California-based FIDO Alliance has announced two new standards and certification initiatives in identity verification and the Internet of Things (IoT).
The initiatives, which are established on the Alliance’s plan to drive the market adoption of its FIDO Authentication product, aim to reinforce identity verification assurance to support account recovery and automate secure device onboarding to remove the use of passwords from IoT devices.
The Alliance has set up two new working groups to establish guidelines and certification criteria in the verification and IoT areas. These groups are dubbed as the Identity Verification and Binding Working Group (IDWG) and the IoT Technical Working Group (IoT TWG).
Where the IDWG would be defining criteria for remote identity verification and develop a certification programme and educational materials to back the adoption of those criteria, the IoT TWG is focused on tackling large-scale attacks by providing authentication framework for IoT devices in keeping with the fundamental mission of the Alliance, which is to provide a “passwordless authentication.”
Intel, which is a founding member of the IoT TWG, is also creating a new IoT standard in collaboration with UK-based Arm Holdings to ensure devices are properly configured and connected to the cloud. As reported by CRN, according to the executive in-charge of Intel’s platform security efforts, Lorie Wigle, it is important to create a standard around IoT onboarding as most companies are facing challenges these days with the practice when it comes to handling large-scale deployments and security.
Wilf Martis, CEO of IoT solution provider RattleTech, said that the biggest challenge to develop a new standard will need big names like Siemens, Schneider Electric and Honeywell on board. “There are so many different players that I think standardisation is the only thing that is going to fix it,” he said. “If there’s not a critical mass that’s going to support it, standardisation won’t happen.”
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