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General Interest - Common Criteria


What are the Common Criteria?

ISO/IEC 15408-1:2009

ISO/IEC 15408-1:2009 establishes the general concepts and principles of IT security evaluation and specifies the general model of evaluation given by various parts of ISO/IEC 15408 which in its entirety is meant to be used as the basis for evaluation of security properties of IT products.

It provides an overview of all parts of ISO/IEC 15408. It describes the various parts of ISO/IEC 15408; defines the terms and abbreviations to be used in all parts ISO/IEC 15408; establishes the core concept of a Target of Evaluation (TOE); the evaluation context; and describes the audience to which the evaluation criteria are addressed. An introduction to the basic security concepts necessary for the evaluation of IT products is given.

It defines the various operations by which the functional and assurance components are given in ISO/IEC 15408-2 and ISO/IEC 15408-3 may be tailored through the use of permitted operations.

The key concepts of protection profiles (PP), packages of security requirements, and the topic of conformance are specified and the consequences of evaluation and evaluation results are described.

ISO/IEC 15408-1:2009 gives guidelines for the specification of Security Targets (ST) and provides a description of the organization of components throughout the model.

General information about the evaluation methodology is given in ISO/IEC 18045 and the scope of evaluation schemes is provided.

More information can be found here.

 

ISO/IEC 15408-2:2008

ISO/IEC 15408-2:2008 defines the content and presentation of the security functional requirements to be assessed in a security evaluation using ISO/IEC 15408. It contains a comprehensive catalog of predefined security functional components that will meet the most common security needs of the marketplace. These are organized using a hierarchical structure of classes, families, and components, and supported by comprehensive user notes.

ISO/IEC 15408-2:2008 also provides guidance on the specification of customized security requirements where no suitable predefined security functional components exist.

More information can be found here.

 

ISO/IEC 15408-3:2008

ISO/IEC 15408-3:2008 defines the assurance requirements of the evaluation criteria. It includes the evaluation assurance levels that define a scale for measuring assurance for component targets of evaluation (TOEs), the composed assurance packages that define a scale for measuring assurance for composed TOEs, the individual assurance components from which the assurance levels and packages are composed, and the criteria for evaluation of protection profiles and security targets.

ISO/IEC 15408-3:2008 defines the content and presentation of the assurance requirements in the form of assurance classes, families, and components and provides guidance on the organization of new assurance requirements. The assurance components within the assurance families are presented in a hierarchical order.

More information can be found here.

 

NIAP Evaluations

Common Criteria evaluations are available from the National Information Assurance Program. You can visit the NIAP page direct at this link.