Network Security Services

Network Security Services
Developer(s) Mozilla, AOL, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Oracle Corporation, Google and others
Stable release

3.27.1 (October 3, 2016 (2016-10-03)[1]) [±]
3.22.3 (March 14, 2016 (2016-03-14)[2]) [±]
3.21.1 (March 8, 2016 (2016-03-08)[3]) [±]

3.19.2.4 (March 21, 2016 (2016-03-21)[4]) [±]
Repository hg.mozilla.org/projects/nss
Written in C, assembly
Operating system Cross-platform
Platform Cross-platform
Type libraries
License MPL 2.0
Website developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/NSS

In computing, Network Security Services (NSS) comprises a set of libraries designed to support cross-platform development of security-enabled client and server applications with optional support for hardware TLS/SSL acceleration on the server side and hardware smart cards on the client side. NSS provides a complete open-source implementation of cryptographic libraries supporting Transport Layer Security (TLS) / Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and S/MIME. Previously tri-licensed under the Mozilla Public License 1.1, the GNU General Public License, and the GNU Lesser General Public License, NSS upgraded to GPL-compatible MPL 2.0 with release 3.14.[5]

History

NSS originated from the libraries developed when Netscape invented the SSL security protocol.

FIPS 140 validation and NISCC testing

The NSS software crypto module has been validated five times (1997, 1999, 2002, 2007, and 2010) for conformance to FIPS 140 at Security Levels 1 and 2.[6] NSS was the first open source cryptographic library to receive FIPS 140 validation.[6] The NSS libraries passed the NISCC TLS/SSL and S/MIME test suites (1.6 million test cases of invalid input data).[6]

Applications that use NSS

AOL, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems/Oracle Corporation, Google and other companies and individual contributors have co-developed NSS. Mozilla provides the source code repository, bug tracking system, and infrastructure for mailing lists and discussion groups. They and others named below use NSS in a variety of products, including the following:

Architecture

NSS includes a framework to which developers and OEMs can contribute patches, such as assembly code, to optimize performance on their platforms. Mozilla has certified NSS 3.x on 18 platforms.[9][10] NSS makes use of Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR), a platform-neutral open-source API for system functions designed to facilitate cross-platform development. Like NSS, NSPR has been used heavily in multiple products.

Software development kit

In addition to libraries and APIs, NSS provides security tools required for debugging, diagnostics, certificate and key management, cryptography-module management, and other development tasks. NSS comes with an extensive and growing set of documentation, including introductory material, API references, man pages for command-line tools, and sample code.

Programmers can utilize NSS as source and as shared (dynamic) libraries. Every NSS release is backward-compatible with previous releases, allowing NSS users to upgrade to new NSS shared libraries without recompiling or relinking their applications.

Interoperability and open standards

NSS supports a range of security standards, including the following:[11][1]

Hardware support

NSS supports the PKCS #11 interface for access to cryptographic hardware like SSL accelerators, HSM-s and smart cards. Since most hardware vendors such as SafeNet Inc. and Thales also support this interface, NSS-enabled applications can work with high-speed crypto hardware and use private keys residing on various smart cards, if vendors provide the necessary middleware. NSS version 3.13 and above support the Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (AES-NI).[12]

Java support

Network Security Services for Java (JSS) consists of a Java interface to NSS. It supports most of the security standards and encryption technologies supported by NSS. JSS also provides a pure Java interface for ASN.1 types and BER/DER encoding. The Mozilla CVS tree makes source code for a Java interface to NSS available.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "NSS 3.27.1 release notes". Mozilla. 2016-10-03. Retrieved 2016-11-05.
  2. ↑ "NSS 3.22.3 release notes". Mozilla. 2016-03-14. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  3. ↑ "NSS 3.21.1 release notes". Mozilla. 2016-03-08. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
  4. ↑ "NSS 3.19.2.4 release notes". Mozilla. 2016-03-21. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  5. ↑ "NSS 3.14 release notes". MDN. Mozilla Developer Network. Retrieved 2015-09-01. The NSS license has changed to MPL 2.0. Previous releases were released under a MPL 1.1/GPL 2.0/LGPL 2.1 tri-license.
  6. 1 2 3 "FIPS". Mozilla. 2012-02-01. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  7. ↑ "Does Fennec use NSS?". mozilla.dev.security.policy newsgroup. April 2010. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  8. ↑ "The Chromium Project: BoringSSL". Retrieved 2016-11-08.
  9. ↑ "Network Security Services". Mozilla. 2013-05-16. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  10. ↑ "NSS FAQ". Mozilla. 2013-05-16. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  11. ↑ "Encryption Technologies Available in NSS 3.11". Mozilla. 2012-02-01. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
  12. ↑ "AES-NI enhancements to NSS on Sandy Bridge systems". 2012-05-02. Retrieved 2013-05-17.
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