Tag Archives: Switzerland

Prepare your AWS workloads for the “Operational risks and resilience – banks” FINMA Circular

Post Syndicated from Margo Cronin original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/prepare-your-aws-workloads-for-the-operational-risks-and-resilience-banks-finma-circular/

In December 2022, FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, announced a fully revised circular called Operational risks and resilience – banks that will take effect on January 1, 2024. The circular will replace the Swiss Bankers Association’s Recommendations for Business Continuity Management (BCM), which is currently recognized as a minimum standard. The new circular also adopts the revised principles for managing operational risks, and the new principles on operational resilience, that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published in March 2021.

In this blog post, we share key considerations for AWS customers and regulated financial institutions to help them prepare for, and align to, the new circular.

AWS previously announced the publication of the AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland. The guide refers to certain rules applicable to financial institutions in Switzerland, including banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, securities dealers, portfolio managers, trustees, and other financial entities that FINMA oversees (directly or indirectly).

FINMA has previously issued the following circulars to help regulated financial institutions understand approaches to due diligence, third party management, and key technical and organizational controls to be implemented in cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads:

  • 2018/03 FINMA Circular Outsourcing – banks and insurers (31.10.2019)
  • 2008/21 FINMA Circular Operational Risks – Banks (31.10.2019) – Principal 4 Technology Infrastructure
  • 2008/21 FINMA Circular Operational Risks – Banks (31.10.2019) – Appendix 3 Handling of electronic Client Identifying Data
  • 2013/03 Auditing (04.11.2020) – Information Technology (21.04.2020)
  • BCM minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013)

Operational risk management: Critical data

The circular defines critical data as follows:

“Critical data are data that, in view of the institution’s size, complexity, structure, risk profile and business model, are of such crucial significance that they require increased security measures. These are data that are crucial for the successful and sustainable provision of the institution’s services or for regulatory purposes. When assessing and determining the criticality of data, the confidentiality as well as the integrity and availability must be taken into account. Each of these three aspects can determine whether data is classified as critical.”

This definition is consistent with the AWS approach to privacy and security. We believe that for AWS to realize its full potential, customers must have control over their data. This includes the following commitments:

  • Control over the location of your data
  • Verifiable control over data access
  • Ability to encrypt everything everywhere
  • Resilience of AWS

These commitments further demonstrate our dedication to securing your data: it’s our highest priority. We implement rigorous contractual, technical, and organizational measures to help protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your content regardless of which AWS Region you select. You have complete control over your content through powerful AWS services and tools that you can use to determine where to store your data, how to secure it, and who can access it.

You also have control over the location of your content on AWS. For example, in Europe, at the time of publication of this blog post, customers can deploy their data into any of eight Regions (for an up-to-date list of Regions, see AWS Global Infrastructure). One of these Regions is the Europe (Zurich) Region, also known by its API name ‘eu-central-2’, which customers can use to store data in Switzerland. Additionally, Swiss customers can rely on the terms of the AWS Swiss Addendum to the AWS Data Processing Addendum (DPA), which applies automatically when Swiss customers use AWS services to process personal data under the new Federal Act on Data Protection (nFADP).

AWS continually monitors the evolving privacy, regulatory, and legislative landscape to help identify changes and determine what tools our customers might need to meet their compliance requirements. Maintaining customer trust is an ongoing commitment. We strive to inform you of the privacy and security policies, practices, and technologies that we’ve put in place. Our commitments, as described in the Data Privacy FAQ, include the following:

