution center (KDC).

This is a joint research project between the

University of Maryland and NIST.

MANETs present a number of unique problems

for Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS).

Differentiating between malicious network

activity and spurious, but typical, problems associated with an ad hoc networking environment is

a challenging task. In an ad hoc network, malicious nodes may enter and leave the immediate

radio transmission range at random intervals or

may collude with other malicious nodes to disrupt

network activity and avoid detection. Malicious

nodes may behave maliciously only intermittently,

further complicating their detection. A node that

sends out false routing information could be the

one that has been compromised or merely one

that has a temporarily stale routing table due to

volatile physical conditions. Dynamic topologies

make it difficult to obtain a global view of the

network and any approximation can become

quickly outdated. Traffic monitoring in wired

networks is usually performed at switches,

routers and gateways, but an ad hoc network

does not have these types of network elements

where the IDS can collect audit data for the entire

network. Network traffic can be monitored on a

wired network segment, but ad hoc nodes or

sensors can only monitor network traffic within

its observable radio transmission range.

In 2004, NIST and the University of MarylandBaltimore County (UMBC) developed a MANET

IDS for ad hoc networks running Ad hoc On

Demand Distance Vector (AODV) over IPv6. This

MANET IDS is capable of detecting malicious

nodes that are dropping or modifying packets as

well as nodes that masquerade as other nodes

within the network.

In 2005 we will take the lessons learned from our

previous work and develop a MANET IDS test bed

that will emulate the logical movement of nodes

and changes in signal strength of the nodes. This

test bed will be able to be used to evaluate

different IDS technologies for their ability to

detect malicious activity. We will also work on

building a collaborative MANET IDS, adding optimization features to the secure routing algorithm

we implemented, publishing our results and

releasing new versions of the open source code to

the research community.

http://csrc.nist.gov/manet

Contacts: Dr. Tom Karygiannis

(301) 975-4728

tom.karygiannis@nist.gov

WIRELESS SECURITY

STANDARDS

Many organizations and users have found

that wireless communications and devices

are convenient, flexible and easy to use. Users of

wireless local area network (WLAN) or Wi-Fi

devices have the flexibility to move from one

place to another while maintaining connectivity

with the network. Wi-Fi, short for Wireless

Fidelity, is an operability certification for WLAN

products based on the Institute of Electrical and

Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard that

is quickly becoming more widespread in use.

Wireless personal networks allow users to share

data and applications with network systems and

other users with compatible devices without

being tied to printer cables and other peripheral

device connections. Users of handheld devices

such as PDAs and cellular phones can synchronize data between PDAs and personal

computers, and can use network services such as

wireless e-mail, Web browsing and Internet

access. Further, wireless communications can

help first responders to emergencies gain critical

information, coordinate efforts and keep communications working when other methods may be

overwhelmed or non-functioning.

While wireless networks are exposed to many of

the same risks as wired networks, they are

vulnerable to additional risks as well. Wireless

networks transmit data through radio frequencies and are open to intruders unless protected.

Intruders have exploited this openness to access

systems, destroy or steal data and launch

attacks that tie up network bandwidth and deny

service to authorized users.

Work began during the past year on a new

Special Publication (SP) dealing with wireless

security issues. This report will provide readers

with a detailed explanation of next generation

802.11 wireless security. It will describe the

inherently flawed Wired Equivalent Privacy

(WEP) and explain 802.11i’s 2-step approach

(interim and long-term) to providing effective

wireless security. It will also include guidance on

best practices for establishing secure wireless

networks using the emerging Wi-Fi technology,

as well as several sample scenarios. This SP will

be published in 2005.

Contact: Ms. Sheila Frankel

(301) 975-3297

sheila.frankel@nist.gov
31

SECURITY RESEARCH AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

ICAT

The ICAT Metabase is a NIST-maintained

searchable index of computer vulnerabilities.

ICAT provides users with links to a variety of

publicly available vulnerability databases and

patch sites, thus enabling one to find and fix the

vulnerabilities existing on their systems more

easily. ICAT allows users to search at a fine granularity, a feature unavailable with most vulnerability databases, by characterizing each vulnerability using over 21 attributes, including software

name and version number. ICAT indexes the information available in Computer Emergency

Response Team (CERT) advisories, Internet

Security Systems X-Force (ISS X-Force), Security

Focus, NTBugtraq, Bugtraq and a variety of vendor

security and patch bulletins. This system complements publicly available vulnerability databases

as a search engine with pointers for users to other

sites. ICAT uses, and is completely based on, the

industry standard Common Vulnerabilities and

Exposures (CVE) naming standard.

Many different types of people use ICAT for a

variety of purposes. System administrators and

computer security officers use ICAT to identify the

known vulnerabilities (and patch information)

associated with the software on critical systems.

Law enforcement can use ICAT in forensics activities to determine the set of possible vulnerabilities

that a hacker might have used to penetrate a

system. Computer security researchers use ICAT to

identify sets of vulnerabilities that have particular

characteristics of interest. Auditors can use ICAT

to check to see if particular vulnerabilities have

been patched in audited systems.

The last year included a substantial amount of

updating and use of ICAT. Over 800 new vulnerabilities were added to the database. The ICAT

Web site was highly utilized, totaling some 1.54

million hits.

Work on ICAT over the next year will focus largely

on updating and improving an already successful

project. We will continue analysis of feedback

from users, using this feedback to improve the

Web site. We plan on improving the frequency of

the database updates, as well as improving the

administrator interface. Finally, we plan to

continue updating the vulnerability listings within

the database.

http://icat.nist.gov/

Contact: Mr. Peter Mell

(301) 975-5572

mell@nist.gov

AUTHORIZATION

MANAGEMENT AND

ADVANCED ACCESS 

CONTROL MODELS

Access control is the administrative and automated process of defining and limiting

which system users can perform which system

operations on which system resources. These

limitations are based on business rules or policies

of a specific host organization. The ability to

enforce policy can be of great economic and

mission importance to an organization. Although

often specified in terms of protection, the ability

of an organization to enforce policy enables the

sharing of greater volumes of data and resources

to a greater and more diverse user community.

Access control policies are enforced through a

mechanism consisting of access control functions

and access control data that together map a

user’s access request to a decision whether to

grant or deny access.

Today access control mechanisms come in a wide

variety of forms, each with distinct policy advantages and disadvantages. Although each may

meet specific access needs, the resulting technology has disappointed the marketplace. This is

due to the reality that a given access control

mechanism may meet the policy requirements

within a particular market domain, while being

completely inappropriate in another. The reality is

that access control policies can be as diverse as

the business applications that need to enforce

them. This rigidity creates a problem when the

protection required of an application/organization/agency is different from the policy(ies) built

into the mechanism at hand. This problem is exasperated when there is a mission need to share

and coordinate information among operational

units.

The ability of an organization to enforce its access

control policies directly impacts its ability to

execute its mission – by determining the degree

to which its volumes of resources may be

protected and shared among its user community.

Whether in regard to the Government’s war on

terror or a company’s formation of a strategic

partnership, the focus on sharing information is

becoming increasingly acute. Unfortunately, when

it comes to access control mechanisms, one size

does not fit all.

At the request and support of the Department of

Homeland Security (DHS), CSD has initiated a

project in pursuit of a standardized access control

mechanism that is general enough to configure

and enforce any attribute-based access control

policy, referred to as the Policy Machine (PM). A

core feature is the PM’s ability to configure and

enforce arbitrary attribute-based access control

policies and its ability to protect resources under

multiple instances of these policies. It is not our

intent to devise a completely new access control

mechanism, but instead to redefine, implement

and transfer to industry an access control mechanism that we believe includes abstractions, properties and functions common to most if not all

access control mechanisms.

