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_3

3. Finite State Models

David Johnston¹   and Richard Fant²

(1)

Hillsboro, OR, USA

(2)

Austin, TX, USA

 

A finite state model (FSM) description of the module describes the operational and error states and how the module can transition between states.

The FIPS standard lists eight mandatory states: power on/off, general initialization, crypto officer, CSP entry, user, approved, self-test, and error.

A state like “approved” seems orthogonal to other states and so could be part of an approved/unapproved pair of states.

An illustration of 2 interconnected entities. They are approved and ...