Blog - Lightship Security

Ottawa’s Fastest Growing Companies – #2 for 2019

Jason Lawlor May 7, 2019 Lightship News

Lightship Security has been named as Ottawa’s second Fastest Growing Company for 2019.

Every year the Ottawa Business Journal (OBJ) recognizes 10 regional companies for their substantial, sustainable, and profitable growth. Fueled by an industry first automated approach to product security certification, we have bootstrapped our way to substantial growth over a three-year period to earn the award.

Lightship’s mission to modernize the legacy approach to 3rd party product security certifications (like Common Criteria) through our automated test platform, Greenlight is proving a key differentiator and driver of sales growth. Our approach dramatically eliminates the risk of certification delays, product re-development and reduces time to market for a growing list of international clients.

Understanding the Scope of NDcPP Evaluations

Greg McLearn April 2, 2019 Common Criteria

When first exposed to the Network Device collaborative Protection Profile (NDcPP), vendors are often surprised by the extremely narrow scope. It is critical to realize that the Protection Profile (PP) refers to an abstract “network device” with required functionality that should appear in any good network citizen. It doesn’t look to any specific vendor or technology type. Rather, the PP refers to the minimalist ideal of security-relevant functionality focused almost entirely on how security administrators interface and interact with the device.

Challenges in Fuzzing RFC 1149

Greg McLearn April 1, 2019 Common Criteria, Humour

Conan Hoye and Greg McLearn contributed to this article.

At Lightship, we test a lot of NDcPP-compliant products. As part of those evaluations, we are required, as per Appendix A in the Supporting Document, to perform network fuzzing against the in-scope IP networking stacks. Recently we had a rather unique TOE which claimed conformance against RFC 1149 for one of their remote management interfaces.

Preparing for FIPS Validation Part 2 – Boundaries and Libraries

Jason Lawlor March 15, 2019 Certifications, FIPS 140-2

In part 2 of our multi-part Lightship Security video tutorial series geared toward vendors who are new to FIPS 140-2, we discuss the concept of cryptographic boundaries, cryptographic libraries and the design aspects required for FIPS 140-2 compliance. The previously published part 1 of the series can be found here.

NDcPP v2.1 endorsed by NIAP but which TDs apply?

Lachlan Turner March 12, 2019 Certifications, Common Criteria

[March 14, 2019 update] The NIAP list of TDs is now up to date with NDcPP v2.1 attribution.

NIAP announced their endorsement today of version 2.1 of the Network Device collaborative Protection Profile. We’ve previously described the changes in NDcPP v2.1. In this post, we look at which NIAP Technical Decisions (i.e. interpretations / minor edits) will still apply to this new version.

NDcPP – Are You A Good Network Citizen?

Jason Lawlor March 9, 2019 Certifications, Common Criteria

Vendors undertaking a Common Criteria project for the first time are often surprised by the scope and focus of the testing for a Network Devices collaborative Protection Profile (NDcPP) CC evaluation. Lightship’s Technical Director, Greg McLearn often refers to the testing involved in the NDcPP as “ensuring that the product is a good network citizen”. This is the NDcPP philosophy.

What’s changed since NDcPP v1.0?

Lachlan Turner February 8, 2019 Certifications, Common Criteria

[March 12, 2019 Update] NDcPPv2.1 has been formally endorsed by NIAP.

There are 41 products listed on the NIAP PCL that are compliant with the collaborative Protection Profile for Network Devices (NDcPP) v1.0. These PCL listings will all expire within the next year or so. What can these vendors expect when updating their certifications from NDcPP v1.0 to NDcPP v2.0e? In this post, we examine the changes that have occurred to the NDcPP to help answer this question.

Preparing for FIPS Validation – Common Pitfalls

Jason Lawlor January 30, 2019 FIPS 140-2

In this multi-part Lightship Security video tutorial series geared toward vendors who are new to FIPS 140-2, we discuss the “origins” of a cryptographic module and the design requirements for FIPS 140-2 compliance. The tutorial also touches on self-tests and the concept of FIPS 140-2 “modes of operation” including Approved, non-Approved, and Mixed Modes. Stay tuned for further installments.

Welcome to the NIAP TLS 1.1 Functional Package

Greg McLearn January 13, 2019 Uncategorized

Edit 20-March-2019: NIAP published a v1.1 of the Functional Package which addresses many of the item discussed in this blog. The title of the blog is updated and ambiguities previously found are corrected where they’ve been addressed.

NIAP recently released their first, and widely anticipated, modular protection profile package targeting the TLS communication protocol. This package is not meant to stand on its own and is designed to be included within new versions of NIAP protection profiles. While it is unlikely to be explicitly referenced by collaborative Protection Profiles (cPP), the requirements will almost certainly be highly similar.

Execution and Ambition – Year in Review

Jason Lawlor December 19, 2018 Lightship News

December marks the 3-year anniversary of the founding of Lightship. As such, we’ve been taking stock to consider our progress, challenges and future plans.

First the good news. In 2018, Lightship was able to successfully execute on the following:

Became the 5th and only independently owned and accredited Common Criteria lab in Canada
Completed our accreditation to become 1 of 22 FIPS 140-2 labs worldwide
Completed one of the fastest formal NDcPP v2 end to end CC evaluations ever completed in North America
Secured development funding from the Government of Canada for Greenlight test automation innovations
Added more modules and utilities as part of the Greenlight platform to improve reporting, ease of integration and usability for us and our clients
Added critical mass to our development and delivery team to support our growing client base
Earned the certification business of several new domestic and international industry leading security vendors through our modernized and automated Functional Gap Analysis offering and end to end expedited CC certification methodology