Should I Care About NIAP Evaluations? (Y20b)
The National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) is responsible for U.S. implementation of the Common Criteria, including management of the NIAP Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS) validation body. NIAP manages a national program for developing Protection Profiles, evaluation methodologies, and policies that will ensure achievable, repeatable, and testable requirements. In partnership with NIST, NIAP also approves Common Criteria Testing Laboratories to conduct these security evaluations in private sector operations across the U.S. NIAP takes a collaborative approach to technology-specific protection profile development by supporting the creation of international technical communities of representatives from industry, government, end users, and academia. This results in consistent evaluation methodologies across U.S. testing labs and among labs associated with international Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement schemes.
NIAP also works with NATO and international standards bodies (ISO) to share Common Criteria evaluation experiences and avoid duplication of effort. In the U.S., NIAP engages with other National Security Systems (NSS) users to ensure Protection Profiles, along with their associated DoD Annexes, provide a streamlined certification path for IA and IA enabled COTS products employed with NSS.