  • Access – As a customer, you maintain full control of your content that you upload to the AWS services under your AWS account, and responsibility for configuring access to AWS services and resources. We provide an advanced set of access, encryption, and logging features to help you do this effectively (for example, AWS Identity and Access ManagementAWS Organizations, and AWS CloudTrail). We provide APIs that you can use to configure access control permissions for the services that you develop or deploy in an AWS environment. We never use your content or derive information from it for marketing or advertising purposes.
  • Storage – You choose the AWS Regions in which your content is stored. You can replicate and back up your content in more than one Region. We will not move or replicate your content outside of your chosen AWS Regions except as agreed with you.
  • Security – You choose how your content is secured. We offer you industry-leading encryption features to protect your content in transit and at rest, and we provide you with the option to manage your own encryption keys. These data protection features include:
  • Disclosure of customer content – We will not disclose customer content unless we’re required to do so to comply with the law or a binding order of a government body. If a governmental body sends AWS a demand for your customer content, we will attempt to redirect the governmental body to request that data directly from you. If compelled to disclose your customer content to a governmental body, we will give you reasonable notice of the demand to allow the customer to seek a protective order or other appropriate remedy, unless AWS is legally prohibited from doing so.
  • Security assurance – We have developed a security assurance program that uses current recommendations for global privacy and data protection to help you operate securely on AWS, and to make the best use of our security control environment. These security protections and control processes are independently validated by multiple third-party independent assessments, including the FINMA International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 Type II attestation report.

Additionally, FINMA guidelines lay out requirements for the written agreement between a Swiss financial institution and its service provider, including access and audit rights. For Swiss financial institutions that run regulated workloads on AWS, we offer the Swiss Financial Services Addendum to address the contractual and audit requirements of the FINMA guidelines. We also provide these institutions the ability to comply with the audit requirements in the FINMA guidelines through the AWS Security & Audit Series, including participation in an Audit Symposium, to facilitate customer audits. To help align with regulatory requirements and expectations, our FINMA addendum and audit program incorporate feedback that we’ve received from a variety of financial supervisory authorities across EU member states. To learn more about the Swiss Financial Services addendum or about the audit engagements offered by AWS, reach out to your AWS account team.

Resilience

Customers need control over their workloads and high availability to help prepare for events such as supply chain disruptions, network interruptions, and natural disasters. Each AWS Region is composed of multiple Availability Zones (AZs). An Availability Zone is one or more discrete data centers with redundant power, networking, and connectivity in an AWS Region. To better isolate issues and achieve high availability, you can partition applications across multiple AZs in the same Region. If you are running workloads on premises or in intermittently connected or remote use cases, you can use our services that provide specific capabilities for offline data and remote compute and storage. We will continue to enhance our range of sovereign and resilient options, to help you sustain operations through disruption or disconnection.

FINMA incorporates the principles of operational resilience in the newest circular 2023/01. In line with the efforts of the European Commission’s proposal for the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), FINMA outlines requirements for regulated institutions to identify critical functions and their tolerance for disruption. Continuity of service, especially for critical economic functions, is a key prerequisite for financial stability. AWS recognizes that financial institutions need to comply with sector-specific regulatory obligations and requirements regarding operational resilience. AWS has published the whitepaper Amazon Web Services’ Approach to Operational Resilience in the Financial Sector and Beyond, in which we discuss how AWS and customers build for resiliency on the AWS Cloud. AWS provides resilient infrastructure and services, which financial institution customers can rely on as they design their applications to align with FINMA regulatory and compliance obligations.

AWS previously announced the third issuance of the FINMA ISAE 3000 Type II attestation report. Customers can access the entire report in AWS Artifact. To learn more about the list of certified services and Regions, see the FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 Report and AWS Services in Scope for FINMA.

AWS is committed to adding new services into our future FINMA program scope based on your architectural and regulatory needs. If you have questions about the FINMA report, or how your workloads on AWS align to the FINMA obligations, contact your AWS account team. We will also help support customers as they look for new ways to experiment, remain competitive, meet consumer expectations, and develop new products and services on AWS that align with the new regulatory framework.

To learn more about our compliance, security programs and common privacy and data protection considerations, see AWS Compliance Programs and the dedicated AWS Compliance Center for Switzerland. As always, we value your feedback and questions; reach out to the AWS Compliance team through the Contact Us page.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this post, start a new thread on the Security, Identity, & Compliance re:Post or contact AWS Support.

