NIST Announcing Draft Special Publication 800-63 Recommendation for Electronic Authentication

January 29, 2004 --

NIST has completed the draft NIST Special Publication 800-63, Recommendation for Electronic Authentication. E-authentication is the remote authentication of individual people over a network for the purpose of electronic government and commerce. This recommendation provides technical guidance in the implementation of electronic authentication to allow an individual person to remotely authenticate his or her identity to a Federal IT system. It supplements OMB guidance, E-Authentication Guidance for Federal Agencies that defines four levels of authentication in terms of the likely consequences of an authentication error. Special Publication 800-63 states specific technical requirements for each of the four levels of assurance in the following areas: identity proofing and registration, tokens, remote authentication mechanisms and assertion mechanisms. NIST requests comments on the draft document by March 15, 2004. Please address your comments to: eauth-comments@nist.gov.

Draft NIST Special Publication 800-63