System information

15
Is the Belkin EAL 2 product less
secure than the existing EAL 4
products?
No. Belkin’s new Secure DVI-I KVMs are
validated to a higher Protection Prole v2.1,
which has stricter information assurance (IA)
requirements. In addition, the new Secure
DVI-I KVM incorporates additional security
features such as unidirectional optical diodes,
display plug-and-play data protection, active
anti-tamper sensors, and enhanced usability to
reduce user error, all of which are not included
in Protection Prole v2.1.
What is NIAP?
(Derived from www.niap-ccevs.org)
The National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) and the National Security
Agency (NSA) have established a program
under the National Information Assurance
Partnership (NIAP) to evaluate IT product
conformance to international standards. The
program, ofcially known as the NIAP Common
Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme for
IT Security (CCEVS) is a partnership between
the public and private sectors. This program
is being implemented to help consumers and
government agencies select commercial off-
the-shelf information technology (IT) products
that meet their security requirements and to
help manufacturers of those products gain
acceptance in the global marketplace.
What are EAL and Common
Criteria?
(Derived from www.niap-ccevs.org)
The Common Criteria for Information
Technology Security Evaluation (CC), ISO/IEC
15408 Standard, denes general concepts
and principles of IT security evaluation and
presents a general model of evaluation.
It presents constructs for expressing IT
security objectives, for selecting and dening
IT security requirements, and for writing
high-level specications for products and
systems. It species information security
functional requirements and predened
assurance packages, known as Evaluated
Assurance Levels (EALs), against which
products’ functions are tested and evaluated.
EALs provide both the vendor and user with
exibility to dene functional and assurance
requirements that are unique to their operating
environments and to obtain an evaluated
product best suited to those needs.
What is the Protection Prole?
(Derived from www.niap-ccevs.org)
A Protection Prole is the specication
document used by a consumer, consumer
group, vendor, or any consortium to specify
what functional requirements they would like to
have in commercial information assurance (IA)
products, and to document to what assurance
level(s) they would like to have the product
tested. Protection Proles serve two purposes:
• Provide customers with the ability to
specify security requirements for their given
environment (levels of concern/ robustness);
and
• Serve to identify, for vendors, known markets
for products that meet specied customer
requirements.
What is CCEVS? What is its
purpose?
(Derived from www.niap-ccevs.org)
The Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation
Scheme (CCEVS) is a program under the
NIAP to meet the security evaluation needs
of both IT/IA product producers and users. Its
purpose is to evaluate COTS IA and IA-enabled
products (e.g., a rewall or an operating
system) in accordance with the International
Common Criteria for Information Technology
Security Evaluation (generally referred to as
the “Common Criteria”). It accomplishes this
through the use of U.S.-government-accredited
Common Criteria testing laboratories.
NIAP & NSA-Related Information
Belkin Secure Products
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