Context: India has been nominated as the Chair of the Common Criteria Development Board (CCDB) for a two-year term from April 2026 to April 2028.
About The Common Criteria Development Board (CCDB):
What it is?
- The CCDB is the technical heart of the Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA). While other committees handle high-level policy, the CCDB is responsible for the technical management and evolution of the standards used to evaluate the security of Information Technology (IT) products worldwide.
Parent Body: Operates under the Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA), an international treaty for mutual recognition of IT security certificates.
Indian Nodal Agency: India participates through the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the STQC (Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification) Directorate.
Current Status: India has been a Certificate Authorizing Nation since 2013 and now serves as the Chair (2026–2028).
Aim:
- The primary aim of the CCDB is to develop and maintain the Common Criteria (CC) and the Common Methodology for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CEM).
- It ensures that the technical standards for IT security remain robust, consistent, and capable of addressing emerging cyber threats
Key Functions:
- Technical Management: Manages the international work program for the development of Common Criteria (ISO/IEC 15408) and CEM standards.
- Standardization: Focuses on defining the technical evaluation criteria that determine the security level of global IT products (firewalls, operating systems, smart cards, etc.).
- Portal Management: Maintains the integrity of the Common Criteria Portal, the single source of truth and authoritative global repository for all certified secure IT products.
- Mutual Recognition: Ensures the framework for mutual recognition remains functional, allowing a certificate issued in one member country (like India) to be valid across all 38 member nations without re-testing.
- Technical Working Groups: Coordinates specific technical working groups to address security requirements for new and emerging technologies.
Significance:
- Assuming the Chairmanship positions India at the forefront of defining how the world evaluates and trusts IT security products.
- The two-year term allows India to influence critical decisions and ensure that global standards adequately address technologies relevant to the Indian ecosystem.
