Reduced FIPS impact on Cryptography. In previous versions of .NET Framework, managed cryptographic provider classes such as SHA256Managed throw a CryptographicException when the system cryptographic libraries are configured in "FIPS mode". These exceptions are thrown because the managed versions of the cryptographic provider classes, unlike the system cryptographic libraries, have not undergone FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) 140-2 certification. Because few developers have their development machines in FIPS mode, the exceptions are commonly thrown in production systems.