Tag Archive for: Product expertise

IT Security Act 2.0 approved by the Bundesrat (Upper House)

SRC GmbH: Pioneer in BSZ certi­fi­cation with expansion of the team of experts

In the following article you will learn more about how the SRC GmbH has been acting as a recog­nized test center for the BSZ since September 2021 and what important devel­op­ments and expertise it offers in this area.

Accel­erated Security Certi­fi­cation (BSZ): An Introduction

The BSZ is a procedure offered by the BSI in Germany to prove the security of IT products. It was intro­duced to give manufac­turers a faster way to demon­strate the security of their products with a BSI certificate. This assessment aims to ensure that the product meets the security require­ments of the BSI and offers end users an appro­priate level of protection. Compared to the conven­tional certi­fi­cation according to Common Criteria (CC), the BSZ offers the advantage of faster certi­fi­cation, easier to plan evalu­ation times, and a signif­i­cantly reduced documen­tation effort for the manufac­turer. SRC is a testing center for accel­erated security certi­fi­cation (BSZ) recog­nized by the Federal Office for Infor­mation Security (BSI) and was one of the first recog­nized certi­fi­cation bodies at all.

The road to security: BSZ versus CC

The procedure only allows a single run, i.e. the product to be evaluated may not be changed during the evalu­ation. This greatly speeds up the process overall, but there is always a risk that products will fail the first attempt and therefore not receive a certificate. In this case, however, a new certi­fi­cation procedure can be requested from the BSI at any time.

Under the direction of Peter Jung: The first steps of the SRC with BSZ

Under the project management of Peter Jung, who has been respon­sible for the BSZ at SRC from the start, SCR has since evaluated the Lancom 1900EF VPN router, which was also the first BSZ product ever, and then the secunet high-speed connector. As soon as this is evaluated, we will report on it in another article.

New expertise at SRC: Tim Hirschberg and Dr. Matthieu Felsinger

We are happy to announce that since May 2023 the SRC has been formed with Tim Hirschberg (BSZ evaluator) and Dr. Matthias Heuft (BSZ evaluator) and Dirk Feldhusen (BSZ evaluator for cryptog­raphy) — strengthen.

The BSZ certi­fi­cation in detail: concen­tration on promises of security

The BSZ certi­fi­cation focuses on verifying the safety perfor­mance promised by the manufac­turer. The actual certi­fi­cation is carried out after the product has been evaluated by a test center recog­nized by the BSI, such as the SRC. The resulting test report serves the BSI as a basis for awarding the certificate.

The path to the certificate: the verifi­cation process at SRC

The evalu­ation takes place within a fixed timeframe (about 2–3 months) that depends on the complexity of the product. The evalu­ation services include checking the promised security function­ality (conformity tests) and the instal­lation instruc­tions as well as penetration tests, in which the effec­tiveness of the technical security measures of the product is checked under realistic attack scenarios.

Cryptocur­rency ECB Digital EuroA Holistic Review: Cryptog­raphy and Beyond

The assessment of the imple­mented crypto­graphic proce­dures is also part of the compre­hensive testing process that an IT product has to go through in order to receive the BSZ certification.

A look into the future of safety certification

At SRC GmbH, we are proud of our role as a recog­nized testing body for accel­erated security certi­fi­cation (BSZ) and of contin­u­ously promoting security standards in the IT industry. With our experi­enced team and commitment to innovation, we will continue to help ensure the security of IT products.

If you would like to learn more about our BSZ certi­fi­cation services or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Together we can meet the safety require­ments of your products and pave the way for certi­fi­cation. We look forward to working with you and shaping the future of safety certification.

Tag Archive for: Product expertise