Recommendation for Random Number Generation Using Deterministic Random Bit Generators

GuidanceNational Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)Information Security

This publication is not from one of the Federal or State Banking Agencies, but given our extremely diverse audience, this will be of interest to organizations and individuals responsible for developing and maintaining security plans and programs.

This Recommendation specifies techniques for the generation of random bits that may then be used directly or converted to random numbers when random values are required by applications using cryptography.

There are two fundamentally different strategies for generating random bits. One strategy is to produce bits non-deterministically, where every bit of output is based on a physical process that is unpredictable; this class of random bit generators (RBGs) is commonly known as non-deterministic random bit generators (NRBGs). The other strategy is to compute bits deterministically using an algorithm; this class of RBGs is known as Deterministic Random Bit Generators (DRBGs).

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