Government Agencies To Protect Their Data With Newly Certified Hardware Security Model

Successful validation by cybersecurity agency allows government agencies to protect their data with nShield HSMs.

 Entrust, a leading provider of trusted identities, payments and data protection solutions, today announced the certification of its nShield Connect XC hardware security module (HSM) product line under the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA)’s National IT Evaluation Scheme (NITES). This qualifies nShield HSMs for use by Singapore government agencies and reinforces its reliability as a secure solution.

The certification comes at a time when data security threats are getting increasingly more pervasive and complex, raising the demand for products that have been validated by independent evaluation laboratories. This need is particularly prevalent in highly regulated industries and the government sector, where product certification is often a requirement.

The NITES evaluation methodology references international standards such as the Common Criteria (CC) and requires subjecting products to rigorous testing. This certification builds on the qualifications of Entrust nShield HSMs, which have been validated as conforming to the CC Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+) and Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 Level 3 requirements.

The nShield XC HSMs features tamper-resistant protection for key material, quorum-based authentication which adds an extra layer of protection by requiring approvals from more than one HSM user, encrypted access to private keys, and automatic erasure of data upon successful breaches.

“Having our nShield Connect XC HSM product line certified under NITES opens up new opportunities for us to help companies and government agencies protect their data,” said James Cook, vice president, digital security solutions at Entrust. “These organisations can know that Entrust solutions have been independently evaluated to meet the stringent NITES standards. The certification is a great milestone for Entrust in continuing effort to deliver industry-leading data protection solutions for our customers.”