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For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.


Enabling FIPS 140-2

To use the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 feature, we must first enable the FIPS 140-2 optional feature.

After the optional feature is enabled, it must then be configured as described in the What to do next section. After the FIPS 140-2 optional feature is enabled and configured, this feature applies both to HTTPS and JSONStore data encryption.

Note: FIPS 140-2 is only supported on Android and iOS. The iOS architectures that support FIPS 140-2 are i386, armv7, armv7s, x86_64, and arm64. The Android architectures that support FIPS 140-2 are x86 and armeambi.

Note: On Android, FIPS 140-2 is not supported on 64-bit architecture even though the MobileFirst library does support 64-bit architecture. When we use FIPS 140-2 on a 64-bit device, you might see the following error:

This error means that you have 64-bit native libraries in your Android project, and FIPS 140-2 does not currently work when we use these libraries. To confirm, go to src/main/libs or src/main/jniLibs under your Android project, and check whether you have the x86_64 or arm64-v8a folders. If you do, delete these folders, and FIPS 140-2 can work again.

Note: The following considerations apply to enabling FIPS 140-2 on Cordova apps:

To use the FIPS 140-2 feature on the Android or iOS operating systems, complete the following steps:


Procedure

iOS only

  1. For iOS, FIPS is enabled through the iOS FIPS libraries and is enabled by default. No action is required to enable FIPS 140-2.

Android only

  1. Issue the following CLI command in your MobileFirst Android project: 

      cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-mfp-fips


Results

FIPS 140-2 is enabled on your app. For the iOS operating system, the FIPS 140-2 compliance automatically applies to the JSONStore plugin when you install it.


What to do next

Configure FIPS 140-2 mode for HTTPS and JSONStore encryption

Parent topic: FIPS 140-2 support