1.5. Physical location considerations
Entrust nShield HSMs are certified to NIST FIPS 140-2 Level 2 and 3. In addition to the
intrinsic protection provided by an nShield HSM, customers must exercise due diligence
to ensure that the environment within which the nShield HSMs are deployed is
configured properly and is regularly examined as part of a comprehensive risk mitigation
program to assess both logical and physical threats. Applications running in the
environment shall be authenticated to ensure their legitimacy and to thwart possible
proliferation of malware that could infiltrate these as they access the HSMs’
cryptographic services. The deployed environment must adopt 'defense in depth'
measures and carefully consider the physical location to prevent detection of
electromagnetic emanations that might otherwise inadvertently disclose cryptographic
material.
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