If successful, we believe that the PM will benefit

organizations in a number of ways including:

Increased user productivity through the

increased sharing of resources

Decreased insider crime through the ability

to enforce organization-specific access

control policies
32

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

Increased administrator productivity

through better interfaces in configuring

access control policy

Increased cooperation among organizations through the potential for the coordination and exchange of interoperability of

access control data

Development of the PM has been ongoing

during the last year and will continue in the

coming year.

Contact: Mr. David Ferraiolo

(301) 975-3046

david.ferraiolo@nist.gov

VOICE OVER INTERNET

PROTOCOL SECURITY ISSUES

Voice over IP (VoIP) – the transmission of voice

over packet-switched IP networks – is one of

the most important emerging trends in telecommunications. As with many new technologies,

VoIP introduces both security risks and opportunities. For several years VoIP was a technology

prospect, something on the horizon for the “future

works” segment of telephony and networking

papers. Now, however, telecommunications

companies and other organizations have already,

or are in the process of, moving their telephony

infrastructure to their data networks. The VoIP

solution provides a cheaper and clearer alternative to traditional public switched telephone

network (PSTN) phone lines. Although its implementation is widespread, the technology is still

developing. It is growing rapidly throughout North

America and Europe, but it sometimes can be difficult to integrate with existing systems.

Nevertheless, VoIP will capture a significant

portion of the telephony market given the fiscal

savings and flexibility that it can provide.

VoIP systems take a wide variety of forms,

including traditional telephone handsets, conferencing units and mobile units. In addition to enduser equipment, VoIP systems include a variety of

other components, including call processors/call

managers, gateways, routers, firewalls and protocols. Most of these components have counterparts used in data networks, but the performance

demands of VoIP mean that ordinary network

software and hardware must be supplemented

with special VoIP components. Not only does

VoIP require higher performance than most data

systems, critical services, such as Emergency 911,

must be accommodated. One of the main sources

of confusion for those new to VoIP is the (natural)

assumption that because digitized voice travels

in packets just like other data, existing network

architectures and tools can be used without

change. However, VoIP adds a number of complications to existing network technology, and

these problems are magnified by security considerations.

Quality of Service (QoS) is fundamental to the

operation of a VoIP network that meets users’

quality expectations. However, the implementation of various security measures can cause a

marked deterioration in QoS unless VoIP-specific

equipment and architectures are used. These

complications range from firewalls delaying or

blocking call setups to encryption-produced

latency and delay variation (jitter). Because of the

time-critical nature of VoIP and its low tolerance

for disruption and packet loss, many security

measures implemented in traditional data

networks are simply not applicable to VoIP in

their current form; firewalls, intrusion detection

systems and other components must be specialized for VoIP. Most current VoIP systems use one

of two standards – H.323 or the Session Initiation

IP Telephone Security

Internal IP address

192.168.1.100

Internal IP address

192.168.1.101

NAT

Internal IP address

129.6.54.5

Firewall

Internet

IP Telephones behind Name Address Translator (NAT) and Firewall
33

SECURITY RESEARCH AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Protocol (SIP). Although SIP seems to be gaining

in popularity, neither of these protocols has

become dominant in the market yet, so it often

makes sense to incorporate components that can

support both.

With the introduction of VoIP, the need for

security is compounded because now we must

protect two invaluable assets – our data and our

voice. Federal government agencies are required

by law to protect a great deal of information,

even if it is unclassified. Both privacy-sensitive

and financial data must be protected, as well as

other government information that is categorized

as sensitive-but-unclassified. Protecting the

security of conversations is thus required. In a

conventional office telephone system, intercepting conversations requires physical access to

telephone lines or compromise of the office

private branch exchange (PBX). Only particularly

security-sensitive organizations bother to encrypt

voice traffic over traditional telephone lines. The

same cannot be said for Internet-based connections. For example, when ordering merchandise

over the phone, most people will read their credit

card number to the person on the other end. The

numbers are transmitted without encryption to

the seller. In contrast, the risk of sending unencrypted data across the Internet is more significant. Packets sent from a user’s home computer

to an online retailer may pass through 15 to 20

systems that are not under the control of the

user’s ISP or the retailer. Anyone with access to

these systems could install software that scans

packets for credit card information. For this

reason, online retailers use encryption software to

protect a user’s information and credit card

number. So it stands to reason that if we are to

transmit voice over the Internet Protocol, and

specifically across the Internet, similar security

measures must be applied.

The current Internet architecture does not provide

the same physical wire security as the phone lines.

The key to securing VoIP is to use the security

mechanisms like those deployed in data networks

(firewalls, encryption, etc.) to emulate the security

level currently enjoyed by PSTN network users.

VoIP can be done securely, but the path is not

smooth. It will likely be several years before standards issues are settled and VoIP systems become

a mainstream commodity. Until then, organizations must proceed cautiously and not assume

that VoIP components are just more peripherals

for the local network. Above all, it is important to

keep in mind the unique requirements of VoIP,

acquiring the right hardware and software to

meet the challenges of VoIP security.

During the past year, the CSD has considered the

security implications of VoIP and worked to

produce guidance for Federal agencies to use

when developing and deploying VoIP systems.

Special Publication (SP) 800-58, Security

Considerations for Voice Over IP Systems, was

released as a draft for public comment in May

2004. This publication investigates the attacks

and defenses relevant to VoIP and explores ways

to provide appropriate levels of security for VoIP

networks at reasonable cost. The document is due

to be finalized in early 2005.

Contact: Mr. Rick Kuhn

(301) 975-3337

kuhn@nist.gov

REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATIONS

FOR AUTOMATED TEST

GENERATION TOOLKIT

The automated test generation framework

and the associated toolkit were originally

applied to develop executable test code for

testing the security functions of a commercial

database management system (DBMS) product.

The test generation framework makes use of

formal verification models to generate test

vectors. It has been found that test vectors generated using this approach provide adequate path

coverage as well as traceability of tests to functional requirements. It was also found that this

approach could be used to generate conformance tests for other types of functional requirements such as the Interoperability requirements.

Based on the above findings, the automated test

generation toolkit was utilized to generate

conformance tests for testing the interoperability

functions of Government Smart Card

Interoperability Specification (GSC-IS v2.1). The

motivation behind the reference implementation

was to determine the feasibility of using the

automated test generation toolkit for testing

products with complex interfaces as well as to

augment tests generated using other

approaches. The formal verification model of the

23 interoperability functions between client

application and Smart Card middleware resulted

in 419 requirement threads and 390 test vectors.

These test vectors together with the verification

model and middleware access environmental

information were used in a test code generator

to generate executable Java code containing 390

tests.

We plan to apply this methodology to generate

conformance tests for testing all the interface

requirements for Smart Cards to be used across

the Federal government for Personal Identity

Verification. These interface requirements are

specified in SP 800-73, Integrated Circuit Card

for Personal Identity Verification.

Contact: Dr. Ramaswamy Chandramouli

(301) 975-5013

chandramouli@nist.gov

QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY

AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Quantum mechanics, the strange behavior of

matter on the atomic scale, provides entirely

new and uniquely powerful tools for computing

and communications. This field could revolutionize many aspects of computing and secure
34

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

communications, and could have enormous

impacts on homeland security. Whereas current

computers calculate linearly, quantum computers

will be able to calculate enormous number of

variables simultaneously. This capability is particularly useful in modeling complex situations with

many variables (weather modeling, for example)

and in solving extremely difficult equations

(processing tasks that would literally take billions

of years on conventional computers).

Exploiting quantum properties would be particularly valuable in cryptography, making codes that

would be unbreakable by the best supercomputers of tomorrow or breaking codes in nanoseconds that could not be cracked in millions of

years by the most powerful binary computers.

Quantum information also can be used for

remarkably secure communications. In this

particular area, we are partnering closely with the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

(DARPA).

