Editing Common Criteria (section)

==Issues==

===Requirements===

Common Criteria is very generic; it does not directly provide a list of product security requirements or features for specific (classes of) products: this follows the approach taken by [[ITSEC]], but has been a source of debate to those used to the more prescriptive approach of other earlier standards such as [[TCSEC]] and [[FIPS 140]]-2.

===Value of certification===
Common Criteria certification cannot guarantee security, but it can ensure that claims about the security attributes of the evaluated product were independently verified. In other words, products evaluated against a Common Criteria standard exhibit a clear chain of evidence that the process of specification, implementation, and evaluation has been conducted in a rigorous and standard manner.

Various [[Microsoft]] Windows versions, including [[Windows Server 2003]] and [[Windows XP]], have been certified,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2005-12-14 |title=Versions of Windows obtain Common Criteria EAL level 4+ |url=http://www.nist.org/news.php?extend.37 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061014120129/http://www.nist.org/news.php?extend.37 |archive-date=2006-10-14 |website=Network Information Security & Technology News}}</ref> but security patches to address security vulnerabilities are still getting published by Microsoft for these Windows systems. This is possible because the process of obtaining a Common Criteria certification allows a vendor to restrict the analysis to certain security features and to make certain assumptions about the operating environment and the strength of threats faced by the product in that environment. Additionally, the CC recognizes a need to limit the scope of evaluation in order to provide cost-effective and useful security certifications, such that evaluated products are examined to a level of detail specified by the assurance level or PP.  Evaluations activities are therefore only performed to a certain depth, use of time, and resources and offer reasonable assurance for the intended environment.

In the Microsoft case, the assumptions include A.PEER: 
<blockquote>
"Any other systems with which the TOE communicates are assumed to be under the same management control and operate under the same security policy constraints. The TOE is applicable to networked or distributed environments only if the entire network operates under the same constraints and resides within a single management domain. There are no security requirements that address the need to trust external systems or the communications links to such systems."
</blockquote>

This assumption is contained in the [[Controlled Access Protection Profile]] (CAPP) to which their products adhere. Based on this and other assumptions, which may not be realistic for the common use of general-purpose operating systems, the claimed security functions of the Windows products are evaluated. Thus they should only be considered secure in the assumed, specified circumstances, also known as the ''evaluated configuration''.

Whether you run Microsoft Windows in the precise evaluated configuration or not, you should apply Microsoft's security patches for the vulnerabilities in Windows as they continue to appear. If any of these security vulnerabilities are exploitable in the product's evaluated configuration, the product's Common Criteria certification should be voluntarily withdrawn by the vendor. Alternatively, the vendor should re-evaluate the product to include the application of patches to fix the security vulnerabilities within the evaluated configuration. Failure by the vendor to take either of these steps would result in involuntary withdrawal of the product's certification by the certification body of the country in which the product was evaluated.

The certified Microsoft Windows versions remain at [[Evaluation Assurance Level|EAL4+]] without including the application of any Microsoft security vulnerability patches in their evaluated configuration. This shows both the limitation and strength of an evaluated configuration.

===Criticisms===
In August 2007, [[Government Computing News|''Government Computing News'' (GCN)]] columnist William Jackson critically examined Common Criteria methodology and its US implementation by the Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS).<ref>[http://gcn.com/articles/2007/08/10/under-attack.aspx Under Attack: Common Criteria has loads of critics, but is it getting a bum rap] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423134739/http://gcn.com/articles/2007/08/10/under-attack.aspx |date=2021-04-23}} Government Computer News, retrieved 2007-12-14</ref> In the column executives from the security industry, researchers, and representatives from the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) were interviewed. Objections outlined in the article include:

* Evaluation is a costly process (often measured in hundreds of thousands of US dollars) – and the vendor's return on that investment is not necessarily a more secure product.
* Evaluation focuses primarily on assessing the evaluation documentation, not on the actual security, technical correctness or merits of the product itself. For U.S. evaluations, only at EAL5 and higher do experts from the National Security Agency participate in the analysis; and only at EAL7 is full source code analysis required.
* The effort and time necessary to prepare evaluation evidence and other evaluation-related documentation is so cumbersome that by the time the work is completed, the product in evaluation is generally obsolete.
* Industry input, including that from organizations such as the [[Common Criteria Vendor's Forum]], generally has little impact on the process as a whole.

