Common Criteria

Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (abbreviated as Common Criteria or CC) is an international standard (ISO/IEC 15408) for computer security certification. It is currently in version 3.1.
Common Criteria is a framework in which computer system users can specify their security functional and assurance requirements, vendors can then implement and/or make claims about the security attributes of their products, and testing laboratories can evaluate the products to determine if they actually meet the claims. In other words, Common Criteria provides assurance that the process of specification, implementation and evaluation of a computer security product has been conducted in a rigorous and standard manner.


History


CC originated out of three standards:
ITSEC - The European standard, developed in the early 1990s by France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. It too was a unification of earlier work, such as the two UK approaches (the CESG UK Evaluation Scheme aimed at the defence/intelligence market and the DTI Green Book aimed at commercial use), and was adopted by some other countries, e.g. Australia.
CTCPEC - The Canadian standard followed from the US DoD standard, but avoided several problems and was used jointly by evaluators from both the U.S. and Canada. The CTCPEC standard was first published in May 1993.
TCSEC - The United States Department of Defense DoD 5200.28 Std, called the Orange Book and parts of the Rainbow Series. The Orange Book originated from Computer Security work including the Ware Report, done by the National Security Agency and the National Bureau of Standards (the NBS eventually became NIST) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The central thesis of the Orange Book follows from the work done by Dave Bell and Len LaPadula for a set of protection mechanisms.
CC was produced by unifying these pre-existing standards, predominantly so that companies selling computer products for the government market (mainly for Defence or Intelligence use) would only need to have them evaluated against one set of standards. The CC was developed by the governments of Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the U.S.


Testing organizations


All testing laboratories must comply with ISO 17025, and certification bodies will normally be approved against either ISO/IEC Guide 65 or BS EN 45011.
The compliance with ISO 17025 is typically demonstrated to a National approval authority:
In Canada, the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) accredits Common Criteria Evaluation Facilities
In France, the comité français d’accréditation (COFRAC) accredits Common Criteria evaluation facilities, commonly called Centres d’Evaluation de la Sécurité des Technologies de l’Information (CESTI). Evaluations are done according to norms and standards specified by the Agence nationale de la sécurité des systemes d’information (ANSSI).
In the UK the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accredits Commercial Evaluation Facilities (CLEF)
In the US, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) accredits Common Criteria Testing Laboratories (CCTL)
In Germany, the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI)
In Spain, the National Cryptologic Center (CCN)
In India , the Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification Directorate (STQC)
Characteristics of these organizations were examined and presented at ICCC 10.

Mutual recognition arrangement


As well as the Common Criteria standard, there is also a sub-treaty level Common Criteria MRA (Mutual Recognition Arrangement), whereby each party thereto recognizes evaluations against the Common Criteria standard done by other parties. Originally signed in 1998 by Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, Australia and New Zealand joined 1999, followed by Finland, Greece, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain in 2000. The Arrangement has since been renamed Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) and membership continues to expand. Within the CCRA only evaluations up to EAL 4 are mutually recognized (Including augmentation with flaw remediation). The European countries within the former ITSEC agreement typically recognize higher EALs as well. Evaluations at EAL5 and above tend to involve the security requirements of the host nation's government.