Quantum cryptography is a set of methods for

implementing cryptographic functions using the

properties of quantum mechanics. Most research

in quantum cryptography is directed toward

generating a shared key between two parties, a

process known as quantum key distribution

(QKD). The shared keys may be used directly as

keys for a conventional symmetric cryptographic

algorithm, or as a one-time pad. A variety of

protocols have been developed for quantum key

distribution. However, they share two key

features: 1) the idealized version of the protocol

prevents an eavesdropper from obtaining enough

information to intercept messages encoded by

using the shared key as a one-time pad; 2) the

communicating parties can detect the presence of

an eavesdropper because measuring the particles

used in key distribution will introduce a significant error rate.

The most common type of quantum key distribution uses a scheme developed by Bennett and

Brassard (known as BB84), in which polarized

photons are sent between the communicating

parties and used to develop the shared key. The

BB84 protocol has been studied extensively and

shown to be secure if implementations preserve

assumptions regarding physical properties of the

system. Many varieties of the BB84 scheme have

been developed and other forms of quantum key

distribution have been proposed as well.

Quantum cryptography offers the potential for

stronger security, but as with any information

technology, QKD must be designed and implemented properly to provide benefits promised.

While often described in the popular literature as

“unbreakable,” quantum key distribution systems

may be subject to a number of attacks, depending

on the implementation and the protocol.

Vulnerabilities may be introduced in the physical

systems, quantum protocols and the application

software and operating systems used to process

keys. Existing QKD systems are not able to guarantee the production and receipt of a single

photon per time slice, as required by most

Quantum

Channels

Classical

Channels

1.25 Gb/s

1000 BaseLX WDM System 1000 BaseLX

PCI PCI

Alice Bob

Custom

High-Speed

Data

Handling

Electronics

Custom

High-Speed

Data

Handling

Electronics

Quantum Key Distribution

Quantum Key Distribution with 1.25 Gbs Clock Synchronization Demonstrated
35

SECURITY RESEARCH AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

quantum protocols. Multiple photons emitted in

a single time slice may allow an attacker to

obtain information on the shared key. Quantum

protocols may also have weaknesses. Although

BB84 is regarded as secure, researchers

frequently introduce new protocols that differ

radically from the BB84 scheme and a number of

these protocols have been shown vulnerable to

attack. A third area of concern for QKD systems is

the conventional computing platforms on which

they must be based. Quantum cryptographic

equipment must be integrated with the organization’s network, potentially leaving the QKD

system and its software open to conventional

network attacks. Methods of evaluating and

certifying QKD systems have not yet been incorporated into existing security evaluation methodologies.

Quantum cryptography is a relatively new field.

Two firms, MagiQ Technologies (USA) and ID

Quantique (Switzerland), have been developing

and offering quantum cryptographic products

since 1999. Others, including IBM, NEC, Fujitsu,

Siemens and Sony, have active research efforts

that may result in products. Existing products are

capable of key distribution through fiber optic

cable for distances of several tens of kilometers,

but progress has been rapid. In addition to key

distribution, quantum cryptographic products

include quantum random number generators,

single photon detectors and photon sources.

The main objective of the NIST Quantum

Information Program is to develop an extensible

quantum information test bed and the scalable

component technology essential to the practical

realization of a quantum communication

network. The test bed will demonstrate quantum

communication and quantum cryptographic key

distribution with a high data rate. This test bed

will provide a measurement and standards infrastructure that will be open to the DARPA QuIST

(Quantum Information Science and Technology)

community and will enable wide-ranging experiments on both the physical- and network-layer

aspects of a quantum communication system. The

infrastructure will be used to provide calibration,

testing and development facilities for the QuIST

community.

Within the Quantum Information Program, we are

also developing and evaluating quantum cryptographic protocols and investigating means of

integrating quantum and conventional network

technology. Controlling access to a large network

of resources is one of the most common security

problems. Any pair of parties in a network should

be able to communicate, but must be authorized

to do so, while minimizing the number of cryptographic keys that must be distributed and maintained. This project will develop an authentication

solution based on a combination of quantum

cryptography and a conventional secret key

system. Two significant advantages of this

approach over conventional authentication protocols are 1) timestamps and exact clock synchronization between parties are not needed, and 2)

that even the trusted server cannot know the

contents of the authentication ticket.

In the past year, NIST Information Technology

Laboratory (ITL) researchers investigated

methods to implement quantum computing with

very noisy devices. This work may speed the

development of practical quantum computing

because it means that quantum computers will be

able to tolerate imperfections and higher error

rates in components. ITL staff also worked with

NIST physicists to construct a system that represents a major increase in the attainable rate of

quantum key generation, over 100 times faster

than previously reported results. In the coming

year, ITL will continue work on fault-tolerant

quantum computing, work with the NIST Physics

Laboratory on a test bed for quantum components and investigate applications of quantum

cryptography to the problem of secure routing.

http://math.nist.gov/quantum/

Contact: Mr. D. Richard Kuhn

(301) 975-3337

kuhn@nist.gov

Dr. Alan Mink (ANTD)

(301) 975-5681

alan.mink@nist.gov

PROTOCOL SECURITY

As the Internet becomes an essential part of

day-to-day business and government operations, security, stability and availability of

Internet services are critical issues to the health

of our Nation's economy. Expediting the development and deployment of standardized

Internet infrastructure protection technologies

has been one of ITL’s major focus areas in

networking, involving the Advanced Network

Technologies Division and the Computer

Security Division. We are helping develop public

specifications to secure the Internet naming

infrastructure through the Domain Name

System Security (DNSSEC) project. Another

effort is the development of standards for the

protection of both content and resources in the

Internet routing infrastructure, in particular, the

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Our work on

IPSec has also continued.

Contact: Mr. Tim Grance

(301) 975-3359

grance@nist.gov

DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM

SECURITY EXTENSIONS

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the

method by which Internet addresses in

mnemonic form such as http://csrc.nist.gov are

converted into the equivalent numeric IP

(Internet Protocol) address such as 129.6.13.39.

To the user and application process this translation is a service provided either by the local host

or from a remote host via the Internet. The DNS

server may communicate with other Internet DNS

servers if it cannot translate the address itself.

There are several distinct classes of threats to the

DNS, most of which are DNS-related instances of

more general problems, but a few of which are

specific to peculiarities of the DNS protocol.

DNSSEC (short for DNS Security Extensions) adds

security to the Domain Name System. It is a set

of extensions to DNS, which provide (a) origin
Global DNSSEC Monitoring Tool (GDMT) Architecture

DNS

Server

DNS

Server

JDBC results results

results

query

SMTP

emailer

monitor

JDBC

MySQL

users.db

integr.db

results

query

www-x.antd.nist.gov

Zone Tester

Servlet

Apache

Tomcat

Java

 Zone Tester

lcas1.antd.nist.gov

email

client

web

browser

client

results

HTTP/HTTPS

Completed

Not Completed

LEGEND

36

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

authentication of DNS data, (b) data integrity

and (c) authenticated denial of existence.

DNSSEC was designed to protect the Internet

from certain attacks.

We are developing public specifications to secure

the Internet naming infrastructure through our

DNSSEC project. ITL leads the Internet

Engineering Task Force (IETF) DNSSEC editors’

team in the completion and progression of all

core DNSSEC specifications. We also work with

industry and the Department of Homeland

Security to expedite the deployment of these new

standards.

In 2004, NIST achieved several significant milestones towards its goal of expediting commercial

standards and test and measurement tools for

DNSSEC. In addition to leading the IETF DNSSEC

editors’ team, we actively participated in the U.S.

government DNSSEC Deployment team. We initiated efforts to develop operational plans for the

secure operation of .gov and subordinate

domains. An initial prototype of the Secure Zone

Integrity Tester (SZIT) was completed and put

online for diagnosing configuration and operation errors in operational DNSSEC-enabled

servers. A NIST Special Publication (SP) 800

Series document, Secure Domain Name

System Deployment Guide, was drafted and is

being completed by the DNSSEC team. This

draft guidance document defines the DNS

security problem space, outlines best current

practices for securing DNS operations and

provides deployment guidance for DNSSEC technologies. Development of an open DNSSEC

benchmark framework consisting of measured

and cataloged data sets, standard reference

models and test scenarios, open source benchmark tools and agreed upon metrics was begun.

