The current version of the GreenShield security software has received formal approval from the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) for processing classified information up to VS-NfD. It was already known at the beginning of February, at the BSI IT Security Congress, that the new GreenShield version had successfully passed the technical evaluation at the BSI and that only the so-called “co-signing” had to be granted.
GreenShield supports both common standards – S/MIME and OpenPGP – and is characterized by very high user-friendliness, a decisive factor for authorities and the secrecy-conscious economy. With the current approval, GreenShield follows two previous versions, all of which also have VS-NfD approval.
For the first time, GreenShield receives both an approval with support for various smart cards (TCOS, CardOS, JCOP, etc) and an approval recommendation for use without a smart card. This makes GreenShield the solution of choice for anyone who wants to encrypt at a high level of security and/or replace the Chiasmus encryption program, whose VS-NfD approval expires at the end of June.
It is a collaboration that pays off for all parties involved: At the end of 2021, NXP has sold the hundred millionth chip with a license of cryptovision’s ePasslet Suite product.
The ePasslet Suite is a Java card framework for electronic ID documents. From electronic ID cards to electronic passports and signature cards, it can be used to quickly and easily implement almost any electronic identity document. The product is used in more than 30 projects in over 25 countries around the world.
cryptovision and the semiconductor manufacturer NXP® Semiconductors have been working together since 2010 to provide customers around the world with a secure platform for identity documents. The ePasslet suite framework is most commonly used on NXP’s Java Card operating system JCOP®. In addition, NXP offers the ePasslet Suite (under the name eDoc Suite) in its own product portfolio. Meanwhile, customers in Armenia, Ecuador, Ghana, Moldova, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uzbekistan and other countries are using this solution – as the number of licenses shows, with great success.
“The fact that we have now exceeded the 100 million mark with NXP proves on the one hand the high quality of the ePasslet Suite,” reports Rüdiger Horn of cryptovision. “On the other hand, the cooperation with NXP, its smart card chips and the Java card operating system JCOP is ideal to offer customers a proven platform for cryptovision’s ePasslet Suite.” Meanwhile, development continues: the new ePasslet Suite 4.0 version for JCOP 4.5, which has several new features, is expected to be available by the end of 2022.
cryptovision will be represented with two presentations at the renowned BSI congress next week. In both presentations GreenShield, cryptovision’s innovative email and file encryption solution, plays a central role. This is no coincidence, as GreenShield is currently in great demand.
In particular, Greenshield can be used to replace the encryption software Chiasmus, which has been in use for two decades. Its approval for data classified as VS-NfD was originally due to expire at the end of 2021, but the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has now extended the deadline for the last time by six months.
According to the BSI’s replacement guide, there are only two products approved as Chiasmus successors in the VS-NfD environment – GreenShield is one of them. GreenShield supports S/MIME and PGP, both common standards for email encryption and signing. Both formats can also be used for files. When implementing this feature, the cryptovision developers placed great emphasis on user-friendliness. With success: Encryption or decryption requires – if at all – only a few mouse clicks, whereby the user does not have to deal with the two different standards and does not even have to know that they exist at all. If you want to know more about GreenShield’s sophisticated S/MIME-PGP integration, you can listen to the first of two cryptovision presentations at the BSI Congress on February 1 at 13:40. The speaker for this presentation, entitled “Processing PGP and S/MIME together”, is Dr. Matthias Edelhoff. Participation in the congress is free of charge.
Meanwhile, the introduction of GreenShield with automatic certificate management has started at a federal authority. This project is the topic of the second cryptovision presentation at the BSI Congress, which will also be held on February 1, at 14:05 – directly following the first one. The speaker is Martin Peeckhaus. Title of the presentation: “Email Security in an Environment with and without VS Requirements – A Case Study”.
The German IT Security Congress, hosted by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), has been an important industry gathering for decades. The lecture slots are highly coveted and are awarded by a high-ranking committee via anonymous peer reviews.
This year, cryptovision has managed to place two presentations in this top-class program: On February 1 at 13:40 Dr. Matthias Edelhoff will talk about ” Processing PGP and S/MIME together”. This will be directly followed by Martin Peeckhaus at 2:05 p.m. with the topic “E-mail security in an environment with and without VS requirements”. The complete congress program is available on the BSI website.
The event, also known as the “BSI Congress”, used to take place every two years. Due to the ever-increasing importance of this gathering, the BSI has now switched to an annual rotation. Unfortunately, the Corona pandemic prevents this year’s edition from being held in the usual form as a face-to-face event. Instead, participants can expect a virtual congress. Participation is free of charge.
The trade fair accompanying the congress will also be held virtually this year. Cryptovision will again be present with a booth. An overview of the exhibitors will soon be available on the BSI website. We are looking forward to your visit!
After last year’s Trustech in Cannes had fallen victim to the pandemic, it celebrated a comeback in the heart of Paris. cryptovision was also on site and – true to tradition – invited selected customers and partners to the famous Cryptonite party on the evening of December 1st. During a night cruise on the Seine, 100 hand-picked guests enjoyed champagne and petits fours in front of a fascinating backdrop. Participants came from Europe, Africa, North and South America. For the first time, they were also able to exchange ideas with top managers from the new cryptovision owner Atos.
The following video gives some impressions of this extraordinary event:
The African country Ghana has now been accepted into the ICAO Public Key Directory. Ghana has become the 79th nation listed. cryptovision has played a major role in the preparation of this achievement, providing both software solutions and consulting.
Since 2011, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has been operating a database for which each authorized state provides a cryptographic key: the ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD). With the keys in this database, forged electronic identity documents can be easily detected. However, inclusion in the ICAO PKD is subject to strict conditions. In particular, the production and issuance of identity documents in the country concerned must meet high security requirements.
