Common Criteria
Common Criteria (CC) provides a standard framework for specifying, developing, evaluating, and validating security solutions. Solutions are considered to satisfy CC requirements when they have been evaluated and validated by an independent testing laboratory. The Common Criteria Recognition Agreement (CCRA) ensures defined assurance levels (EALs) between versions of the criteria are equivalent and can therefore be used without restrictions for composition activities.
NIAP
The National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) administers CC for government agencies in the United States. Established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Security Agency (NSA), the NIAP Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme for IT Security (CCEVS) program evaluates IT product conformance to international standards. NIAP maintains a Validated Products List (VPL) containing all IT products and protection profiles (PPs) that have successfully completed evaluation and validation under the scheme. Each PP specifies what requirements must be met to achieve the specified Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) rating for a particular technology.
EALs
Common Criteria defines seven Evaluation Assurance Levels (EALs) in its standard, each being a superset of the next lower level. The notion of “augmentation” allows the addition of assurance components to an EAL and is designated with the word “Augmented” or a plus (+) sign after the EAL.
PP for Secure KVM Switches
The PP for secure KVM switches is the Peripheral Sharing Switch (PSS) for Human Interface Devices. The latest version of the PP, version 2.1, was released on 7 September 2010. In contrast to previous versions of the PSS PP, which were assigned an EAL4 rating, version 2.1 specifies EAL2. In addition, this latest PP explicitly restricts USB devices to keyboard and mouse.
Click here to find answers to frequently asked questions about NIAP, the new PP and Avocent products
Click here for a cross reference of Avocent SKU, MPU and NIAP VID.
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