[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 229 (Tuesday, November 29, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 85932-85934]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-28627]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No.: 160830797-6797-01]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Mobile 
Application Single Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety & First 
Responder Sector

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of 
Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 
invites organizations to provide products and technical expertise to 
support and demonstrate security platforms for Mobile Application 
Single Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety & First Responder sector. 
This notice is the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center 
of Excellence (NCCoE) in collaborating with technology companies to 
address cybersecurity challenges identified under the Public Safety & 
First Responder sector program. Participation in the use case is open 
to all interested organizations.

DATES: Interested parties must contact NIST to request a letter of 
interest template to be completed and submitted to NIST. Letters of 
interest will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. 
Collaborative activities will commence as soon as enough completed and 
signed letters of interest have been returned to address all the 
necessary components and capabilities, but no earlier than December 29, 
2016. When the use case has been completed, NIST will post a notice on 
the NCCoE Public Safety & First Responder sector program Web site at 
https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/mobile-sso announcing 
the completion of the use case and informing the public that it will no 
longer accept letters of interest for this use case.

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9700 Great Seneca Highway, 
Rockville, MD 20850. Letters of interest must be submitted to [email protected] or via hardcopy to National Institute of Standards and 
Technology, 100 Bureau Drive Mail Stop 2002, Gaithersburg, MD 20899. 
Organizations whose letters of interest are accepted in accordance with 
the process set forth in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this 
notice will be asked to sign a Cooperative Research and Development 
Agreement (CRADA) with NIST. A

[[Page 85933]]

CRADA template can be found at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/node/138.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paul Grassi or William Fisher via 
email to [email protected]; by telephone 301-975-0200; or by mail to 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 100 Bureau Drive 
Mail Stop 2002, Gaithersburg, MD 20899. Additional details about the 
Public Safety & First Responder sector program are available at https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/mobile-sso.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Background: The NCCoE, part of NIST, is a public-private 
collaboration for accelerating the widespread adoption of integrated 
cybersecurity tools and technologies. The NCCoE brings together experts 
from industry, government, and academia under one roof to develop 
practical, interoperable cybersecurity approaches that address the 
real-world needs of complex Information Technology (IT) systems. By 
accelerating dissemination and use of these integrated tools and 
technologies for protecting IT assets, the NCCoE will enhance trust in 
U.S. IT communications, data, and storage systems; reduce risk for 
companies and individuals using IT systems; and encourage development 
of innovative, job-creating cybersecurity products and services.
    Process: NIST is soliciting responses from all sources of relevant 
security capabilities (see below) to enter into a Cooperative Research 
and Development Agreement (CRADA) to provide products and technical 
expertise to support and demonstrate security platforms for the Mobile 
Application Single Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety & First 
Responder Sector. The full use case can be viewed at: https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/mobile-sso.
    Interested parties should contact NIST using the information 
provided in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this notice. 
NIST will then provide each interested party with a letter of interest 
template, which the party must complete, certify that it is accurate, 
and submit to NIST. NIST will contact interested parties if there are 
questions regarding the responsiveness of the letters of interest to 
the use case objective or requirements identified below. NIST will 
select participants who have submitted complete letters of interest on 
a first come, first served basis within each category of product 
components or capabilities listed below up to the number of 
participants in each category necessary to carry out this use case. 
However, there may be continuing opportunity to participate even after 
initial activity commences. Selected participants will be required to 
enter into a consortium CRADA with NIST (for reference, see ADDRESSES 
section above). NIST published a notice in the Federal Register on 
October 19, 2012 (77 FR 64314) inviting U.S. companies to enter into 
National Cybersecurity Excellence Partnerships (NCEPs) in furtherance 
of the NCCoE. For this demonstration project, NCEP partners will not be 
given priority for participation.

Use Case Objective

    When responding to an emergency, public safety personnel require 
on-demand access to data. The ability to quickly and securely 
authenticate in order to access public safety data is critical to 
ensuring that first responders can deliver the proper care and support 
during an emergency. In order to adequately meet the need of diverse 
public safety personnel, missions, and operational environments, 
authentication mechanisms need to support deployments where devices may 
be shared amongst personnel and authentication factors have usability 
constraints.
    The challenge that first responders face in authenticating quickly 
and securely to public safety systems is compounded when a first 
responder is forced to authenticate individually to multiple mobile 
applications. In addition, when authorizing application access to 
shared resources, first responders may be subjected to an additional 
authentication step at the resource provider. To address the challenge 
identified by the public safety community, the National Cybersecurity 
Center of Excellence (NCCoE) plans to develop a Mobile Application 
Single Sign On (SSO) reference design and implementation that meets 
these unique authentication requirements and allows first responders to 
take advantage of the latest mobile authentication technology and best 
practices.
    A detailed description of the Mobile Application Single Sign On 
(SSO) is available at: https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/mobile-sso.
    Requirements: Each responding organization's letter of interest 
should identify which security platform component(s) or capability(ies) 
it is offering. Letters of interest should not include company 
proprietary information, and all components and capabilities must be 
commercially available. Components are listed in section 3 of the 
Mobile Application Single Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety & First 
Responder use case (for reference, please see the link in the PROCESS 
section above) and include, but are not limited to:

     Mobile devices
     Mobile platforms for biometric authentication
 Hardware based authenticators that interoperate with mobile 
platforms
 Software Development Kit (SDK) or platform that enables mobile 
single sign on capabilities

    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how their products address one or more of the following desired 
solution characteristics in section 3 of the Mobile Application Single 
Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety & First Responder use case (for 
reference, please see the link in the PROCESS section above):
    1. A standards-based approach and a solution architecture that 
selects the most effective and secure approach to implement mobile SSO 
leveraging native capabilities of the mobile OS.
    2. Support mobile SSO both for authentication and delegated 
authorization (as in OAuth Client Applications).
    3. Ensure that mobile applications do not have access to user 
credentials.
    4. Support multiple authenticators taking into account unique 
environmental constraints faced by first responders in emergency 
medical services, law enforcement, and the fire service such as:

a. Gloved, one-handed, or hands-free operation
b. Use of smoke hoods, fire hoods or gas masks that may prevent facial 
or iris recognition
c. Proximity based authenticators (new yubikeys)
d. Biometric based continuous authentication mechanisms that meet the 
requirements of draft NIST Special Publication 800-63B

    5. Allow multi-user operation of shared mobile devices.
    6. Support for multiple authentication protocols. If appropriate, 
public sector agencies must be able to leverage multifactor 
authentication. This may be accomplished by adopting Fast IDentity 
Online (FIDO 2.0) Universal Authentication Framework (UAF), Universal 
2nd Factor (U2F), PKI, or some other means.
    7. Support a spectrum of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and COPE 
(Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled) scenarios.
    Responding organizations need to understand and, in their letters 
of interest, commit to provide:

1. Access for all participants' project teams to component interfaces 
and the organization's experts necessary

[[Page 85934]]

to make functional connections among security platform components
2. Support for development and demonstration of the Mobile Application 
Single Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety & First Responder use case 
in NCCoE facilities which will be conducted in a manner consistent with 
Federal requirements (e.g., FIPS 200, FIPS 201, SP 800-53, and SP 800-
63)

    Additional details about the Mobile Application Single Sign On 
(SSO) for the Public Safety & First Responder sector use case are 
available at: https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/mobile-sso.
    NIST cannot guarantee that all of the products proposed by 
respondents will be used in the demonstration. Each prospective 
participant will be expected to work collaboratively with NIST staff 
and other project participants under the terms of the consortium CRADA 
in the development of the Mobile Application Single Sign On (SSO) for 
the Public Safety & First Responder sector capability. Prospective 
participants' contribution to the collaborative effort will include 
assistance in establishing the necessary interface functionality, 
connection and set-up capabilities and procedures, demonstration 
harnesses, environmental and safety conditions for use, integrated 
platform user instructions, and demonstration plans and scripts 
necessary to demonstrate the desired capabilities. Each participant 
will train NIST personnel, as necessary, to operate its product in 
capability demonstrations to the Public Safety & First Responder 
community. Following successful demonstrations, NIST will publish a 
description of the security platform and its performance 
characteristics sufficient to permit other organizations to develop and 
deploy security platforms that meet the security objectives of the 
Mobile Application Single Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety & First 
Responder sector use case. These descriptions will be public 
information.
    Under the terms of the consortium CRADA, NIST will support 
development of interfaces among participants' products by providing IT 
infrastructure, laboratory facilities, office facilities, collaboration 
facilities, and staff support to component composition, security 
platform documentation, and demonstration activities.
    The dates of the demonstration of the Mobile Application Single 
Sign On (SSO) for the Public Safety & First Responder sector capability 
will be announced on the NCCoE Web site at least two weeks in advance 
at http://nccoe.nist.gov/. The expected outcome of the demonstration is 
to improve mobile application single sign-on across an entire Public 
Safety & First Responder sector enterprise. Participating organizations 
will gain from the knowledge that their products are interoperable with 
other participants' offerings.
    For additional information on the NCCoE governance, business 
processes, and NCCoE operational structure, visit the NCCoE Web site 
http://nccoe.nist.gov/.

Kent Rochford,
Associate Director for Laboratory Programs.
[FR Doc. 2016-28627 Filed 11-28-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-13-P