INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Guidelines on encryption enacted by the National Agency for Cybersecurity.
Encryption allows you to secure communications in the digital world in a secure and efficient way. After the guidelines on password retention, hash functions and message authentication codes, the National Cybersecurity Agency, ACN, publishes other insights on cryptography dedicated to data confidentiality and quantum threat preparedness techniques.
From the introductory document to the indications on block ciphers, which is one of the most important tools to ensure the confidentiality of data, the new documents help to orient oneself among the specifications of cryptographic algorithms and to better understand the operation of ciphers and the interaction with the messages to be sent.
The first of the information documents that ACN makes available to learn more about cryptographic topics is also available. Unlike the "Guidelines for Cryptographic Functions", these documents are intended to inform and raise awareness on topics central to modern cryptography, providing a broad overview and including the most relevant information for the structures and institutions of our country.
The first of the series is dedicated to "Post-quantum and quantum cryptography" for quantum threat preparedness and contains an overview of the current scenario, useful for considering the main post-quantum or quantum alternatives and developments at the international level.
Among the guidelines already published in December 2023 are indications for the storage of passwords, created together with the Guarantor for the protection of personal data and which concern the way in which the provider of the service being accessed must protect the password to access it; indications on cryptographic hash functions, fundamental tools for cybersecurity because, thanks to their properties, they make it possible to ensure the integrity of data, i.e. they allow you to verify the alteration of a piece of data or a message; and message authentication codes or MACs, which help ensure the integrity of a message and verify the identity of the sender.
The guidelines and information documents are part of a series of technical publications that serve to protect the cyberspace in which we all move. Together, these guidelines provide precise indications for the use of cryptographic algorithms throughout the entire life cycle of ICT systems and services, in accordance with the principles of security and privacy protection. In each document, the last chapter contains the conclusions drawn from the dissertation carried out and the list of algorithms and parameters recommended by ACN.
Following the example of other international realities, the Technological Scrutiny and Cryptography Division, within the Certification and Supervision Service of the Agency, directed by Admiral Andrea Billet, has decided to start the publication of the series "Guidelines for Cryptographic Functions", which represent the main (primitive) cryptographic functions both from a theoretical and practical point of view.
The creation of these documents is part of the functions attributed to the National Cybersecurity Agency for the first time enshrined in Italian legislation (by Legislative Decree 82/2021), for which the ACN is a promoter of the use of cryptography as a cybersecurity tool, in implementation of measure #22 of the National Cybersecurity Strategy.
From the introductory document to the indications on block ciphers, which is one of the most important tools to ensure the confidentiality of data, the new documents help to orient oneself among the specifications of cryptographic algorithms and to better understand the operation of ciphers and the interaction with the messages to be sent.
The first of the information documents that ACN makes available to learn more about cryptographic topics is also available. Unlike the "Guidelines for Cryptographic Functions", these documents are intended to inform and raise awareness on topics central to modern cryptography, providing a broad overview and including the most relevant information for the structures and institutions of our country.
The first of the series is dedicated to "Post-quantum and quantum cryptography" for quantum threat preparedness and contains an overview of the current scenario, useful for considering the main post-quantum or quantum alternatives and developments at the international level.
Among the guidelines already published in December 2023 are indications for the storage of passwords, created together with the Guarantor for the protection of personal data and which concern the way in which the provider of the service being accessed must protect the password to access it; indications on cryptographic hash functions, fundamental tools for cybersecurity because, thanks to their properties, they make it possible to ensure the integrity of data, i.e. they allow you to verify the alteration of a piece of data or a message; and message authentication codes or MACs, which help ensure the integrity of a message and verify the identity of the sender.
The guidelines and information documents are part of a series of technical publications that serve to protect the cyberspace in which we all move. Together, these guidelines provide precise indications for the use of cryptographic algorithms throughout the entire life cycle of ICT systems and services, in accordance with the principles of security and privacy protection. In each document, the last chapter contains the conclusions drawn from the dissertation carried out and the list of algorithms and parameters recommended by ACN.
Following the example of other international realities, the Technological Scrutiny and Cryptography Division, within the Certification and Supervision Service of the Agency, directed by Admiral Andrea Billet, has decided to start the publication of the series "Guidelines for Cryptographic Functions", which represent the main (primitive) cryptographic functions both from a theoretical and practical point of view.
The creation of these documents is part of the functions attributed to the National Cybersecurity Agency for the first time enshrined in Italian legislation (by Legislative Decree 82/2021), for which the ACN is a promoter of the use of cryptography as a cybersecurity tool, in implementation of measure #22 of the National Cybersecurity Strategy.
