[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 167 (Wednesday, September 1, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 48984-48986]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-18868]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No. 210826-0169]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Automation of 
the Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP)

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of 
Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 
invites organizations to provide letters of interest describing 
products and technical expertise to support and demonstrate security 
platforms for the Automation of the Cryptographic Module Validation 
Program (CMVP) project. This notice is the initial step for the 
National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), in collaborating 
with technology companies, to address cybersecurity challenges 
identified under the Automation of the Cryptographic Module Validation 
Program (CMVP) project. Participation in the project is open to all 
interested organizations.

DATES: Collaborative activities will commence as soon as enough 
completed and signed letters of interest have been returned to address 
all the necessary components and capabilities, but no earlier than 
October 1, 2021.

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9700 Great Seneca Highway, 
Rockville, MD 20850. Letters of interest must be submitted to [email protected] or via hardcopy to National Institute of 
Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9700 Great Seneca Highway, Rockville, 
MD 20850. Interested parties can access the letter of interest template 
by visiting https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation and completing the letter of 
interest webform. NIST will announce the completion of the selection of 
participants and inform the public that it will no longer accept 
letters of interest for this project at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation. 
Organizations whose letters of interest are accepted will be asked to 
sign a consortium Cooperative Research and Development Agreement 
(CRADA) with NIST; a template CRADA can be found at: https://nccoe.nist.gov/library/nccoe-consortium-crada-example.

[[Page 48985]]


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Apostol Vassilev via phone (301) 975-
3221 or email [email protected]; by mail to National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9700 Great Seneca 
Highway, Rockville, MD 20850. Additional details about the Automation 
of the Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) project are 
available at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation.
    Background: The NCCoE, part of NIST, is a public-private 
collaboration for accelerating the widespread adoption of integrated 
cybersecurity tools and technologies. The NCCoE brings together experts 
from industry, government, and academia under one roof to develop 
practical, interoperable cybersecurity approaches that address the 
real-world needs of complex Information Technology (IT) systems. By 
accelerating dissemination and use of these integrated tools and 
technologies for protecting IT assets, the NCCoE will enhance trust in 
U.S. IT communications, data, and storage systems; reduce risk for 
companies and individuals using IT systems; and encourage development 
of innovative, job-creating cybersecurity products and services.
    Process: NIST is soliciting responses from all sources of relevant 
security capabilities (see below) to enter into a Cooperative Research 
and Development Agreement (CRADA) to provide products and technical 
expertise to support and demonstrate security platforms for the 
Automation of the Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) 
project. The full project can be viewed at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation.
    Interested parties can access the template for a letter of interest 
by visiting the project website at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation and completing the 
letter of interest webform. On completion of the webform, interested 
parties will receive access to the letter of interest template, which 
the party must complete, certify as accurate, and submit to NIST by 
email or hardcopy. NIST will contact interested parties if there are 
questions regarding the responsiveness of the letters of interest to 
the project objective or requirements identified below. NIST will 
select participants who have submitted complete letters of interest on 
a first come, first served basis within each category of product 
components or capabilities listed below, up to the number of 
participants in each category necessary to carry out this project. When 
the project has been completed, NIST will post a notice on the 
Automation of the Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) 
project website at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation announcing the completion of the 
project and informing the public that it will no longer accept letters 
of interest for this project.
    Completed letters of interest should be submitted to NIST and will 
be accepted on a first come, first served basis. There may be 
continuing opportunity to participate even after initial activity 
commences for participants who were not selected initially or have 
submitted the letter interest after the selection process. Selected 
participants will be required to enter into a consortium CRADA with 
NIST (for reference, see ADDRESSES section above).
    Objective: The Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) 
validates third-party assertions that cryptographic module 
implementations satisfy the requirements of Federal Information 
Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 140-3, Security Requirements 
for Cryptographic Modules. Current industry cryptographic product 
development, production, and maintenance processes place significant 
emphasis on time-to-market efficiency. A number of elements of the 
validation process are manual in nature, and the period required for 
third-party testing and government validation of cryptographic modules 
is often incompatible with industry requirements. The purpose of the 
project is to demonstrate the value and practicality of automation to 
improve the efficiency and timeliness of CMVP operation and processes. 
The proposed proof-of-concept solution(s) will integrate commercial and 
open source products that leverage cybersecurity standards and 
recommended practices to demonstrate the use case scenarios detailed in 
the Automation of the Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) 
project description at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation. This project will result 
in a publicly available NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide as a Special 
Publication 1800 series, a detailed implementation guide describing the 
practical steps needed to implement a cybersecurity reference 
implementation.
    Requirements for Letters of Interest: Each responding 
organization's letter of interest should identify which security 
platform component(s) or capability(ies) it is offering. Letters of 
interest should not include company proprietary information, and all 
components and capabilities must be commercially available. Components 
are listed in section 3 of the Automation of the Cryptographic Module 
Validation Program (CMVP) project description at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation and include, but are not limited to:

