The FIDO Alliance announced today that the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) is officially its newest member, having joined up under the consortium’s government membership program which was launched in June. With Germany on board in the governmental sense, FIDO’s initiative to spread strong online authentication across the globe is even better supported.
The BSI is Germany’s national level cybersecurity authority and as such is dedicated to promoting said IT safety measures. The Federal Office joins the US based NIST and the United Kingdom’s Home Office under FIDO’s banner for better online identity practices.
Brett McDowell, executive director of FIDO comments: “As a recognized leader in cybersecurity policy, the BSI is well positioned to demonstrate the value of FIDO standards to their peer agencies in other European Union member states and establish FIDO as a recognized best practice for strong authentication by policy makers and regulators across the continent.”
As a government member of FIDO, agencies like the BSI are positioned to give the Alliance’s authentication standards a platform for greater proliferation. Through the BSI’s policy making, regulation and implementation, FIDO can benefit from greater visibility in addition to the deployment of the products that have its stamp of approval.
Bernd Kowalski, the BSI’s Secure Electronic IDs, Certification, and Standardisation department head says, “Moving beyond passwords with FIDO authentication is excellent to secure networks and resources within the government enterprise. BSI has pursued a relationship with the FIDO Alliance and we are very pleased to be among the first government members to participate in the development of open FIDO standards and the future of authentication.”
In August, Mobile ID World reported that FIDO Certification extends to 62 products. The Alliance, which was formed in 2013, published 1.0 draft specifications last December. It has since seen high profile deployments, perhaps most remarkably by Microsoft on the biometrics-positive Windows 10 operating system.
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(Originally posted on Mobile ID World)
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