Development of a DNS zone anonymizer and

statistical analysis tools was completed. We

collected and statistically analyzed over 2000

DNS zones, developed clustering techniques to

facilitate cataloging of zone models and began

development of DNS traffic analysis tools.

The focus of our 2005 activities will be to

continue the development of the DNSSEC benchmark framework, to prototype and put online

persistent DNSSEC monitoring tools, to publish

and promote the SP 800 guidance document and

to lead the development of operational plans for

securing the .gov domain.

Contact: Dr. Ramaswamy Chandramouli

(301) 975-5013

chandramouli@nist.gov

BORDER GATEWAY PROTOCOL

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an

inter-autonomous system routing protocol.

An autonomous system is a network or group of

networks under a common administration and

with common routing policies. BGP is used to

exchange routing information for the Internet

and is the protocol used between Internet

service providers (ISP). Previously there was a

lack of awareness and knowledge in the IT

sector of the potential threats, risks, mitigation

techniques and their cost.

The BGP project was kicked off in February

2004. The project aims to help the industry

understand the potential risks to inter-domain

routing and the design and implementation

trade-offs of the various BGP security mechanisms currently proposed in the IETF community.

The project also seeks to expedite convergence

towards standardized, implemented and

deployed BGP security solutions.

NIST project efforts were directed during the

past year to focus on characterizing the problem

and design space for BGP security technologies.

Our subsequent work has focused primarily on

two activities – large-scale simulation modeling
37

SECURITY RESEARCH AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

of focused BGP attacks and analytical models of

threat versus countermeasure effectiveness.

NIST is working with industry and government

network operators and security experts to:

Identify the threats and vulnerabilities of

BGP/inter-domain routing

Document best common practices in

securing the current BGP deployments

Provide deployment and policy guidance

for emerging BGP security technologies

In the past year, we made a number of accomplishments. In the attack-modeling framework,

we extended the Scalable Simulation

Framework (SSF)/Dartmouth BGP discrete event

simulation tools with the ability to generate

arbitrary focused attacks on BGP infrastructures.

We designed a general framework for modeling

attacks on BGP protocols. We designed metrics

and analysis/visualization tools to characterize

the effect of simulated successful BGP attacks,

including routing quality metrics, BGP protocol

metrics and measured attack properties.

In addition to these accomplishments we 

developed the Attack Vs. Countermeasure

Effectiveness (ACE) modeling tool. ACE includes

details of attack trees and allows mapping of

components of solution space (countermeasures) to components of problem space (atomic

attack goals).

The focus of our 2005 activities will be to

complete remaining features of the modeling

and analysis tools developed in 2004 and to

extensively use these tools to generate meaningful contributions to the on-going industry

deliberation on the requirements for and design

of BGP security solutions. In fiscal year 2005

we plan to make active contributions to the IETF

RPSec working group and to issue the first draft

of our NIST BGP security guidance document.

We expect to expand our collaborations with

the DETER/EMIST routing team in the areas of

attack models, analysis techniques and coordinated experimentation.

http://www.antd.nist.gov/iipp.shtml

Contact: Mr. D. Richard Kuhn

(301) 975-3337

kuhn@nist.gov

INTERNET PROTOCOL

SECURITY

I

nternet Protocol Security (IPSec) is a framework of open standards for ensuring private

communications over IP networks, which has

become the most popular network layer security

control. It can provide several types of data

protection: confidentiality, integrity, data origin

authentication, prevention of packet replay and

traffic analysis and access protection.

IPSec is a network-layer control with several

components. IPSec has two security protocols –

Authentication Header (AH) and Encapsulating

Security Payload (ESP). AH can provide integrity

protection for packet headers and data. ESP can

provide encryption and integrity protection for

packets, but cannot protect the outermost IP

header, as AH can. The capability for integrity

protection was added to the second version of

ESP, which is used by most current IPSec implementations; accordingly, the use of AH has

significantly declined. IPSec typically uses the

Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol to negotiate IPSec connection settings, exchange keys,

authenticate endpoints to each other and establish security associations, which define the

security of IPSec-protected connections. IPSec

can also use the IP Payload Compression

Protocol (IPComp) to compress packet payloads

before encrypting them.

IPSec has several uses, with the most common

being a virtual private network (VPN). This is a

virtual network built on top of existing physical

networks that can provide a secure communications mechanism for data and IP information

transmitted between networks. Although VPNs

can reduce the risks of networking, they cannot

eliminate it. For example, a VPN implementation

may have flaws in algorithms or software, or

insecure configuration settings and values that

attackers can exploit.

To expedite the development of this crucial

technology, Information Technology Laboratory

(ITL) staff designed and developed Cerberus, a

reference implementation of the IPSec specifications, and PlutoPlus, a reference implementation

of the IKE key negotiation and management

specifications. Numerous organizations from all

segments of the Internet industry have acquired

these implementations as a platform for ongoing research on advanced issues in IPSec

technology.

To answer an industry call for more frequent and

accessible interoperability testing for emerging

commercial implementations of IPSec technology, ITL developed the NIST IPSec WWWbased Interoperability Tester (IPSec-WIT), which

is built around the Cerberus and PlutoPlus

prototype implementations. IPSec-WIT also

serves as an experiment in test system architectures and technologies. The novel use of WWW

technology allows IPSec-WIT to provide interoperability testing services anytime and anywhere

without requiring any distribution of test system

software or relocation of the systems under test.

ITL staff also collaborated with key industry

representatives to co-author protocol specifications and resolve technical impasses that threatened the progress of the IPSec design and 

standardization process.

During the past year, we have begun work on

Special Publication (SP) 800-77, Guide to IPSec

VPNs. This document will describe the three

primary models for VPN architectures –

gateway-to-gateway, host-to-gateway and hostto-host. These models can be used, respectively,

to connect two secured networks (such as a

branch office and headquarters) over the
38

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

Internet, to protect communications for hosts on

unsecured networks (such as traveling

employees), or to secure direct communications

between two computers that require extra

protection.

The guide will describe the components of

IPSec. It also will present a phased approach to

IPSec planning and implementation that can

help in achieving successful IPSec deployments.

The five phases of the approach are to identify

needs, design the solution, implement and test a

prototype, deploy the solution and manage the

solution. Special considerations affecting

configuration and deployment will be analyzed

and three test cases will be presented to illustrate the process of planning and implementing

IPSec VPNs. SP 800-77 will be published in

2005.

http://csrc.nist.gov/ipsec/

Contact: Ms. Sheila Frankel

(301) 975-3297

sheila.frankel@nist.gov

DIGITAL FORENSICS

The digital forensic community faces a

constant challenge to stay on top of the

latest technologies that may be used to reveal

relevant clues in an investigation. Personal digital

assistants (PDAs) and cellular telephones are

commonplace in today’s society, used by many

individuals for both personal and professional

purposes. Handheld device technologies are

changing rapidly with new products and features

being introduced regularly.

When a PDA or cellular phone is encountered

during an investigation, many questions arise:

What should be done about maintaining power?

How should the device be handled? How should

valuable or potentially relevant data contained on

the device be examined? The key to answering

these questions is an understanding of the

hardware and software characteristics of PDAs.

Developing an understanding of the components

and inner workings of these devices (such as

memory organization and use) is a prerequisite to

understanding the criticalities involved when

dealing with digital devices. PDA memory (that is,

RAM) is volatile and requires power to maintain

data unlike a personal computer’s hard disk.

