NIST Notice

PKWARE invests substantial time and resources to ensure our products perform efficiently, protect data effectively, and meet the needs of our customers. The most recent maintenance update for SecureZIP for i5/OS included significant changes to ensure data protection conforms with the standards and best practices put forth by the US National Institutes of Standards & Technology (NIST) and their Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS). While functionality changes are minor, the maintenance release replaces the prior cryptographic library with an implementation of the OpenSSL cryptographic library, ported to the IBM i operating system. The release received comprehensive quality assurance review and testing by PKWARE, and is released without any significant known deficiencies. We provide this discussion so that you have the relevant information to make an informed decision about the degree of acceptance review and testing appropriate for your organization.

US federal agencies may need to adopt this latest release prior to the end of 2010 to remain current with NIST directives. Other organizations may determine to adopt this latest release on a schedule that meets their needs.