Product News: PKWARE Helps Customers Conform to NIST Data Security Updates

PKWARE invests considerable time monitoring regulatory changes and anticipating how they may affect our PKZIP® and SecureZIP® customers.

Recently, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a change to one of their standards that organizations using FIPS Mode for encryption processing will want to accommodate. If FIPS Mode processing is important for your data protection or compliance policies, you will need to update your PKZIP or SecureZIP software prior to the end of 2010.

The NIST is responsible for developing the standards and guidance for the cryptography used by Federal Government Agencies. This includes defining appropriate algorithms and cryptographic strengths suitable for meeting Federal Government security needs.

The NIST set a plan to phase out some existing algorithms over time, replacing them with progressively stronger algorithms. Some of these phase outs will commence at the end of 2010, and will affect FIPS 140-2 validation requirements.

To learn if your PKWARE product is affected by this upcoming change, read this PKZIP/SecureZIP Product Update or feel free to call us at 888.4.PKWARE or 414.289.9788. We’re happy to help!