CSD has worked this past year to produce SP 800-

72, Guidelines on PDA Forensics, which was

released as a public draft in August 2004. The

intended audience is varied and ranges from

response team members handling a computer

security incident to organizational security officials investigating an employee-related situation

to forensic examiners involved in criminal investigations. The practices recommended in this guide

are designed to highlight key principles associated with the handling and examination of electronic evidence, in general, and PDAs in particular.

SP 800-72 will be finalized in Winter 2005. We

will continue to work on digital forensics in the

coming year, particularly in the area of cellular

phones. We will also be working with the NIST

Office of Law Enforcement Standards on digital

forensic issues.

Contact: Mr. Richard Ayers

(301) 975-4971

richard.ayers@nist.gov

Gateway-to-Gateway VPN for

Remote Office Connectivity

Remote Office Network

192.163.1.x Subnet

Main Office Network

10.0.0.x Subnet

IPsec Tunnel

Internet

Switch Router Router Switch

Desktop A Desktop B Desktop C Server A Server B Server C
39

OVERVIEW 

Our work in cryptography is making an

impact within and outside the Federal

government. Strong cryptography improves the

security of systems and the information they

process. IT users also enjoy the enhanced availability in the marketplace of secure applications

through cryptography, Public Key Infrastructure

(PKI) and e-authentication. Work in this area

addresses such topics as secret and public key

cryptographic techniques, advanced authentication systems, cryptographic protocols and interfaces, public key certificate management,

biometrics, smart tokens, cryptographic key

escrowing and security architectures. In the

previous year, the work called for in the

Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12

(HSPD-12) has begun in this area. A few

examples of the impact this work will have in

the near future include changes to Federal

employee identification methods, how users

authenticate their identity when needing

government services online and the technical

aspects of passports issued to U.S. citizens.

This area of work involves collaboration with a

number of entities, both from Federal agencies

and industry. Some of the Federal agencies

include the Department of Treasury, agencies

participating in the Federal PKI Steering

Committee and Bridge CA Project, the Federal

Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the

National Security Agency (NSA). CSD has

worked recently with the American National

Standards Institute’s (ANSI’s) X9 Committee

that develops standards for the financial

industry, as well as with the Internet

Engineering Task Force’s (IETF’s) PKIX Working

Group. Industry collaborators for these projects

have included RSA Security Entrust

Technologies, International Business Machines

(IBM), Mastercard, Visa, Verizon, VeriSign and

Microsoft Corporation.

CRYPTOGRAPHIC STANDARDS

TOOLKIT

The aim of the Cryptographic Standards

Toolkit (CToolkit) project is to enable U.S.

governmental agencies and others to select

cryptographic security components and functionality for protecting their data, communications and operations. The CToolkit helps to

ensure that there is worldwide government and

industry use of strong cryptography and that

secure interoperability is achieved through

standard algorithms. The CToolkit also makes

guidance and education available in the use of

cryptography. It currently includes a wide

variety of cryptographic algorithms and techniques for encryption, authentication, non-repudiation, key establishment and random number

generation. The CToolkit is a collection of standards and guidance, and does not include any

actual software implementations of the algorithms. Many of the projects discussed in this

area of work are combined to form the CToolkit.

REACHING OUR GOAL

Cryptographic

Standards and 

Applications

STRATEGIC GOAL The Computer Security Division (CSD) will develop and improve cryptographic methods for

protecting the integrity, confidentiality and authenticity of Federal agency information resources in the Executive Branch. CSD

will work to enable government and industry to be able to build secure, interoperable applications with high-assurance

products that implement needed cryptographic security functionality. This will include the ongoing development of

cryptographic standards and testing methods, developing methods for securing government applications with cryptography,

further developing key management guidelines and schemes and the updating and creation of new modes of operation for use

with cryptographic algorithms.
40

The past year has seen a great deal of work go

into the CToolkit. Final drafts of the NIST

Special Publication (SP) 800-56, Recommendation on Key Establishment Schemes,

and Parts 1 and 2 of SP 800-57, Recommendation

on Key Management, will be posted for public

review in Spring 2005. Drafts for public review

and comment will also be posted for SP 800-

38B, Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes

of Operation: The RMAC Authentication Mode

(RMAC – Randomized Message Authentication

Code), and a revision of SP 800-21, Guideline

for Implementing Cryptography.

Plans for 2005 also include completion of a

revision of the Digital Signature Standard (DSS), a

recommendation specifying deterministic random

bit generators and a recommendation for the use

of cryptographic algorithms and key sizes.

Validation tests have been developed for the

Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), the Secure

Hash Algorithm (SHA), the Keyed-Hash Message

Authentication Code (HMAC) and ANSI X9.62

the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm

(ECDSA), and will be delivered to the validation

laboratories early next year.

http://csrc.nist.gov/CryptoToolkit/index.html

Contact: Ms. Elaine Barker

(301) 975-2911

elaine.barker@nist.gov

BIOMETRIC STANDARDS

PROGRAM 

Biometric technologies consist of automated

methods of identifying a person or verifying

the identity of a person based upon recognition

of a physiological or a behavioral characteristic.

Consumers need biometric-based high-performance, interoperable (standards-based) systems

developed in a timely fashion. In the absence of

timely standards developments, migration from

proprietary systems to open-systems standardbased solutions will be more difficult and

expensive. Therefore, standards are the cornerstone of our biometrics program. Deploying

new information technology systems for

homeland security and for preventing ID theft

will require both national and international

consensus standards for biometrics. NIST is

responding to government and market requirements for open-system standards by accelerating development of formal national and international biometric standards and associated

conformity assessment.

These standards and associated conformity

assessment need further development in order

to help deploy significantly better, open-systems

security solutions. NIST has identified the

critical tasks that will help power the development of these standards so that the deployment

of such systems may be accelerated.

Consequently, in the past years NIST has worked

in close partnership with other U.S. government

agencies and U.S. industry to establish standards bodies for accelerating the development

of formal national and international biometric

standards of high relevance to the U.S. This

program is a major catalyst for biometric standardization and adoption of biometric standards.

Nationally, the biometric standards program

helped to establish Technical Committee M1

under the InterNational Committee for

Information Technology Standards (INCITS). The

purpose of INCITS M1 is to ensure a highpriority, focused and comprehensive approach in

the U.S. for the rapid development and approval

of formal national and international generic

biometric standards. These standards are

considered to be critical for U.S. needs, such as

homeland defense, the prevention of identity

theft and for other government and commercial

applications based on biometric personal

authentication. We are active technical contributors to this standards development body and

have sponsored several of their standards development projects. The program experts work in

close collaboration with NIST’s Information

Technology Laboratory (ITL) Information Access

Division (IAD) biometric experts. Internationally,

we successfully supported the establishment of

the International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission

Joint Technical Committee 1 Subcommittee 37-

Biometrics (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 37-Biometrics).

INCITS M1 is the national Technical Committee

responsible for representing the U.S. in JTC1/SC

37. We provide the chairperson for these two

standards bodies and manage their standards

programs. We provide the chair of the national

standards development efforts on biometric

profiles. We have also participated in related

consortia efforts, including the U.S. Biometrics

Consortium.

Our strategy in this program includes:

Leveraging existing consortia standards

(such as the Bio Application Programming

Infterface (BioAPI) Consortium and

Common Biometric Exchange File Format

(CBEFF))

Managing the national (INCITS Technical

Committee M1 on Biometrics) and the

international (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 37-Biometrics) biometric standards developments

Providing expert technical leaders for

critical standards projects

Acting as an advisor to other Federal

government agencies, including the

Department of Homeland Security (DHS),

the National Security Agency (NSA) and

the Department of Defense (DoD)

Biometric Management Office

Supporting required administrative infrastructures (for example, the ISO/IEC JTC

1/SC 37 Secretariat)

Working through biometric standards

"incubators" (such as the Biometric

Consortium)

2004 ANNUAL REPORT
41

CRYPTOGRAPHIC STANDARDS AND APPLICATIONS

Promoting fast processing of consortia

specifications into national/international

standards

Initiating development of technical implementations and software development for

conformity assessment and interoperability tests to Application Profiles as

required

In 2004, the International Civil Aviation

Administration (ICAO) adopted a global, harmonized blueprint for the integration of biometric

identification information into passports, which

requires conformance to JTC 1/SC 37 standards.

