With a bunch of exciting new members joining up on the eve of the RSA Conference, the FIDO Alliance is going from strength to strength. And they’ve just published the first public review drafts of their core “universal authentication” protocols.
An update to my Constellation Research report on FIDO is now available. Here’s a preview.
The Go-To standards alliance in protocols for modern identity management
The FIDO Alliance – for Fast IDentity Online – is a fresh, fast growing consortium of security vendors and end users working out a new suite of protocols and standards to connect authentication endpoints to services. With an unusual degree of clarity in this field, FIDO envisages simply “doing for authentication what Ethernet did for networking“.
Launched in early 2013, the FIDO Alliance has already grown to nearly 100 members, amongst which are heavyweights like Google, Lenovo, MasterCard, Microsoft and PayPal as well as a couple of dozen biometrics vendors, many of the leading Identity and Access Management solutions and service providers and several global players in the smartcard supply chain.
FIDO is different. The typical hackneyed elevator pitch in Identity and Access Management promises to “fix the password crisis” – usually by changing the way business is done. Most IDAM initiatives unwittingly convert clear-cut technology problems into open-ended business transformation problems. In contrast, FIDO’s mission is refreshingly clear cut: it seeks to make strong authentication interoperable between devices and servers. When users have activated FIDO-compliant endpoints, reliable fine-grained information about their client environment becomes readily discoverable by any servers, which can then make access control decisions, each according to its own security policy.
With its focus, pragmatism and critical mass, FIDO is justifiably today’s go-to authentication standards effort.
In February 2014, the FIDO Alliance announced the release of its first two protocol drafts, and a clutch of new members including powerful players in financial services, the cloud and e-commerce. Constellation notes in particular the addition to the board of security leader RSA and another major payments card, Discover. And FIDO continues to strengthen its vital “Relying Party” (service provider) representation with the appearance of Aetna, Goldman Sachs, Netflix and Salesforce.com.
It’s time we fixed the Authentication plumbing
In my view, the best thing about FIDO is that it is not about federated identity but instead it operates one layer down in what we call the digital identity stack. This might seem to run against the IDAM tide, but it’s refreshing, and it may help the FIDO Alliance sidestep the quagmire of identity policy mapping and legal complexities. FIDO is not really about the vexed general issue of “identity” at all! Instead, it’s about low level authentication protocols; that is, the plumbing.
The FIDO Alliance sets out its mission as follows:
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- Change the nature of online authentication by:
- Developing technical specifications that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce the reliance on passwords to authenticate users.
- Operating industry programs to help ensure successful worldwide adoption of the Specifications.
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- Submitting mature technical Specification(s) to recognized standards development organization(s) for formal standardization.
The engineering problem underlying Federated Identity is actually pretty simple: if we want to have a choice of high-grade physical, multi-factor “keys” used to access remote services, how do we convey reliable cues to those services about the type of key being used and the individual who’s said to be using it? If we can solve that problem, then service providers and Relying Parties can sort out for themselves precisely what they need to know about the users, sufficient to identify and authenticate them.
All of these leaves the ‘I’ in the acronym “FIDO” a little contradictory. It’s such a cute name (alluding of course to the Internet dog) that it’s unlikely to change. Instead, I overheard that the acronym might go the way of “KFC” where eventually it is no longer spelled out and just becomes a word in and of itself.
FIDO Alliance Board Members
- Blackberry
- CrucialTec (manufactures innovative user input devices for mobiles)
- Discover Card
- Lenovo
- MasterCard
- Microsoft
- Nok Nok Labs (a specialist authentication server software company)
- NXP Semiconductors (a global supplier of card chips, SIMs and Secure Elements)
- Oberthur Technologies (a multinational smartcard and mobility solutions provider)
- PayPal
- RSA
- Synaptics (fingerprint biometrics)
- Yubico (the developer of the YubiKey PKI enabled 2FA token).
FIDO Alliance Board Sponsor Level Members
- Aetna
- ARM
- AGNITiO
- Dell
- Discretix
- Entersekt
- EyeLock Inc.
- Fingerprint Cards AB
- FingerQ
- Goldman Sachs
- IdentityX
- IDEX ASA
- Infineon
- Kili
- Netflix
- Next Biometrics Group
- Oesterreichische Staatsdruckerei GmbH
- Ping Identity
- SafeNet
- Salesforce
- SecureKey
- Sonavation
- STMicroelectronics
- Wave Systems
Stay tuned for the updated Constellation Research report.