Margo Cronin

Margo Cronin

Margo is an EMEA Principal Solutions Architect specializing in security and compliance. She is based out of Zurich, Switzerland. Her interests include security, privacy, cryptography, and compliance. She is passionate about her work unblocking security challenges for AWS customers, enabling their successful cloud journeys. She is an author of AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland.

Raphael Fuchs

Raphael Fuchs

Raphael is a Senior Security Solutions Architect based in Zürich, Switzerland, who helps AWS Financial Services customers meet their security and compliance objectives in the AWS Cloud. Raphael has a background as Chief Information Security Officer in the Swiss FSI sector and is an author of AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland.

Security Vulnerability of Switzerland’s E-Voting System

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/10/security-vulnerability-of-switzerlands-e-voting-system.html

Online voting is insecure, period. This doesn’t stop organizations and governments from using it. (And for low-stakes elections, it’s probably fine.) Switzerland—not low stakes—uses online voting for national elections. Andrew Appel explains why it’s a bad idea:

Last year, I published a 5-part series about Switzerland’s e-voting system. Like any internet voting system, it has inherent security vulnerabilities: if there are malicious insiders, they can corrupt the vote count; and if thousands of voters’ computers are hacked by malware, the malware can change votes as they are transmitted. Switzerland “solves” the problem of malicious insiders in their printing office by officially declaring that they won’t consider that threat model in their cybersecurity assessment.

But it also has an interesting new vulnerability:

The Swiss Post e-voting system aims to protect your vote against vote manipulation and interference. The goal is to achieve this even if your own computer is infected by undetected malware that manipulates a user vote. This protection is implemented by special return codes (Prüfcode), printed on the sheet of paper you receive by physical mail. Your computer doesn’t know these codes, so even if it’s infected by malware, it can’t successfully cheat you as long as, you follow the protocol.

Unfortunately, the protocol isn’t explained to you on the piece of paper you get by mail. It’s only explained to you online, when you visit the e-voting website. And of course, that’s part of the problem! If your computer is infected by malware, then it can already present to you a bogus website that instructs you to follow a different protocol, one that is cheatable. To demonstrate this, I built a proof-of-concept demonstration.

Appel again:

Kuster’s fake protocol is not exactly what I imagined; it’s better. He explains it all in his blog post. Basically, in his malware-manipulated website, instead of displaying the verification codes for the voter to compare with what’s on the paper, the website asks the voter to enter the verification codes into a web form. Since the website doesn’t know what’s on the paper, that web-form entry is just for show. Of course, Kuster did not employ a botnet virus to distribute his malware to real voters! He keeps it contained on his own system and demonstrates it in a video.

Again, the solution is paper. (Here I am saying that in 2004.) And, no, blockchain does not help—it makes security worse.

2022 FINMA ISAE 3000 Type II attestation report now available with 154 services in scope

Post Syndicated from Daniel Fuertes original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/2022-finma-isae-3000-type-ii-attestation-report-now-available-with-154-services-in-scope/

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is pleased to announce the third issuance of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 Type II attestation report. The scope of the report covers a total of 154 services and 24 global AWS Regions.

The latest FINMA ISAE 3000 Type II report covers the period from October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2022. AWS continues to assure Swiss financial industry customers that our control environment is capable of effectively addressing key operational, outsourcing, and business continuity management risks.

FINMA circulars

The report covers the five core FINMA circulars regarding outsourcing arrangements to the cloud. FINMA circulars help Swiss-regulated financial institutions to understand the approaches FINMA takes when implementing due diligence, third-party management, and key technical and organizational controls for cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads.