Also in 2004, five biometric data interchange

formats developed by INCITS M1 were approved

as America National Standards. In late 2004,

DHS is expected to adopt the face recognition

standard developed by INCITS M1.

The U.S. Biometric Consortium (BC), which is

considered to be a biometrics incubator, serves

as a U.S. government focal point for biometrics.

It currently consists of over 900 members representing over 60 agencies, industry and

academia. NIST co-chairs the BC with NSA. The

BC sponsors an annual conference, technical

workshops and biometrics technical developments. The NIST/BC Biometric Working Group,

sponsored by NIST and the BC has been working

in the last few years with government users and

industry developing biometric specifications. In

the past it approved and provided to formal

standards bodies three specifications for further

processing as national and international standards, including (a) Biometric Data Protection

and Usage; (b) Biometric Application

Programming Interface for Java Card, and (c) an

augmented version of the Common Biometric

Exchange File Format (the initial version of

CBEFF was published as NIST Interagency

Report (NIST IR) 6529). A revised and

augmented version of CBEFF was published as

NIST IR 6529-A. An international version of

CBEFF is being developed within JTC 1/SC 37.

CBEFF is a requirement for conformance for all

of the national and international data interchange standards under development within

INCITS M1 and JTC 1/SC 37.

NIST is also a member of the BioAPI Consortium

and its Steering Committee. BioAPI

Consortium’s membership consists of over 100

organizations, including biometric vendors, endusers, system developers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). This consortium

developed the BioAPI specification, which was

approved as INCITS 358-2002. The BioAPI specification is an International Organization of

Standardization (ISO) standard candidate (under

development in JTC 1/SC 37–Biometrics).

Mr. Fernando Podio manages this ITL/CSD

program. In the past year he was recognized by

INCITS for his excellent leadership and work as

the Chair of the TC M1 on Biometrics. In 2003,

he was awarded, together with several ITL/IAD

biometric experts, a Group Gold Medal Award

for Scientific/Engineering Achievement for this

program’s impact on biometric standards development.

http://csrc.nist.gov/CryptoToolkit/tkkeymgmt.html

Contact: Mr. Fernando Podio

(301) 975-2947

fernando@nist.gov

MODES OF OPERATION FOR

BLOCK CIPHER ALGORITHMS

Amode of operation, or mode for short, is an

algorithm that features the use of a

symmetric key block cipher algorithm to provide

an information service, such as confidentiality or

authentication. With the advent of new block

ciphers, such as the Advanced Encryption

Standard (AES), there is a need to update longstanding modes of operation and an opportunity to consider the development of new modes.

One important motivation for updating modes is

the increased block size of the AES algorithm

compared to the Digital Encryption Standard

(DES) algorithm (128 bits instead of 64 bits).

NIST is in the process of specifying modes in the

Special Publication (SP) 800-38 series. Work in

2004 focused on the second part of the series –

specifying an authentication mode – and the

third part – specifying a combined mode for

authentication and confidentiality.

A draft version of SP 800-38B, Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation: The

CMAC Authentication Mode, underwent

internal technical review in 2004 and is

expected to be released for public comment in

March 2005. The CMAC (Cipher-based Message

Authentication Code) mode is essentially the

OMAC (One-key Cipher Block Chaining Message

Authentication Code) variation of the XCBC

(Extended Ciphertext Block Chaining) authentication algorithm. This part of the series is

expected to be finalized in 2005.

Special Publication 800-38C specifies the CCM

(Counter with CBC MAC) algorithm, a combined

confidentiality-authentication mode that was

developed for the Institute of Electrical and

Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard for

wireless local area networks (LANs). This part in

the series was finalized in 2004.

Mode development is expected be an ongoing

effort. Later parts of the series may be devoted

to the specification of new modes. In the next

year, for example, NIST will consider whether to

propose additional combined confidentialityauthentication modes, possibly including an AES

key wrap.

http://nist.gov/modes

Contact: Dr. Morris Dworkin

(301) 975-3356

morris.dworkin@nist.gov
42

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

E-AUTHENTICATION

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

has identified the remote identification of

users, or e-authentication, as a crosscutting

impediment to the provision of Internet-based

government services. To fully realize the benefits

of electronic government, government agencies

require e-authentication policies and corresponding technical guidance tailored to the protection

of government systems and data. This project

establishes a policy structure for e-authentication

within the U.S. government, promoting consistent implementation of e-authentication across

Federal agencies. This consistency will in turn

help to enhance government efficiency by

securing electronic processes needed to conduct

more transactions through e-government applications.

OMB released memorandum M-04-04,

E-Authentication Guidance for Federal

Agencies, in December 2003. This OMB policy

memorandum defined four levels of authentication – Levels 1 to 4 – in terms of the assurance

that an asserted identity is valid. The OMB

guidance requires agencies to perform a risk

assessment to determine the appropriate

authentication level for an application based on

the likely consequences of an authentication

error. This means a system using Level 4 authentication – a system that allows a user access to

more sensitive, personal information for example

– has a much higher assurance that a user's

identity is what it is claimed it to be. After

completing a risk assessment and mapping the

identified risks to the required assurance level,

OMB guidance directs agencies to identify and

implement appropriate authentication mechanisms based on NIST technical guidance.

In 2004, CSD’s e-authentication technical guidance was published as SP 800-63, Recommendation for Electronic Authentication. This recommendation provides technical guidance to

agencies implementing electronic authentication

on how to allow an individual person to remotely authenticate his or her identity to a Federal IT

system. SP 800-63 states specific technical

requirements for each of the four levels of assurance in the areas of identity proofing and registration, tokens, remote authentication mechanisms and assertion mechanisms. After

completing a risk assessment and mapping the

identified risks to the required assurance level,

Federal agencies can identify and implement

appropriate authentication mechanisms based

on the guidance in SP 800-63. This publication

assumes the person and Federal IT system are

communicating over an open network. It only

addresses authentication mechanisms that work

by making the individual demonstrate possession

and control of a secret, such as a cryptographic

key or a password.

While not addressed in SP 800-63, NIST is

studying e-authentication mechanisms that are

not based on possession and control of a secret,

such as knowledge-based authentication (KBA)

and remote biometrics. KBA techniques achieve

authentication by testing the personal knowledge of the individual. Since this information is

private but not actually secret, confidence in the

identity of an individual may be hard to achieve.

In February 2004, NIST hosted a KnowledgeBased Authentication Symposium to help identify

standard authentication metrics that can be

applied to KBA tools and solutions. Biometric

methods are widely used to authenticate individuals who are physically present at the authentication point, for example, for entry into buildings.

Biometrics do not constitute secrets suitable for

use in the conventional remote authentication

protocols addressed in SP 800-63. In the local

authentication case, the claimant uses a capture

device controlled by the verifier, so authentication does not require that biometrics be kept

secret. In 2005, NIST will hold a workshop to

examine remote authentication protocols and

biometrics. NIST will continue to study both the

topics of knowledge-based authentication and

biometrics, and may issue additional guidance in

the future on their uses for remote authentication of individuals across a network.

Federal agencies may choose to authenticate

users through credentials issued by industry,

associations, or local government. NIST is

supporting the development of accreditation

procedures for Credential Service Providers

(CSPs) based on the technical requirements in SP

800-63. These procedures will provide the foundation for efficient evaluation and selection of

acceptable CSPs by Federal agencies without

requiring specialized expertise.

