17 February, 2005
category: Digital ID, Government
Two companies–Infineon and SPYRUS–have released new personal authentication and security products to support the Department of Defense’s Global Information Grid designed to meet real time information needs for security and military as well as for commercial enterprises.
New Era in Cybersecurity Commences
SAN JOSE, Calif.– SPYRUS, Inc. and Infineon Technologies today announced the availability of personal authentication and security products to support the Global Information Grid, utilizing the new suite of advanced crypto algorithms known as “Suite B.” Suite B is expected to be the de facto standard to protect data for decades to come, for both government and business users.
The Global Information Grid (GIG), as it is being defined by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), provides a fundamental shift away from centralized “information-push” technologies, toward a new era of information sharing by authorized users, anywhere, anytime. Building on the currently available Internet technologies, the GIG will provide to the U.S. DoD, its allies and coalition partners, a secure, highly available, and globally interconnected information environment to meet the real-time and near real-time information needs for security, military, diplomatic, and civil government purposes as well as for commercial enterprises.
The National Security Agency (NSA) publicly announced in October 2003 its intent to adopt elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), which forms the heart of the Suite B algorithms. SPYRUS received the first patent sublicense for elliptic curve cryptography that has been issued by the National Security Agency, under the terms of the NSA Field of Use patent license. The “Field of Use” refers to the technology and methods necessary to implement patented technology, utilizing elliptic curves in GF(p) with key strengths greater than 255-bits, with implementations that are certified to meet the FIPS 140-2 security standard. SPYRUS products implement ECC technology specified for use by the U.S. Government, and increasingly adopted by other governments as well as the commercial sector.
SPYRUS products support the full range of ECC curves in GF(p) that have been approved for use by the U.S. Government, from P-256 to P-521. SPYRUS products also support the full range of SHA-224/256/384/512, and AES-128/192/256. The Full and One-Pass ECMQV key establishment schemes are supported, along with the five EC Diffie-Hellman schemes required by NIST’s Special Publication SP 800-56. The full range of capabilities that might be selected for a particular application will therefore be available in a FIPS 140-2 certified SPYRUS product.
Infineon and SPYRUS have been partners since the mid-1990s. Together they produced the first smart card and USB cryptographic token certified to meet the FIPS 140-1 Level 2 and Level 3 security standards, for use in both Government and commercial business enterprises. This collaboration now provides the market with the first token to offer complete Suite B capabilities to provide the strongest security protection in smart card, USB token, and secure mass storage products available anywhere. It is being submitted for certification under the stringent FIPS 140-2 Level 3 cryptographic security standard by an agency of the U.S. Government (NIST). The Infineon SLE66CX642P chip is in the process of being certified under Common Criteria at an EAL5+ level of trust by the German Government.
SPYRUS plans to migrate its security solution to Infineon’s new PE family of secure microcontroller ICs to take advantage of enhanced features including more efficient EEPROM programming, 33MHz CPU clock, and smaller die size. These technologies include Infineon’s multi-layer chip design, which includes an active shield to prevent tampering, the Advanced Cryptographic Engine (ACE) as well as a Triple DES cryptographic coprocessor to accelerate RSA, ECC and DES computations, together with state-of-the-art techniques to defeat possible side-channel analysis attacks. These techniques include instruction timing randomization, complementary balanced circuitry, encrypted memory bus transfers, and current scrambling techniques.
SPYRUS technologies build upon that solid security base by utilizing their own intellectual property and algorithm implementations to add highly optimized support for ECC, AES, SHA-2, RSA, DSA, and other legacy algorithms running on their secure smart card operating system (SPYCOS(R)).
“This partnership between Infineon and SPYRUS provides new, cost-effective opportunities for customers while offering best-in-class security features,” said Joerg Borchert, VP for Chip Card and Security ICs, Infineon Technologies North America. “Combining Infineon’s leading edge security microcontroller technology with SPYRUS’ embedded technologies will provide customers with improved legacy performance together with Suite B product capabilities today and ultimately improve time to deployment for systems with maximum security protection.”
“SPYRUS is committed to providing products that meet the U.S. Government’s highest standards to secure and protect sensitive information,” said Sue Pontius, President and CEO of SPYRUS. “With NSA’s grant of the ECC license to SPYRUS, we are ready to meet the anticipated demand in all markets that require strong security. Combining Infineon’s security IC expertise with our cryptographic implementation has enabled SPYRUS to be first to market with the most advanced products available today.”
About Infineon Technologies
Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for automotive, industrial and multi-market sectors, for applications in communication, as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates in the U.S. from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In fiscal year 2004 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 7.19 billion (US $8.93 billion) with about 35,600 employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information is available at www.infineon.com.
About SPYRUS, Inc.
SPYRUS, Inc, is a privately held U.S. corporation headquartered in San Jose, California with offices in Canada, Belgium, and Australia. Since its inception in 1992, SPYRUS has specialized in cryptographic services utilizing high assurance devices to publish, distribute, and provide access control for electronic data. SPYRUS’ mission is to set the standard for the new era of multinational information sharing and long term data protection. Further information is available at www.spyrus.com.
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