The scope of the report covers the following requirements of the FINMA circulars:

  • 2018/03 Outsourcing – Banks, insurance companies and selected financial institutions under FinIA
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Principle 4 Technology Infrastructure (31.10.2019)
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Appendix 3 Handling of Electronic Client Identifying Data (31.10.2019)
  • 2013/03 Auditing – Information Technology (04.11.2020)
  • 2008/10 Self-regulation as a minimum standard – Minimum Business Continuity Management (BCM) minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013)

It is our pleasure to announce the addition of 16 services and two Regions to the FINMA ISAE 3000 Type II attestation scope. The following are a few examples of the additional security services in scope:

  • AWS CloudShell – A browser-based shell that makes it simple to manage, explore, and interact with your AWS resources. With CloudShell, you can quickly run scripts with the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), experiment with AWS service APIs by using the AWS SDKs, or use a range of other tools to be productive.
  • Amazon HealthLake – A HIPAA-eligible service that offers healthcare and life sciences companies a chronological view of individual or patient population health data for query and analytics at scale.
  • AWS IoT SiteWise – A managed service that simplifies collecting, organizing, and analyzing industrial equipment data.
  • Amazon DevOps Guru – A service that uses machine learning to detect abnormal operating patterns to help you identify operational issues before they impact your customers.

Customers can continue to reference the FINMA workbooks, which include detailed control mappings for each FINMA circular covered under this audit report, through AWS Artifact. Customers can also find the entire FINMA report on AWS Artifact. To learn more about the list of certified services and Regions, see AWS Compliance Programs and AWS Services in Scope for FINMA.

As always, AWS is committed to adding new services into our future FINMA program scope based on your architectural and regulatory needs. If you have questions about the FINMA report, contact your AWS account team.

If you have feedback about this post, please submit them in the Comments section below.
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Author

Daniel Fuertes

Daniel is a Security Audit Program Manager at AWS based in Madrid, Spain. Daniel leads multiple security audits, attestations, and certification programs in Spain and other EMEA countries. Daniel has 8 years of experience in security assurance and previously worked as an auditor for PCI DSS security framework.

AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland and FINMA workbooks publications

Post Syndicated from Margo Cronin original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-user-guide-to-financial-services-regulations-and-guidelines-in-switzerland-and-finma/

AWS is pleased to announce the publication of the AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland whitepaper and workbooks.

This guide refers to certain rules applicable to financial institutions in Switzerland, including banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, securities dealers, portfolio managers, trustees and other financial entities which are overseen (directly or indirectly) by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).

Amongst other topics, this guide covers requirements created by the following regulations and publications of interest to Swiss financial institutions:

  • Federal Laws – including Article 47 of the Swiss Banking Act (BA). Banks and Savings Banks are overseen by FINMA and governed by the BA (Bundesgesetz über die Banken und Sparkassen, Bankengesetz, BankG). Article 47 BA holds relevance in the context of outsourcing.
  • Response on Cloud Guidelines for Swiss Financial institutions produced by the Swiss Banking Union, Schweizerische Bankiervereinigung SBVg.
  • Controls outlined by FINMA, Switzerland’s independent regulator of financial markets, that may be applicable to Swiss banks and insurers in the context of outsourcing arrangements to the cloud.

In combination with the AWS User Guide to Financial Services Regulations and Guidelines in Switzerland whitepaper, customers can use the detailed AWS FINMA workbooks and ISAE 3000 report available from AWS Artifact.

The five core FINMA circulars are intended to assist Swiss-regulated financial institutions in understanding approaches to due diligence, third-party management, and key technical and organizational controls that should be implemented in cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads. The AWS FINMA workbooks and ISAE 3000 report scope covers, in detail, requirements of the following FINMA circulars:

  • 2018/03 Outsourcing – banks and insurers (04.11.2020)
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Principle 4 Technology Infrastructure (31.10.2019)
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Appendix 3 Handling of electronic Client Identifying Data (31.10.2019)
  • 2013/03 Auditing – Information Technology (04.11.2020)
  • 2008/10 Self-regulation as a minimum standard – Minimum Business Continuity Management (BCM) minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013)

Customers can use the detailed FINMA workbooks, which include detailed control mappings for each FINMA control, covering both the AWS control activities and the Customer User Entity Controls. Where applicable, under the AWS Shared Responsibility Model, these workbooks provide industry standard practices, incorporating AWS Well-Architected, to assist Swiss customers in their own preparation for FINMA circular alignment.

