National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP)

The National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) is a U.S. government initiative that looks at products in the information technology (IT) realm and ensures that they adhere to international standards. Adhering to standards is highly desirable in today’s technological world. NIAP was created as a partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to ensure that products related to technology are conforming to certain standards.

NIAP is also a Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS) validation body that is managed by the NSA. The purpose of the CCEVS is to create a national program for evaluating IT products against what is called the international common criteria for information technology security evaluation. There are also labs for IT product security testing.