For more than a year cryptovision has been a part of the Atos family. For all those who want to know how the company has developed during this time, a special issue of the ID Security magazine “The Vault” has now been published. All articles in this magazine were written by Atos employees with cryptovision past. The special issue is available for download free of charge.
An interview with Benjamin Drisch, Senior Vice President Government ID, is not called “From hidden champion to global player” for nothing. In fact, cryptovision has developed from a small specialist into a leading international provider in the Government ID segment under the Atos umbrella. The previous Government-ID service portfolio has been expanded to include PKI solutions, a smart card operating system and hardware security modules (HSMs), while the opportunities for project implementation have increased significantly thanks to numerous new colleagues. And, of course, the globally active Atos sales force ensures that cryptovision now has much better access to its customers.
However, the cryptovision special edition of “The Vault” not only reports on cryptovision itself, but also on some exciting developments in the field of digital identities. Among other things, it is about Non-Fungible Tokens, how they are stolen and how this can be prevented – True Crime once again. Fido tokens and smartcard middleware also come up. Also worth reading is an interview with Holger Roessner, CEO of cryptovision partner Advanide.
Finally, there is something to smile about. Adam Ross, an expert in beer and digital identities, reports on an interesting point of contact between his two areas of expertise. Cryptovision says “Cheers” and hopes you enjoy reading!
Do you know CRYSTALS-Kyber? If not, you will certainly get to know this post-quantum encryption method soon, because it was declared one of four winners from an original 69 candidates by the US standardization authority NIST. The other three winners in this multi-year competition are the CRYSTALS-Dilithium, FALCON and SPHINCS+ post-quantum signature methods.
The background is that the asymmetric crypto methods used so far, including RSA and Diffie-Hellman, can be broken with quantum computers. Although usable quantum computers have so far only existed in science fiction, NIST wanted to respond to the looming threat at an early stage and therefore organized a competition in which methods considered to be quantum-safe were to be evaluated and some standardized at the end.
Experience shows that other standardization bodies around the world are adopting NIST’s crypto standards. The announcement of the first four winners – with a few more to follow – is therefore tantamount to a go-ahead, because after years of uncertainty, it is now foreseeable which post-quantum methods will prevail in practice. Crypto vendors around the world will now have to implement these methods, universities will have to change their curricula.
It won’t be easy for crypto enthusiasts, however, because there is higher mathematics behind post-quantum cryptography. While SPHINX+ is based on the comparatively easy-to-understand principle of one-way functions, CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium and FALCON are mathematically much more sophisticated. All three belong to the so-called lattice methods and therefore require arithmetic operations in multi-hundred-dimensional lattices – not exactly what the average person learned in school.
Of course, the new post-quantum methods are now also on the roadmap at cryptovision and its parent company Atos. Cryptovision will also continue to dedicate itself to the task of explaining post-quantum cryptography clearly, be it through the popular cryptovision post-quantum whitepaper or comic-style conference presentations. The age of post-quantum cryptography can come, cryptovision and Atos are prepared.
Already for the tenth time cryptovision invited to Mindshare. After two years of Corona break, the two-day congress fair was awaited with particular excitement, and those who came to Gelsenkirchen were once again not disappointed.
In four tracks there were top-class presentations to follow, plus keynotes, live hacking, tutorials and panel discussions. In addition to the latest developments on eID, Internet of Things and email encryption, post-quantum cryptography and user-friendly security solutions were also discussed. Of course, cryptovision also provided information about its strategy following the acquisition by Atos, which offers fascinating new opportunities for customers of both companies.
For the first time, cryptovision also presented a Crypto Cave, where a real Enigma as well as other encryption machines could be marveled at. The Crypto Museum in Eindhoven provided these rare exhibits.
And of course the Mindshare wouldn’t be the Mindshare without the great Cryptonite party on the evening of the first conference day. Besides buffet, bar, live music and photo ball, fireworks were not to be missed.In this pleasant atmosphere there was ample opportunity for exchange of ideas and networking, which 450 participants did not miss.
For all those who missed the Mindshare and for all visitors who want to review the two days, cryptovision has published a video. In a good minute it faithfully reproduces the great Mindshare atmosphere:
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.
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