ECTM-1 Transmission Integrity Controls

Overview

Good engineering practices with regards to the integrity mechanisms of COTS, GOTS and custom developed solutions are implemented for incoming and outgoing files, such as parity checks and cyclic redundancy checks (CRCs).

MAC / CONF	Impact	Subject Area
MACIII	Medium	Enclave Computing Environment

Details

Threat
Integrity of transmitted information is at risk if good engineering practices are not implemented.  Error detection methods like parity checks, checksums, and CRCs mitigate the integrity risk of incoming and outgoing files during transmission.

Guidance

1. COTS, GOTS, and custom developed solutions shall implement some form of error detection to enhance data integrity during transmission. 2. Schematics, diagrams, or some other form of documentation shall show system data flows, the communication mediums, and the associated protection mechanisms. 3. Integrity checkers such as Tripwire can be utilized to detect suspicious activity by searching a program or file to determine if it has been altered or changed. Integrity checkers are usually checksum based with cryptographic checksums providing the highest level of security.

References

• NIST SP 800-23, Guideline to Federal Organizations on Security Assurance and Acquisition/Use of Tested/Evaluated Products, August 2000
• NIST SP 800-27, Engineering Principles for Information Technology Security (A Baseline for Achieving Security), Revision A, June 2004
• NIST SP 800-36 Guide to Selecting Information Security Products, October 2003

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