This whitepaper follows the issuance of the second Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report. The latest report covers the period from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021, with a total of 141 AWS services and 23 global AWS Regions included in the scope. Customers can download the report from AWS Artifact. A full list of certified services and Regions is presented within the published FINMA report.

As always, AWS is committed to bringing new services into the scope of our FINMA program in the future based on customers’ architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have any questions or feedback. If you have questions about this post, contact AWS Support.

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Author

Margo Cronin

Margo is a Principal Security Specialist at Amazon Web Services based in Zurich, Switzerland. She spends her days working with customers, from startups to the largest of enterprises, helping them build new capabilities and accelerating their cloud journey. She has a strong focus on security, helping customers improve their security, risk, and compliance in the cloud.

2021 FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report for Switzerland now available on AWS Artifact

Post Syndicated from Niyaz Noor original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/2021-finma-isae-3000-type-2-attestation-report-for-switzerland-now-available-on-aws-artifact/

AWS is pleased to announce the issuance of a second Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report. The latest report covers the period from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021, with a total of 141 AWS services and 23 global AWS Regions included in the scope.

A full list of certified services and Regions are presented within the published FINMA report; customers can download the latest report from AWS Artifact.

The FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 report, conducted by an independent third-party audit firm, provides Swiss financial industry customers with the assurance that the AWS control environment is appropriately designed and implemented to address key operational risks, as well as risks related to outsourcing and business continuity management.

FINMA circulars

The report covers the five core FINMA circulars applicable to Swiss banks and insurers in the context of outsourcing arrangements to the cloud. These FINMA circulars are intended to assist Swiss-regulated financial institutions in understanding approaches to due diligence, third-party management, and key technical and organizational controls that should be implemented in cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads.

The report’s scope covers, in detail, the requirements of the following FINMA circulars:

  • 2018/03 Outsourcing – banks, insurance companies and selected financial institutions under FinIA;
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Principle 4 Technology Infrastructure (31.10.2019);
  • 2008/21 Operational Risks – Banks – Appendix 3 Handling of electronic Client Identifying Data (31.10.2019);
  • 2013/03 Auditing – Information Technology (04.11.2020);
  • 2008/10 Self-regulation as a minimum standard – Minimum Business Continuity Management (BCM) minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013);

Customers can continue to use the detailed FINMA workbooks that include detailed control mappings for each FINMA circular covered under this audit report; these workbooks are available on AWS Artifact. Where applicable, under the AWS shared responsibility model, these workbooks provide best practices guidance using AWS Well-Architected to assist Swiss customers in their own preparation for alignment with FINMA circulars.

As always, AWS is committed to bringing new services into the future scope of our FINMA program based on customers’ architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have questions or feedback about the FINMA report.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

Want more AWS Security news? Follow us on Twitter.

Author

Niyaz Noor

Niyaz is the Security Audit Program Manager at AWS. Niyaz leads multiple security certification programs across Europe and other regions. During his professional career, he has helped multiple cloud service providers in obtaining global and regional security certification. He is passionate about delivering programs that build customers’ trust and provide them assurance on cloud security.

AWS publishes FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report for the Swiss financial industry

Post Syndicated from Niyaz Noor original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/aws-publishes-finma-isae-3000-type-2-attestation-report-for-the-swiss-financial-industry/

Gaining and maintaining customer trust is an ongoing commitment at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Our customers’ industry security requirements drive the scope and portfolio of compliance reports, attestations, and certifications we pursue. Following up on our announcement in November 2020 of the new EU (Zurich) Region, AWS is pleased to announce the issuance of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) ISAE 3000 Type 2 attestation report.

