Federal Office for Information Security
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
government agency in charge of managing computer and communication security for the German government. Its areas of expertise and responsibility include the security of computer applications, critical infrastructure protection
Critical Infrastructure Protection
Critical infrastructure protection is a concept that relates to the preparedness and response to serious incidents that involve the critical infrastructure of a region or nation....
, Internet security
Internet security
Internet security is a branch of computer security specifically related to the Internet. Its objective is to establish rules and measures to use against attacks over the Internet. The Internet represents an insecure channel for exchanging information leading to a high risk of intrusion or fraud,...
, cryptography
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
, counter eavesdropping, certification
Certification
Certification refers to the confirmation of certain characteristics of an object, person, or organization. This confirmation is often, but not always, provided by some form of external review, education, assessment, or audit...
of security products and the accreditation of security test laboratories. It is located in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
and has over 400 employees. Its current president, since 16 October 2009, is mathematician Michael Hange, who took over the presidency from Dr. Udo Helmbrecht.
BSI's predecessor was the cryptographic department of Germany's foreign intelligence agency (BND
Bundesnachrichtendienst
The Bundesnachrichtendienst [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst] is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...
). BSI still designs cryptographic algorithms such as the Libelle
Libelle (cipher)
Libelle is a German cipher system, developed by the Federal Office for Information Security. The algorithm is not publicised, in an attempt to make cryptanalysis more difficult...
cipher.
Similar Agencies
The BSI has a similar role as the- NIST (United States)
- CCTA (United Kingdom)
Contrary to those organizations, the BSI does not provide general IT-standards, but is focused on IT-security. BSI is separate from Germany's signals intelligence, which is part of the military and the foreign intelligence service (BND
Bundesnachrichtendienst
The Bundesnachrichtendienst [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst] is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...
). However, it is unknown whether there is still some form of informal cooperation between the BSI and the BND.
History
According to various news reports, German signals intelligence conspired with the United States' NSA to weaken Swiss cryptographic equipment made by Crypto AGCrypto AG
Crypto AG is a Swiss company specialising in communications and information security. With headquarters in steinhausen, the company is a long-established manufacturer of encryption machines and a wide variety of cipher devices...
. This allegedly allowed western intelligence to read the secret communications of countries like Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
.