NSA Product Evaluations Yesterday and Today
Historically, “NSA endorsed” has meant “approval to use” plus the implication that the product was “bulletproof” and was applied only to products designed, produced and evaluated in-house
Our customers desire a “NSA endorsement” of COTS security products as “approval to use”
Too many COTS security products for NSA to evaluate in-house - there are no “bulletproof” COTS products
NSA will defer security product testing to NIAP (except for assurance level beyond scope of NIAP) and concentrate on system level engineering and evaluations