The FINMA ISAE 3000 Type 2 report, conducted by an independent third-party audit firm, provides Swiss financial industry customers with the assurance that the AWS control environment is appropriately designed and implemented to address key operational risks, as well as risks related to outsourcing and business continuity management. Additionally, the report provides customers with important guidance on complementary user entity controls (CUECs), which customers should consider implementing as part of the shared responsibility model to help them comply with FINMA’s control objectives. The report covers the period from 4/1/2020 to 9/30/2020, with a total of 124 AWS services and 22 global Regions included in the scope. A full list of certified services and Regions are presented within the published FINMA report.

The report covers the five core FINMA circulars that are applicable to Swiss banks and insurers in the context of outsourcing arrangements to the cloud. These FINMA circulars are intended to assist regulated financial institutions in understanding approaches to due diligence, third-party management, and key technical and organizational controls that should be implemented in cloud outsourcing arrangements, particularly for material workloads. The report’s scope covers, in detail, the requirements of the following FINMA circulars:

  • 2018/03 “Outsourcing – banks and insurers” (31.10.2019);
  • 2008/21 “Operational Risks – Banks” – Principle 4 Technology Infrastructure (31.10.2019);
  • 2008/21 “Operational Risks – Banks” – Appendix 3 Handling of electronic Client Identifying Data (31.10.2019);
  • 2013/03 “Auditing” (04.11.2020) – Information Technology (21.04.2020);
  • Business Continuity Management (BCM) minimum standards proposed by the Swiss Insurance Association (01.06.2015) and Swiss Bankers Association (29.08.2013);

The alignment of AWS with FINMA requirements demonstrates our continuous commitment to meeting the heightened expectations for cloud service providers set by Swiss financial services regulators and customers. Customers can use the FINMA report to conduct their due diligence, which may minimize the effort and costs required for compliance. The FINMA report for AWS is now available free of charge to AWS customers within the AWS Artifact. More information on how to download the FINMA report is available here.

Some useful resources related to FINMA:

As always, AWS is committed to bringing new services into the scope of our FINMA program in the future based on customers’ architectural and regulatory needs. Please reach out to your AWS account team if you have questions about the FINMA report.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

Want more AWS Security how-to content, news, and feature announcements? Follow us on Twitter.

Author

Niyaz Noor

Niyaz is a Security Audit Program Manager at AWS, leading multiple security certification programs across the Asia Pacific, Japan, and Europe Regions. During his career, he has helped multiple cloud service providers obtain global and regional security certification. He is passionate about delivering programs that build customers’ trust and provide them assurance on cloud security.

Swiss-Swedish Diplomatic Row Over Crypto AG

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/10/swiss-swedish-diplomatic-row-over-crypto-ag.html

Previously I have written about the Swedish-owned Swiss-based cryptographic hardware company: Crypto AG. It was a CIA-owned Cold War operation for decades. Today it is called Crypto International, still based in Switzerland but owned by a Swedish company.

It’s back in the news:

Late last week, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said she had canceled a meeting with her Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis slated for this month after Switzerland placed an export ban on Crypto International, a Swiss-based and Swedish-owned cybersecurity company.

The ban was imposed while Swiss authorities examine long-running and explosive claims that a previous incarnation of Crypto International, Crypto AG, was little more than a front for U.S. intelligence-gathering during the Cold War.

Linde said the Swiss ban was stopping “goods” — which experts suggest could include cybersecurity upgrades or other IT support needed by Swedish state agencies — from reaching Sweden.

She told public broadcaster SVT that the meeting with Cassis was “not appropriate right now until we have fully understood the Swiss actions.”

EDITED TO ADD (10/13): Lots of information on Crypto AG.