National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
NEW!! Revised draft of Key Management Guideline
Project History:
The Federal Government currently has no standard for the establishment of cryptographic keys for unclassified applications. In 1997, NIST announced plans to develop a public key-based key management standard and solicited comments from the public.
An initial public workshop was announced to discuss the security and interoperability requirements of the Federal Government and private industry, the many techniques and options available, and the planned development of a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS). The first workshopwas held on February 10-11, 2000 at NIST. A white paper was subsequently developed that discusses the development process and provides a preliminary schedule. A Second Key Management Workshop was held on November 1-2, 2001 to discuss initial drafts of a Key Management Guideline and a Key Schemes document.
Key Managment Guideline:
The Key Management Guideline is under
development and has been divided into three parts. Part 1 will contain General
Guidance; a draft of this part is available in .pdf.
NIST welcomes comments to be submitted from the public at any time, but would
prefer that comments on this part be submitted by August 15, 2002. Please
submit these comments to GuidelineComments@nist.gov.
Part 2 will provide guidance for system and application owners for use in
identifying appropriate organizational key management infrastructures, establishing
organizational key management policies, and specifying organizational key
management practices and plans. Part 3 is intended to provide guidance to
system administrators regarding the use of cryptographic algorithms in specific
applications, select products to satisfy specific operational environments,
and configure the products appropriately.
Comments on Part
1 of the Key Management Guideline are now available.
Key Schemes document:
This document is currently under development. A key wrapping algorithm specification that will be included in the document is available in .doc and .pdf formats (files updated 12/3/01).
Comments:
NIST welcomes the submission of comments on this project at any time. Comments on the Key Management Guideline should be addressed to GuidelineComments@nist.gov. General comments should be addressed to kmscomments@nist.gov.
Computer Security Resource Clearinghouse (CSRC) and Computer Security Division