[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 237 (Friday, December 9, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 89064-89065]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-29482]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No.: 161115999-6999-01]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Privacy-
Enhancing Identity Federation Building Block

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 technology platforms for the Privacy-Enhancing 
Identity Federation Building Block. 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 Privacy-Enhancing Identity Federation 
Building Block. Participation in the building block 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 January 9, 
2017. When the building block has been completed, NIST will post a 
notice on the NCCoE Web site at https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/privacy-enhanced-identity-brokers announcing the 
completion of the building block and informing the public that it will 
no longer accept letters of interest for this project.

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9700 Great Seneca Highway, 
Rockville, MD 20850. Letters of interest must be submitted to [email protected]; or via mail to National Institute of Standards and 
Technology, NCCoE; 100 Bureau Drive, M/S 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 CRADA template can be found at: https://nccoe.nist.gov/library/nccoe-consortium-crada-example.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paul Grassi via email at [email protected]; by telephone 240-614-3686; or by mail to National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 100 Bureau Drive, M/S 
2002 Gaithersburg, MD 20899. Additional details about the Privacy-
Enhancing Federation Building Block are available at https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks.

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 
Privacy-Enhancing Identity Federation Building Block. The full building 
block can be viewed at: https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/privacy-enhanced-identity-brokers.
    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 building block 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 building 
block. 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.
    Building Block Objective: The primary objective of this building 
block is to demonstrate how federated identity services, leveraging 
market dominant standards, can include privacy enhancements for 
individuals and organizations that are not widely available in market 
available identity solutions. More specifically, this project seeks 
innovative ways to protect user attributes in order to prevent 
intermediaries in federated identity transactions from gaining access 
to personal information. Additionally, it seeks architectures in which 
organizations and identity brokers do not know each other's 
organizational identities, so that neither entity can track or link 
user activities beyond what is known from their direct relationship 
with the user. Any approach utilized to achieve this goal must be able 
to mitigate common online attacks, such as a man-in-the-middle attack.
    This project will result in a freely available NIST Cybersecurity 
Practice Guide, describing in depth the technical decisions, trade-
offs, lessons-learned, and build instructions, based on market dominant 
standards, such that organizations can accelerate the deployment of a 
similar privacy enhancing federated identity architectures.
    A detailed description of the Privacy-Enhancing Identity Federation 
Building Block is available at https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/privacy-enhanced-identity-brokers.

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

[[Page 89065]]

proprietary information, and all components and capabilities must be 
commercially available. Components are listed in section ten of the 
Privacy-Enhancing Identity Federation Building Block (for reference, 
please see the link in the PROCESS section above) and include, but are 
not limited to:

1. Relying Party Host(s)
2. Identity Provider Host(s)
3. Identity Federation Manager
4. Multi-factor credentials
5. Attribute Provider Host(s)
6. Cryptographic Module(s) to include key management (if required by 
commercial product)
7. Network, Compute, and Storage

    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how their products address one or more of the following desired 
solution characteristics in Chapter 6--Desired Solution Objectives, of 
the Privacy-Enhancing Identity Federation Building Block (for 
reference, please see the link in the PROCESS section above): 
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 to make functional connections 
among security platform components
2. Support for development and demonstration of the Privacy-Enhancing 
Identity Federation Building Block 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 Privacy-Enhancing Identity Federation 
Building Block are available at https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/privacy-enhanced-identity-brokers.
    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 Privacy-Enhancing Identity Federation 
Building Block. 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. 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 technology platforms 
that meet the security and privacy objectives of the Privacy-Enhancing 
Identity Federation Building Block. 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 Privacy-Enhancing Identity 
Federation Building Block 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 privacy-enhancing 
identity federation within the 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/.

Kevin Kimball,
NIST Chief of Staff.
[FR Doc. 2016-29482 Filed 12-8-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-13-P