We are working on a DNN installation that will reside on a system that enforces FIPS compliance encryption methods only be used.

 

System cryptography: Use FIPS compliant algorithms for encryption, crashing, and signing

FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standards 140-1 and 140-2. This setting impacts many if not all features of windows that use cryptography and impose minimum encryption algorithm and key length requirements.

Windows component	Impact
TLS/SSL (secure http and other secure sockets layer communication)	Restricted to Triple DES encryption algorithm for the TLS traffic encryption, only the Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman (RSA) public key algorithm for the TLS key exchange and authentication, and only the Secure Hashing Algorithm 1 (SHA-1) for the TLS hashing requirement
Encrypting File System (EFS)	Triple Data Encryption Standard (DES) encryption algorithm for encrypting file data supported by the NTFS file system
Terminal Services	Triple DES encryption algorithm for encrypting terminal services network communication
IPsec	Triple DES

The first hurdle of course is that .NET 2/3/3.5 are not natively FIPS compliant in themselves as they do certain aspects using AES however there is a workaround for that.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911722

Once that is resolved though I've found DNN calls the MD5 cryptographic libraries on load from the ClientDependency.Core.StringExtensions.GenerateMD5.  Well this is the first place it calls it from at least which breaks the website with a "This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms." message as MD5 is not FIPS validated.

Two questions then.

1. Is there a way to make DNN FIPS compliant without doing custom work myself?  Non-FIPS methods can not even be instantiated let alone called.
2. If not are there plans to make DNN FIPS compliant?

Of note Telerik in 2011 Q3 made the RadControls FIPS compliant.

http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-aj...

"To resolve this issue please use the professional edition web based caching provider."We have a DNN PE installation but we are not sure how to enable the use of web based caching. Please let us know how to make DNN to use the professional edition web based caching provider. Is it a web.config change or a host/portal setting.

Leith,Thanks a lot for your prompt reply. I will have to talk to the bigwigs about the "support enabled" account details.