After Ghana fulfilled all these requirements, the ICAO included the country’s key in their PKD in mid-October. cryptovision is especially proud of this, as the Gelsenkirchen-based company has built the cryptographic infrastructure for the Ghanaian identity document (Ghana Card). For instance, the authority issuing digital certificates for the Ghana Card is operated with the cryptovision product CAmelot.
cryptovision’s client in Ghana is a public-private partnership consisting of the residents authority NIA and the Margins Group. Members of these two organizations will attend their first ICAO PKD Board meeting in Amsterdam from October 27-28.
cryptovision has been active in Africa for more than ten years and has carried out numerous projects there in the field of electronic identity documents. The inclusion of Ghana into the ICAO Public Key Directory shows again that cryptovision can build complex cryptographic solutions that meet stringent regulatory requirements.
The countdown is on! On December 31, 2021, the VS-NfD approval of the widely used encryption software Chiasmus will end. If you are still looking for a successor solution, GreenShield from cryptovision is the first choice. With GreenShield you can encrypt both emails and files in a VS-NfD compliant manner – easier and more user-friendly than was ever possible with Chiasmus.
Unlike Chiasmus, which runs as standalone software, GreenShield is implemented as an add-in for Microsoft Outlook, HCL Notes and Windows. It integrates seamlessly with the user’s email program or operating system, making it particularly intuitive and easy to use. Handling passwords is more convenient than with Chiasmus, as the user does not need to obtain or create a key file for this purpose. Smartcards or tokens can be used for asymmetric encryption.
Since a few days the new GreenShield version 1.2.3 is VS-NfD approved (BSI-VSA-10600). With this version, among others, the smartcards Atos CardOS DI 5.4 QES, G&D SmartCafé Expert 7 with ePassletSuite 3.0 as well as Telesec TCOS 4.0 can now be used in approved operation. As cryptovision always attaches great importance to usability, the developers have also further improved the user guidance of GreenShield and made it even more intuitive. For example, the user now receives practical support if GreenShield is unable to assign a suitable recipient key – even though this rarely occurs. Chiasmus detachment is made even more convenient by these innovations.
Are you interested in replacing Chiasmus with GreenShield? Then contact us. Government agencies can also order GreenShield directly through the Kaufhaus des Bundes (RV# 21230).
The Corona break was long, but since autumn 2021 trade fairs and congresses have been held again in the computer industry. Also cryptovision is happy about this piece of regained normality. Last week cryptovision employee Klaus Schmeh took the opportunity and made his way to Berlin for a lecture. At the Signaturtag, organized by TeleTrusT and VOI, he gave a presentation on the topic “The three most important post-quantum signature procedures explained clearly”.
Schmeh’s goal of making the subject of post-quantum cryptography understandable to laypersons is no easy task, because the various procedures are mathematically extremely demanding. In the meantime, it has become clear which of the many dozens of post-quantum methods will prevail in practice. Among the favorites are also five signature methods that have already been standardized or have reached the final round in the post-quantum competition of the U.S. authority NIST. Schmeh presented three of these algorithms in his talk.
For his presentation, the long-time cryptovision employee used, as usual, his original slides in cartoon design and vivid analogies from everyday life. Even listeners without a mathematics or computer science degree got an idea of how CRYSTALS-DILITHIUM, Rainbow or extended Merkle signatures work.
After the successful start, the trade fair and congress autumn continues for cryptovision. From October 12 to 14, it-sa in Nuremberg is on the agenda.
The IT system house of the German Armed Forces, BWI, has concluded a contract with cv cryptovision GmbH for the use of the GreenShield e-mail security software. Based on a corporate license, more than 160,000 communication subscribers will be successively equipped with the security software for e-mail encryption and digital signature. Cryptovision has been supplying the Bundeswehr with email security software for the electronic processing of classified information up to the classification level “VS-Nur den Dienstgebrauch” (VS-NfD) since 2004.
GreenShield protects e-mails and files on the basis of end-to-end encryption and enables the recipient to verify the integrity of the content and the sender by means of digital signatures. A decisive unique selling point is the interoperability of the cryptovision solution: GreenShield is the only email encryption solution for IBM / HCL Notes on the German market that has been approved by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). The solution’s multi-client capability is also unique: it supports both Outlook and Notes on the same device. Thus, GreenShield enables a smooth migration from Notes to Outlook.
The encryption of files and e-mails is done with just a few clicks and intuitively for the user in the familiar environment of his e-mail program. The GreenShield plug-in integrates seamlessly into the email program as an additional layer of security and offers both users and administrators many additional convenience features.
In NATO jargon, information security is referred to as “Information Assurance” (IA), and it is not surprising that the military alliance places great emphasis on this topic. Members of the organization are only allowed to use IA solutions that are specifically approved for NATO. Which products have cleared the high approval hurdles can be found in the “NATO Information Assurance Product Catalogue” (NIAPC), which is available online. Since last week, NATO has also listed GreenShield from cryptovision there.
GreenShield is one of the few encryption solutions approved in Germany for information classified “Verschlusssache – Nur für den Dienstgebrauch” (VS-NfD). This applies to both email encryption with GreenShield Mail and file encryption with GreenShield File. Both versions also have the “NATO RESTRICTED” (NR) approval.
By receiving NR approval, GreenShield also qualified for the NATO product catalog. GreenShield Mail and GreenShield File are listed with two separate entries, including screenshots and brochures.
cryptovision is well known in the exclusive NATO catalog. The predecessor product s/mail has been there for years, it also has the necessary NR approval.
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