Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 186-4 (Withdrawn), Digital Signature Standard (DSS) (original) (raw)

Date Published: July 2013

Supersedes: FIPS 186-3 (06/25/2009)

Planning Note (02/02/2023):

FIPS 186-4 has been superseded with the publication of FIPS 186-5 (February 3, 2023).

Per the Implementation Schedule clause (12) in FIPS 186-5, "To facilitate a transition to FIPS 186-5, FIPS 186-4 remains in effect for a period of one year following the publication of this standard, after which FIPS 186-4 will be withdrawn [on February 3, 2024]. During this period, agencies may elect to use cryptographic modules and practices that conform to this standard, or may elect to continue to use FIPS 186-4. The implementation schedule for cryptographic modules undergoing validation through the Cryptographic Module Validation Program will be posted on NIST’s webpage at https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/cmvpunder Notices."

Author(s)

The Standard specifies a suite of algorithms that can be used to generate a digital signature. Digital signatures are used to detect unauthorized modifications to data and to authenticate the identity of the signatory. In addition, the recipient of signed data can use a digital signature as evidence in demonstrating to a third party that the signature was, in fact, generated by the claimed signatory. This is known as non-repudiation, since the signatory cannot easily repudiate the signature at a later time. This Standard specifies three techniques for the generation and verification of digital signatures: DSA, ECDSA and RSA. This revision increases the length of the keys allowed for DSA, provides additional requirements for the use of ECDSA and RSA, and includes requirements for obtaining assurances necessary for valid digital signatures.

Keywords

cryptography; Digital Signature Algorithm; digital signatures; Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm; Federal Information Processing Standard; computer security; public key cryptography

Control Families

System and Communications Protection