Reference Guide

34 Acronyms and Definitions
RSA BSAFE Crypto-C Micro Edition 4.1 Security Policy
Level 1
DSA Digital Signature Algorithm. An asymmetric algorithm for creating digital signatures.
DRBG Deterministic Random Bit Generator.
Dual EC DRBG Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator.
EC Elliptic Curve.
ECAES Elliptic Curve Asymmetric Encryption Scheme.
ECB Electronic Codebook. A mode of encryption, which divides a message into blocks and
encrypts each block separately.
ECC Elliptic Curve Cryptography.
ECDH Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman.
ECDSA Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm.
ECIES Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme.
Encryption The transformation of plaintext into an apparently less readable form (called ciphertext)
through a mathematical process. The ciphertext can be read by anyone who has the key and
decrypts (undoes the encryption) the ciphertext.
FIPS Federal Information Processing Standards.
FPE Format-preserving encryption. Encryption where the ciphertext output is in the same format
as the plaintext input. For example, encrypting a 16-digit credit card number produces
another 16-digit number.
GCM Galois/Counter Mode. A mode of encryption combining the Counter mode of encryption
with Galois field multiplication for authentication.
GMAC Galois Message Authentication Code. An authentication only variant of GCM.
GOST GOST symmetric key encryption algorithm developed by the USSR government. There is
also the GOST message digest algorithm.
HMAC Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication Code.
HMAC DRBG HMAC Deterministic Random Bit Generator.
IV Initialization Vector. Used as a seed value for an encryption operation.
JCMVP Japan Cryptographic Module Validation Program.
KAT Known Answer Test.
Key A string of bits used in cryptography, allowing people to encrypt and decrypt data. Can be
used to perform other mathematical operations as well. Given a cipher, a key determines the
mapping of the plaintext to the ciphertext. The types of keys include distributed key, private
key, public key, secret key, session key, shared key, subkey, symmetric key, and weak key.
Table 7 Acronyms and Definitions
Term Definition