The National Institute of Standards and Technology has expanded the list of credentials that federal employees and contractors can use as digital identities to enter secure government sites and access information technology resources.
A new update to Federal Information Processing Standard 201 provides more options such as Fast ID Online tokens and one-time passwords aside from personal identity verification cards currently used as the primary authentication medium, NIST said Monday.
Hildegard Ferraiolo, a computer scientist with the institute, explained that the update keeps the previous FIPS standard on par with existing technological capabilities and needs and recent federal policies on identity, credential and access management.
He added that the new options would help address the need for credentials by personnel who owns computers without built-in PIV card slots and cloud applications that do not accept PIV card’s public-key infrastructure.
According to Ferraiolo, the institute is currently working on new guidelines for the expanded list and a new concept for credential interoperability across different agencies.
