News & Updates

Initial public comments are requested on FIPS 202, SHA-3 Standard, and SP 800-185, SHA-3 Derived Functions. The public comment period is open through October 27, 2023.

NIST has published NIST Internal Report 8454, Status Report on the Final Round of the NIST Lightweight Cryptography Standardization Process. The announcement of NIST's decision to standardize the ASCON family was announced on February 7, 2023.

After considering multiple rounds of public comments, NIST has decided to revise Federal Information Process Standard (FIPS), "Secure Hash Standard (SHS)."

NIST has decided to withdraw Special Publication 800-107 Revision 1 after moving some of its requirements to a new CMVP Implementation Guidance (IG).

NIST is introducing a plan to transition away from the current limited use of the Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA-1) hash function. Other approved hash functions are already available. The transition will be completed by December 31, 2030.

NIST SP 800-106, "Randomized Hashing for Digital Signatures" is being withdrawn.

NIST is proposing to revise FIPS 180-4. Please submit public comments by January 31, 2023.

NIST's Crypto Publication Review Board proposes to convert FIPS 198-1, the HMAC standard, to a NIST Special Publication. The public comment period closes October 20, 2022.

NIST is currently reviewing FIPS 180-4, "Secure Hash Standard (SHS)," (2015) and is requesting public feedback on all aspects of the publication by September 9, 2022.

NIST is currently reviewing Special Publication (SP) 800-106, "Randomized Hashing for Digitial Signatures," (2009) and is requesting public feedback on all aspects of the publication by March 16, 2022.

NISTIR 8369 describes the evaluation process and selection process used during the second round of the NIST Lightweight Cryptography Standardization Process. Ten finalists were announced in March 2021.

NIST has published Special Publication (SP) 800-208, "Recommendation for Stateful Hash-Based Signature Schemes."

NIST currently intends to approve both LMS and XMSS stateful hash-based signature schemes, and is seeking public comments on that proposed action by April 1, 2019.

NIST has published "Blockchain Technology Overview," NIST Internal Report (NISTIR) 8202. This is a high-level technical publication that examines the history, scope, and characteristics of this emerging technology which has enabled the development of numerous cryptocurrency systems.

NIST's Computer Security Division is seeking input on the development of standards for stateful hash-based signatures, including XMSS (see IETF RFC 8391).

"A Data Structure for Integrity Protection with Erasure Capability" is a draft white paper available for public comment until August 3, 2018. It describes a "block matrix" data structure .

In 2005 Prof. Xiaoyun Wang announced a differential attack on the SHA-1 hash function. NIST found that the attack was practical, and announced plans for transitioning to SHA-2 algorithms and development of SHA-3.

Researchers have recently announced they have discovered a new way to break a number of cryptographic hash algorithms. Click here to read NIST's brief comments on recent cryptanalytic attacks on secure hashing functions and the continued security provided by SHA-1.