FIPS 140
U.S. government cryptographic standard
The 140 series of Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) are U.S. government computer security standards that specify requirements for cryptographic modules.
As of October 2020, FIPS 140-2 and FIPS 140-3 are both accepted as current and active. FIPS 140-3 was approved on March 22, 2019 as the successor to FIPS 140-2 and became effective on September 22, 2019. FIPS 140-3 testing began on September 22, 2020, and a small number of validation certificates have been issued. FIPS 140-2 testing is still available until September 21, 2021 (later changed for applications already in progress to April 1, 2022), creating an overlapping transition period of one year. FIPS 140-2 test reports that remain in the CMVP queue will still be granted validations after that date, but all FIPS 140-2 validations will be moved to the Historical List on September 21, 2026 regardless of their actual final validation date.
Purpose of FIPS 140
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issues the 140 Publication Series to coordinate the requirements and standards for cryptographic modules which include both hardware and software components for use by departments and agencies of the United States federal government. FIPS 140 does not purport to provide sufficient conditions to guarantee that a module conforming to its requirements is secure, still less that a system built using such modules is secure. The requirements cover not only the cryptographic modules themselves but also their documentation and (at the highest security level) some aspects of the comments contained in the source code.
User agencies desiring to implement cryptographic modules should confirm that the module they are using is covered by an existing validation certificate.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “FIPS 140” is u.S. government cryptographic standard. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through FIPS, government and cryptographic, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “u.S. government cryptographic standard” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5425847. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2019, 2021 and 2022.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “FIPS 140”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow FIPS 140 primary sources, FIPS 140 archive and FIPS research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “FIPS 140”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “FIPS 140” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.