It’s hard to keep track of all these government certifications, but when it comes to securing data, the FIPS 140 certification seems to be the most widely recognized and demanded cert when it comes to government agencies and industry’s subject to strict security compliance.
Storage companies like Seagate are starting to market FIPS certification on their self-encrypting hard drives. Seagate’s Momentus FDE even has FIPS called out as an option customers can select on the website. Also, check out the footnote on the page:
*FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certification in progress.
**Not available in all countries.
So what the heck is FIPS 140-2 and why is it so important?
According to Wikipedia, The 140 series of Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) are U.S. government computer security standards that specify requirements for cryptography modules. There are currently 4 levels of FIPS certification, each more stringent and difficult to obtain. FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certification must be a big step if Seagate is saying it’s coming. Level 2 adds requirements for evidence showing the device has been tampered with.
In any case, FIPS is being talked about in security circles as the de-facto standard, as a feather in the cap of your security offering. Seagate certainly feels its a key value add. We’ll have to keep an eye on when this certification in progress becomes reality.
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[…] week, in What’s a FIPS anyway, I talked about some looming certification for Seagate’s Momentus line of laptop drives. […]
[…] recently announced the Momentus family of self-encrypting drives are now FIPS-140-2 certified. So you may ask what drives do I need to look for? What are the model numbers? […]
[…] a higher positive perception through awareness and knowledge with recent announcements regarding FIPS 140-2 certification on the Momentus laptop drives featuring SED. I am certain there is more to come on […]
[…] and de-facto worldwide standard for cryptographic modules. For additional FIPS info, check out this post from Mark Wojtasiak at the Storage […]
FIPS 140-2 certification is for the Momentus FDE is good, but FIPS 140-2 Level 2 would be a major milestone. Even among the software based FDE solutions, there are few products that have attained a level 2 certication. And it appears that Seagate has already attained this for its self encrypting drives:
http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140val-all.htm