In August 2021, NIST's Crypto Publication Review Board initiated a review process for NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-38E, Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation: the XTS-AES Mode for Confidentiality on Storage Devices (2010).
On February 8, 2023, NIST proposed updating SP 800-38E and received two public comments in response.
NIST has decided to revise the publication.
Rationale
NIST has reconsidered its original proposal in light of the public comments. There were two general considerations for revising—rather than updating—SP 800-38E:
- NIST prefers that its cryptography standards be available free of charge for ongoing review, as recommended in the first two bullet points of Public Comment #1. NIST intends to explore the feasibility of achieving this goal for SP 800-38E, which might entail technical changes.
- NIST prefers to reference the latest versions of external standards, consistent with the first bullet point of Public Comment #2. NIST has suggested editorial improvements to IEEE Std 1619-2018 and intends to cite a future revision of it in the revision of SP 800-38E.
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More details of this review are available at NIST’s Crypto Publication Review Project site.
