National Software Reference Library (NSRL): The NIST Standards for a Reference Data Set

NIST are well known for defining the standards for a range of technologies and which have since become a de-facto standard. This includes defining the AES and the SHA-3 hashing methods. Currently, they have are two open competitions which will be closing soon: PQC (Post Quantum Cryptography) and LWC (Light-weight cryptography).

But, what about digital forensics tools? Surely there must be some standards related to the trustworthiness of the tools that are used, as their evidence could be used in a court of law. Well, our spin-out company — Cyacomb — identified many weaknesses in the current approaches to using hash values for the identification of contraband, and especially in the type of hashing methods used, and in the time it took to scan disks (which can take up to a day to archive and search). They are currently leading the way in fast and efficient searching methods for contraband content:

Ref: here

The National Software Reference Library

And so, NIST created the National Software Reference Library (NSRL), and which contains a range of hashes which are…