In a 2006 research paper, computer specialist David A. Wheeler suggested that the Common Criteria process discriminates against [[free and open-source software]] (FOSS)-centric organizations and development models.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://dwheeler.com/essays/oss_software_assurance.pdf |title=Free-Libre / Open Source Software (FLOSS) and Software Assurance / Software Security |first=David |last=Wheeler |date=2006-12-11 |access-date=2023-12-30}}</ref> Common Criteria assurance requirements tend to be inspired by the traditional [[Waterfall model|waterfall]] software development methodology. In contrast, much FOSS software is produced using modern [[Agile software development|agile]] paradigms. Although some have argued that both paradigms do not align well,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wäyrynen |first1=J. |last2=Bodén |first2=M. |last3=Boström |first3=G. |title=Extreme Programming and Agile Methods - XP/Agile Universe 2004 |chapter=Security Engineering and eXtreme Programming: An Impossible Marriage? |series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science |date=2004 |volume=3134 |pages=117–128 |doi=10.1007/978-3-540-27777-4_12|isbn=978-3-540-22839-4 }}</ref> others have attempted to reconcile both paradigms.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Beznosov |first1=Konstantin |last2=Kruchten |first2=Philippe |url=http://lersse-dl.ece.ubc.ca/record/87 |title=Towards Agile Security Assurance |date=2005-10-16 |access-date=2023-12-30}}</ref> Political scientist [[Jan Kallberg]] raised concerns over the lack of control over the actual production of the products once they are certified, the absence of a permanently staffed organizational body that monitors compliance, and the idea that the trust in the Common Criteria IT-security certifications will be maintained across geopolitical boundaries.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://personal.utdallas.edu/~bxt043000/Publications/Technical-Reports/UTDCS-13-12.pdf |title=Common Criteria meets Realpolitik - Trust, Alliances, and Potential Betrayal |access-date=2023-12-30 |last=Kallberg |first=Jan |date=2012-08-01}}</ref>

In 2017, the [[ROCA vulnerability]] was found in a list of Common Criteria certified smart card products. The vulnerability highlighted several shortcomings of Common Criteria certification scheme:<ref name=parsovs_phd>{{cite thesis |type=PhD |first=Arnis |last=Parsovs |date=2021-03-03 |title=Estonian Electronic Identity Card and its Security Challenges |publisher=University of Tartu |url=https://dspace.ut.ee/items/559b9004-2aca-414d-8788-f0b8cedffb2d |language=et |pages=141–143 |access-date=2023-12-30}}</ref>
* The vulnerability resided in a homegrown RSA key generation algorithm that has not been published and analyzed by the cryptanalysis community. However, the [[Common Criteria Testing Laboratory|testing laboratory]] TÜV Informationstechnik GmbH (TÜViT) in Germany approved its use and the certification body [[Federal Office for Information Security|BSI]] in Germany issued Common Criteria certificates for the vulnerable products. The Security Target of the evaluated product claimed that RSA keys are generated according to the standard algorithm. In response to this vulnerability, [[Federal Office for Information Security|BSI]] now plans to improve transparency by requiring that the certification report at least specifies if the implemented proprietary cryptography is not exactly conformant to a recommended standard. [[Federal Office for Information Security|BSI]] does not plan on requiring the proprietary algorithm to be published in any way.
* Even though the certification bodies are now aware that the security claims specified in the Common Criteria certificates do not hold anymore, neither [[Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information|ANSSI]] nor [[Federal Office for Information Security|BSI]] have revoked the corresponding certificates. According to [[Federal Office for Information Security|BSI]], a certificate can only be withdrawn when it was issued under misconception, e.g., when it turns out that wrong evidence was submitted. After a certificate is issued, it must be presumed that the validity of the certificate decreases over time by improved and new attacks being discovered. Certification bodies can issue maintenance reports and even perform a re-certification of the product. These activities, however, have to be initiated and sponsored by the vendor.
* While several Common Criteria certified products have been affected by the ROCA flaw, vendors' responses in the context of certification have been different. For some products a maintenance report was issued, which states that only RSA keys with a length of 3072 and 3584 bits have a security level of at least 100 bits, while for some products the maintenance report does not mention that the change to the TOE affects certified cryptographic security functionality, but concludes that the change is at the level of guidance documentation and has no effect on assurance.
* According to [[Federal Office for Information Security|BSI]], the users of the certified end products should have been informed of the [[ROCA vulnerability]] by the vendors. This information, however, did not reach in a timely manner the Estonian authorities who had deployed the vulnerable product on more than 750,000 [[Estonian identity card]]s.