In this project, NIST is collaborating with Federal

agencies and industry partners. Federal agencies

include the Office of Management and Budget,

Government Services Administration, the Federal

Identity and Credentialing Committee and the

Social Security Administration. Industry partners

include Wells Fargo Bank, VeriSign, Digital

Signature Trust/Identrus, ElectroSoft Systems,

Phoenix Technologies and Caradas.

Contacts: Mr. William Burr

(301) 975-2934

burr@nist.gov

Ms. Donna Dodson

(301) 975-3669

donna.Dodson@nist.gov

E-GOV IDENTITY

MANAGEMENT

INFRASTRUCTURE

I

ndividual government agencies implementing

electronic authentication techniques would

incur prohibitive costs if they were to implement

separate techniques for each application

instead of an umbrella system that could span

numerous agencies and applications. The

Federal government spent in excess of $160M in

fiscal year 2003 and 2004 on potentially inconsistent or agency-unique authentication and

identity management infrastructure. There is

also a burden on the public in interacting with

the government by having to maintain multiple

credentials and not being able to access the

services they need using those credentials. It is
43

CRYPTOGRAPHIC STANDARDS AND APPLICATIONS

clear that a cross-agency approach for authentication and identity management is a better

alternative. One type of approach – an identity

management infrastructure – brings scalability

and higher cost-effectiveness to an environment

of widely varying authentications techniques

and identity verification needs.

Pursuant to its responsibilities under the

Electronic Government Act of 2002, OMB has

determined that beginning in fiscal year 2006

Federal agencies that intend to use Public Key

Infrastructure (PKI) services will be buying them

from qualified managed service providers –

Shared Service Providers (SSPs) – operating

under the Federal Common Policy Framework

rather than establishing their own internal PKI.

The Common Policy Framework is a suite of

uniform policies developed by NIST in 2004.

Agencies with PKI operations that are cross-certified with the Federal Bridge Certification

Authority will not be required to migrate to these

new managed service providers, but as time goes

on it may become desirable to migrate to these

new providers. It is the expectation of the Federal

Identity Credentialing Committee (FICC) that this

two-step process will result in cost savings to

both industry and government; first by insuring

that PKI services are developed to meet a

common policy, rather than having each agency

developing its own idiosyncratic policy, and

secondly by having a common contract against

which task and delivery orders may be placed by

Federal agencies (and other authorized users of

the General Services Administration (GSA)

Schedules).

NIST continues to support the development and

deployment of the Federal PKI. We provide the

vice-chair of the Federal PKI Policy Authority,

which manages the suite of Federal PKI

Certificate Policies and the operations of the

Federal Bridge Certification Authority.

CSD plays a leading role on the FICC’s SSP

Subcommittee. We provide the technical knowledge and expertise that drive the FICC and the

SSP Program. We also provide several members

of the SSP Subcommittee and have contributed

heavily to the development of the

Subcommittee’s library of documents.

Potential SSPs must meet the requirements

established in the Common Policy Framework,

support smart cards that implement the

Government Smart Card Interoperability

Specification (GSC-IS) version 2.1 and satisfy the

Federal certification and accreditation requirements. Vendors of PKI services wishing to be an

SSP must meet an objective list of requirements

established by the SSP Subcommittee. The SSP

Subcommittee used this list of requirements to

evaluate vendors’ operational procedures,

review third-party audits and assess operational

compliance demonstrations when establishing

the initial list of three approved PKI providers.

It has been asked why the SSP system is necessary when services are currently available under

the Access Certificates for Electronic Services

(ACES) program or the GSA smart card contract.

The SSP Program does not establish a contract

but creates a qualified bidders list. The SSP

Subcommittee does not want to limit agencies

to one solution. The SSP Subcommittee does

want to set a standard for PKI that implements

a common policy in the Federal government that

ensures a minimum level of security and quality

when agencies contract for PKI services.

CSD, as part of the SSP Subcommittee, has developed the Shared Service Provider Roadmap. The

Shared Service Provider Roadmap is intended to

identify the background information, phases and

activities related to the selection process for

prospective PKI managed service providers. This

document identifies the process by which a

vendor qualifies for inclusion on the Qualified

Bidders List. The document also describes

requirements that must be met to maintain qualification, as well as contracting considerations.

We are also assisting GSA in the development of

an online e-authentication credential validation

infrastructure. The GSA e-Authentication

Gateway will mediate between government

applications and non-government CSPs, permitting applications to accept a variety of identification credentials. For example, individuals may

be able to leverage authentication mechanisms,

such as passwords, established with their banks

to access government applications. The GSA 

E-Authentication Gateway architecture relies on

SAML, TLS and PKI to exchange authentication

information with CSPs and government applications. NIST assisted GSA by developing PKI

architecture and PKI policies supporting TLSprotected transmission of authentication information between the E-Authentication Gateway,

CSPs and government applications.

As part of this project, NIST is researching Web

services protocols including Simple Object

Access Protocol (SOAP) and Security Assertion

Markup Language (SAML), effective password

use and registration and identity proofing. We

are collaborating with many entities, including

the Federal PKI Policy Authority (FPKIPA), FICC,

GSA, the Government Accountability Office

(GAO), the National Security Agency (NSA), the

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC),

OMB, the States of Illinois and Washington and

EduCause, which includes 1,800 universities,

colleges and educational institutions.

Contacts: Mr. William Burr

(301) 975-2934

burr@nist.gov

Mr. Wm. Tim Polk Ms. Donna Dodson

(301) 975-3348 (301) 975-3669

william.polk@nist.gov donna.dodson@nist.gov
44

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE GOLD MEDAL FOR SCIENTIFIC/ENGINEERING ACHIEVEMENT

The NIST Smart Card Team, consisting of (left to right)

John Wack, Teresa Schwarzhoff, James Dray, and

Alan Goldfine, Software Diagnostics and Conformance

Testing Division, received the 2004 Gold Medal Award for

the development of a framework and specification that

dramatically advanced interoperability among smart card

applications, coalesced U.S. government requirements

and forged alliances with the world’s foremost authorities on smart cards. The work of the NIST Smart Card

Team served to open an entire market to U.S. businesses

while dramatically increasing the security of government

agencies.

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

HONORS

AND AWARDS

WORLD STANDARDS DAY 2004 BEST PAPER

Alicia Clay and

Michael Hogan

(ITL) were awarded

First Place in the World

Standards Day 2004

Paper Competition for

their paper, “Securely

Connecting the World

with Cyber Security

Standards.” Since 1990, the U.S. standards community has annually

observed World Standards Day, so designated by the International

Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical

Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The theme for the 2004 celebration was “Standards Connect the World.”

The U.S. celebration, co-chaired by NIST and ANSI with participation by some

50 trade associations, professional societies, standards development organizations, corporations and government agencies, paid tribute to the value of

standardization to the Nation's economy and the consuming public. The

paper was published in the November/December 2004 issue of Standards

Engineering: The Journal of the Standards Engineering Society.

GENE MILLIGAN AWARD FOR EFFECTIVE

COMMITTEE MANAGEMENT FOR 2003

F

ernando Podio was awarded the Gene Milligan Award for Effective

Committee Management for 2003 by the InterNational Committee for

Information Technology Standards

(INCITS) for his work with the Technical

Committee M1, Biometrics. This award

recognizes individuals who, as officers,

have provided outstanding leadership to

the subgroup in its national and/or

international work, have demonstrated

proficiency in achieving consensus in

the national and/or international arenas

and have followed the approved procedures in an exemplary fashion.
45

HONORS AND AWARDS

INCITS SERVICE AWARD FOR 2003

Teresa Schwarzhoff was recognized by

the InterNational Committee for

Information Technology Standards (INCITS)

for her contribution to the INCITS B10

committee on standardization of the U.S.

