We need assurance

Abstract

Summary form only given. NSA is willing to rely on commercial security products and services to satisfy its customer's needs, but only if the commercial offerings have sufficient assurance of quality, reliability, safety, and appropriateness for use. These assurances are lacking in most of today's commercial security products. Paths to better assurance in Operating Systems, Applications, and Hardware through better development environments, requirements definition, systems engineering, quality certification, and legal constraints will be discussed.