 Validation authority server
 ACV proxy server
 ACV client
 Hardware or software cryptographic modules
 Host processors for software cryptographic modules
 Network devices supporting web-based exchange of information 
in JSON format
 Harnesses for integration of ACV clients with hardware or 
software cryptographic modules
 Automated cryptographic module testing expertise

    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how its products help address one or more of the following desired 
characteristics and properties in section 1 of the Automation of the 
Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) project description at 
https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation:

 Support necessary schemas and protocols for evidence 
submission and validation for a scalable application programming 
interface (API) based architecture
 Support standard tests for the functional tests of specific 
classes of technologies (e.g., software modules) and corresponding 
reporting of functional and non-functional security requirements
 Be compatible with an infrastructure required to support a new 
automated validation program architecture
 Include reusable test harnesses for test automation for 
different types of modules within the program architecture
 Support maintaining validation within a changing operational 
environment
 Support validation in third-party operational environments 
(e.g., cloud providers, contracted environments)
 Support identification of positive and negative impacts that 
the new automation program may have on cryptographic product 
development,

[[Page 48986]]

production, integration, and testing organizations, including lessons 
learned
 Contribute to recommend policies and best practices for the 
automated validation scope in appropriate NIST documents
 Support a roadmap for migrating organizations and their 
customers from the current human-effort-centric CMVP to the new 
automated program, including recommended practices based on lessons 
learned
 Broadly support improvements in cryptographic modules across 
all vendors participating in the CMVP through voluntary sharing of test 
data (e.g., seeds or test vectors) that result in failures to improve 
regression testing for module vendors

    In their letters of interest, responding organizations need to 
acknowledge the importance of and commit to provide:
    1. Access for all participants' project teams to component 
interfaces and the organization's experts necessary to make functional 
connections among security platform components.
    2. Support for development and demonstration of the Automation of 
the Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) project, which will 
be based on the most recent versions of FIPS 140, SP 800-140, and 
Handbook (HB) 150-17 and conducted in a manner consistent with the most 
recent version of the following standards and guidance: FIPS 200, SP 
800-37, SP 800-52, SP 800-53, SP 800-63, and SP 1800-16. Additional 
details about the Automation of the Cryptographic Module Validation 
Program (CMVP) project are available at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/applied-cryptography/cmvp-automation.
    NIST cannot guarantee that all of the products proposed by 
respondents will be used in the demonstration. Each prospective 
participant will be expected to work collaboratively with NIST staff 
and other project participants under the terms of the consortium CRADA 
in the development of the Automation of the Cryptographic Module 
Validation Program (CMVP) project. Prospective participants' 
contribution to the collaborative effort will include assistance in 
establishing the necessary interface functionality, connection and set-
up capabilities and procedures, demonstration harnesses, environmental 
and safety conditions for use, integrated platform user instructions, 
and demonstration plans and scripts necessary to demonstrate the 
desired capabilities. Each participant will train NIST personnel, as 
necessary, to operate its product in capability demonstrations. 
Following successful demonstrations, NIST will publish a description of 
the security platform and its performance characteristics sufficient to 
permit other organizations to develop and deploy security platforms 
that meet the security objectives of the Automation of the 
Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) project. These 
descriptions will be public information.
    Under the terms of the consortium CRADA, NIST will support 
development of interfaces among participants' products by providing IT 
infrastructure, laboratory facilities, office facilities, collaboration 
facilities, and staff support to component composition, security 
platform documentation, and demonstration activities.
    The dates of the demonstration of the Automation of the 
Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) project capability will 
be announced on the NCCoE website at least two weeks in advance at 
https://nccoe.nist.gov/. The expected outcome will demonstrate how the 
components of the solutions that address Automation of the 
Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) can enhance security 
capabilities that provide assurance of mitigation of identified risks 
while continuing to meet industry sectors' compliance requirements. 
Participating organizations will gain from the knowledge that their 
products are interoperable with other participants' offerings.
    For additional information on the NCCoE governance, business 
processes, and NCCoE operational structure, visit the NCCoE website 
https://nccoe.nist.gov/.

Alicia Chambers,
NIST Executive Secretariat.
[FR Doc. 2021-18868 Filed 8-31-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-13-P