The Ministry of Industry and Trade selected 165 million rubles for implementation of SIM cards with the enciphering approved by FSB

2020: The Ministry of Industry and Trade selected 165 million rubles for implementation of SIM cards with enciphering

On January 21, 2020 it became known that Institute of exact mechanics and ADP equipment of S.A. Lebedev RAHN (ITMIVT) received from Minpromtorg a subsidy in the amount of 165 million rubles which he is directed to implementation of SIM cards with with the enciphering approved by the Federal Security Service (FSS).

As the CEO Alexander Knyazev reported RBC ITMIVT, from a subsidy a part of expenses on development of hardware securities will be compensated (Hardware security module; HSM, allow to implement domestic cryptography in telecommunication equipment which is used by mobile operators).

Institute of exact mechanics and ADP equipment of S.A. Lebedev RAHN (ITMIVT) received from Minpromtorg a subsidy in the amount of 165 million rubles which he is directed to implementation of SIM cards with with the enciphering approved by the Federal Security Service (FSS)

The Ministry of Industry and Trade compensated a part of costs for research and development (Research and Development) which the institute carried out in 2019, Knyazev specified. At the same time he did not tell how much it was spent for this work and what part compensated the ministry.

Serial production of HSM did not begin yet, but we created the main production base. We test with some vendors … we will begin process of preparation according to the conclusion of the first delivery agreements of modules soon — Knyazev told.

According to him, on "Big Four" and on virtual operators it is necessary to purchase 400–500 modules.

Development and production of HSM — one of key project tasks on creation, implementation and use of sim cards with domestic cryptography, the representative of the press service of Minpromtorg reported the edition.

Since December 1, 2019 suppliers of the telecom equipment for cellular transmission networks should or certify some elements of own infrastructure as means of cryptographic information protection, or to set external HSM which developed ITMIVT. On the entrusted SIM card it is possible to implement the strengthened qualified electronic signature certified on a high class of security and other options for business applications.

Alexander Knyazev is sure that the project on use of sim cards with the enciphering approved by FSB will pay off as interest in it is from business.^[1]

2019: Chips of Samsung are selected by a basis of the Russian SIM cards

On May 23, 2019 it became known of use of chips of Samsung in the Russian SIM cards though it was initially going to involve domestic solutions.

That the entrusted SIM cards with domestic cryptography, will work on chips of Samsung RBC was told by a source in manufacturing company of the telecom equipment and also two sources in the large telecom operator and industry association. Alexander Knyazev, the CEO of Institute of exact mechanics and ADP equipment of S.A. Lebedev (ITMIVT) which by May, 2019 is the only developer of the ready-made solution in Russia for use of domestic cryptography on the cellular networks confirmed to the edition that the organization bought chips of Samsung.

Chips of Samsung are selected by a basis of the Russian SIM cards

We continue the test program of sim cards with domestic cryptographic algorithms. For this purpose it is necessary to buy chips on which we put the operating system and a cryptocore. We communicated to different producers, Samsung offered the optimal price for a small batch and delivery dates, and these chips approach according to functional requirements — Knyazev reported.

Since December 1, 2019 become effective two orders of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications under which procedures of authentication and identification of subscribers of networks 2G, 3G and 4G should be performed using the cryptography conforming to requirements of FSB. The telecommunication equipment transmitting a signal of cellular communication also should work at the Russian algorithms of cryptography. Implementation of domestic cryptography in telecommunication equipment along with application it in SIM cards will allow to increase security of the Russian networks.

The consultant for information security of Cisco Alexey Lukatsky told that FSB explains need of implementation of domestic enciphering with the competition to "foreign technical intelligence services", in conditions when networks of all operators are built on the foreign equipment.^[2]

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