Government Smart Card Interoperability

Specification. Ms. Schwarzhoff's excellent

work toward standardization of the specification had a clear and positive impact on

national security and competitiveness of the U.S. smart card industry.

FED 100 AWARD – FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK

Joan Hash was selected by Federal

Computer Week to receive a 2004

“Fed 100” Award. The judges for these

awards look for someone who has made

a noticeable difference in an agency or

in the community at large. Ms. Hash

was recognized for providing principal

direction to the development of security

management guidelines and serving as

key reviewer and often co-author to

ensure overall quality and consistency

with legal, policy and other existing

security guidelines.

PRESIDENTIAL MANAGEMENT FELLOW

Tanya Brewer completed and became an alumnus of the Presidential

Management Fellows Program. The Presidential Management Fellows

Program was established by Executive Order in 1977 to attract to the

Federal service outstanding graduate

students from a wide variety of

academic disciplines who demonstrate

an exceptional ability for, as well as a

clear interest in and commitment to,

leadership in the analysis and management of public policies and programs.

Not more than 400 Fellowships are

awarded annually. In addition to being

a CSD staff member, Ms. Brewer

completed a temporary detail in the

Office of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden during

the 108th Congress.
46

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

Computer 

Security Division 

Publications - 2004

NIST SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS

SP 800-67 Recommendation for the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA) Block Cipher May 2004

SP 800-64 Security Considerations in the Information System Development Life Cycle October 2003

SP 800-63 Recommendation for Electronic Authentication July 2004

SP 800-61 Computer Security Incident Handling Guide January 2004

SP 800-60 Guide for Mapping Types of Information and Information Systems to Security Categories June 2004

SP 800-50 Building an Information Technology Security Awareness and Training Program October 2003

SP 800-42 Guideline on Network Security Testing October 2003

SP 800-38C Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation: the CCM Mode for Authentication and Confidentiality May 2004

SP 800-37 Guidelines for the Security Certification and Accreditation of Federal Information Technology Systems May 2004

SP 800-27 Rev A Engineering Principles for Information Technology Security (A Baseline for Achieving Security) July 2004

DRAFT NIST SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS

SP 800-72 Guidelines on PDA Forensics August 2004

SP 800-70 Security Configuration Checklists Program for IT Products July 2004

SP 800-68 Guidance for Securing Microsoft Windows XP Systems for IT Professionals: A NIST Security Configuration Checklist June 2004

SP 800-66 An Introductory Resource Guide for Implementing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule May 2004

SP 800-65 Integrating Security into the Capital Planning and Investment Control Process July 2004

SP 800-58 Security Considerations for Voice Over IP Systems May 2004

SP 800-53 Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems October 2003

SP 800-52 Guidelines on the Selection and Use of Transport Layer Security September 2004
47

COMPUTER SECURITY DIVISION PUBLICATIONS

FEDERAL INFORMATION PROCESSING STANDARDS

FIPS 199 Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems February 2004

NIST INTERAGENCY REPORTS

NIST IR 7111 Computer Security Division - 2003 Annual Report April 04

NIST IR 7100 PDA Forensic Tools: An Overview and Analysis August 04

NIST IR 7056 Card Technology Development and Gap Analysis Interagency Report December 03

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY BULLETINS WRITTEN BY THE CSD

October 2003 Information Technology Security Awareness, Training, Education, and Certification

November 2003 Network Security Testing

December 2003 Security Considerations in the Information System Development Life Cycle 

January 2004 Computer Security Incidents: Assessing, Managing, And Controlling The Risks

March 2004 Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 199, Standards For Security Categorization Of Federal Information And Information Systems

April 2004 Selecting Information Technology Security Products

May 2004 Guide For The Security Certification And Accreditation Of Federal Information Systems

June 2004 Information Technology Security Services: How To Select, Implement, And Manage

July 2004 Guide For Mapping Types Of Information And Information Systems To Security Categories

August 2004 Electronic Authentication: Guidance For Selecting Secure Techniques

September 2004 Information Security Within the System Development Life Cycle
48

GUEST RESEARCH INTERNSHIPS

AT NIST

Opportunities are available at NIST for 6 to

24-month internships within the CSD.

Qualified individuals should contact the CSD,

provide a statement of qualifications and

indicate the area of work that is of interest.

Generally speaking, the salary costs are borne

by the sponsoring institution; however, in some

cases, these guest research internships carry a

small monthly stipend paid by NIST. For further

information, contact Mr. Ed Roback, (301) 975-

2934, edward.roback@nist.gov.

DETAILS AT NIST FOR

GOVERNMENT OR MILITARY

PERSONNEL

Opportunities are available at NIST for 6- to

24-month details at NIST in the CSD.

Qualified individuals should contact the 

CSD, provide a statement of qualifications 

and indicate the area of work that is of 

interest. Generally speaking, the salary costs

are borne by the sponsoring agency; however, in

some cases, agency salary costs may be reimbursed by NIST. For further information,

contact Mr. Ed Roback, (301) 975-2934,

edward.roback@nist.gov.

FEDERAL COMPUTER SECURITY

PROGRAM MANAGERS FORUM

The FCSPM Forum is covered in detail in the

Outreach section of this report.

Membership is free and open to Federal

employees. For further information, contact 

Ms. Marianne Swanson, (301) 975-3293,

marianne.swanson@nist.gov.

SECURITY RESEARCH

NIST occasionally undertakes security work,

primarily in the area of research, funded by

other agencies. Such sponsored work is

accepted by NIST when it can cost-effectively

further the goals of NIST and the sponsoring institution. For further information,

contact Mr. Tim Grance, (301) 975-3359,

tim.grance@nist.gov.

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES 

AT NIST

NIST funds industrial and academic research

in a variety of ways. Our Advanced

Technology Program co-funds high-risk, highpayoff projects with industry. The Small Business

Innovation Research Program funds R&D

proposals from small businesses. We also offer

other grants to encourage work in specific

fields: precision measurement, fire research and

materials science. Grants/awards supporting

research at industry, academic and other institutions are available on a competitive basis

through several different Institute offices. For

general information on NIST grants programs,

contact Ms. Joyce Brigham, (301) 975-6329,

joyce.brigham@nist.gov.

SUMMER UNDERGRADUATE

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP (SURF)

Curious about physics, electronics, manufacturing, chemistry, materials science, or

structural engineering? Intrigued by nanotechnology, fire research, information technology, or

robotics? Tickled by biotechnology or biometrics? Have an intellectual fancy for superconductors or perhaps semiconductors?

Here’s your chance to satisfy that curiosity. By

spending part of your summer working elbowto-elbow with researchers at NIST, one of the

world’s leading research organizations and

home to two Nobel Prize winners. Gain valuable

hands-on experience, work with cutting-edge

technology, meet peers from across the Nation

(from San Francisco to Puerto Rico, New York to

New Mexico), and sample the Washington, D.C.

area. And, no kidding, get paid while you're

learning. For further information, see

http://www.surf.nist.gov, or contact NIST SURF

Program, 100 Bureau Dr., Stop 8400,

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8499, (301) 975-4200,

NIST_SURF_program@nist.gov.

2004 ANNUAL REPORT

Ways to 

Engage Our 

Division and NIST
Tanya Brewer, Editor

Computer Security Division

Information Technology Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

U.S. Department of Commerce

Carlos M. Gutierrez, Secretary

Technology Administration

Phillip J. Bond, Under Secretary for Technology

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Hratch Semerjian, Acting Director

NIST IR 7219

April 2005

Disclaimer: Any mention of commercial products is for

information only; it does not imply NIST recommendation or

endorsement, nor does it imply that the products mentioned

are necessarily the best available for the purpose.

Michael James, Design/Production

The DesignPond