Designing to FIPS-140: A Guide for Engineers and Programmers

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024

D. Johnston, R. FantDesigning to FIPS-140https://doi.org/10.1007/979-8-8688-0125-9_2

2. Core Concepts

David Johnston¹   and Richard Fant²

(1)

Hillsboro, OR, USA

(2)

Austin, TX, USA

 

Here, we drill one level down to look at a number of specific technical concepts and defined terms within FIPS 140 and ISO/IEC 19790:2012.

2.1 FIPS 140 Module

A FIPS 140 module is the entity that is certified that it complies with the FIPS 140 standard. A module can take many forms. A USB device, a PCI card, a PC, a rack mounted server, and a subcircuit in a silicon chip are all examples of devices that could be FIPS certified provided that the physical properties, firmware, and software ...