The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed two demonstration software packages that show how Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards can be used with Windows and Linux systems to perform logon, digital signing and verification, and other services.
The demonstration software, written in C++, will assist software developers, system integrators and computer security professionals as they develop products and solutions in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 and the FIPS 201-1 standard. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 calls for government employees and contractors to use secure identity credentials to access federal facilities and computers.
NIST worked with industry to develop the standards for the PIV cards that will be used for those purposes. Each card contains a unique number, two of the employee's biometric fingerprint templates, and cryptographic keys stored on an electronic chip embedded in the card's plastic body.
While each federal agency will implement the use of PIV cards on its own schedule, NIST computer scientists developed the software to demonstrate that PIV cards can work with common computer activities such as system logon. This secure logon could eliminate the need for passwords for other applications and could provide access to secure databases to which the user is authorized.
"We wanted to provide IT professionals with a model of one way that PIV cards can be used to support authentication to federal information systems," explained Donna Dodson, deputy director of the NIST Computer Security Division.
The software is available at http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/piv/download.html.
