Reference Guide

54 Acronyms and Definitions
RSA BSAFE Crypto-C Micro Edition 4.1.4 Security Policy Level 1
with Level 2 Roles, Services, and Authentication
CTR DRBG Counter mode Deterministic Random Bit Generator.
CTS Cipher text stealing mode of encryption, which enables block ciphers to be
used to process data not evenly divisible into blocks, without the length of
the ciphertext increasing.
DES Data Encryption Standard. A symmetric encryption algorithm with a 56-bit
key with eight parity bits. See also Triple-DES.
DESX A variant of the DES symmetric key algorithm intended to increase the
complexity of a brute force attack.
Diffie-Hellman The Diffie-Hellman (DH) asymmetric key exchange algorithm. There are
many variants, but typically two entities exchange some public information
(for example, public keys or random values) and combines them with their
own private keys to generate a shared session key. As private keys are not
transmitted, eavesdroppers are not privy to all of the information
comprising the session key.
DSA Digital Signature Algorithm. An asymmetric algorithm for creating digital
signatures.
DRBG 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 (ECC): the public-key cryptographic methods
using operations in an elliptic curve group. ECC keys are used in several
algorithms including ECDSA, ECDH and ECDHC. An individual ECC
key must not be used for multiple purpose, for example, signing and key
agreement.
ECDH Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman key agreement algorithm. This algorithm
uses a key-agreement primitive that does not employ the elliptic curve’s
cofactor.
ECDHC Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman with Cofactor key agreement algorithm.
This algorithm employs the CDH primitive.
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.
Table 14 Acronyms and Definitions (continued)
Term Definition