NIST bolsters random number generators

by Rambus Blog, Feb. 02, 2016 – 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the second draft of a publication that details design principles for entropy sources, which measure the randomness of generated numbers.

"Security flaws in random number generators have been a significant source of vulnerabilities in cryptographic systems over many years," Paul Kocher, chief scientist at the Cryptography Research Division of Rambus told the publication. "So it is crucially important to have random number generators that work well."

According to Lyngass, the NIST draft specifies data that cryptographers can submit for entropy testing. The draft also describes the process of calculating initial entropy estimates, detailing how multiple noise sources of entropy can be factored into the calculation.

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