E-Authentication

[Posted April 9, 2015 -- NIST Solicits Comments on its Electronic Authentication Guideline - Read More]

Electronic Authentication is the process of establishing confidence in user identities that are presented in online environments. Application developers are often faced with a choice of mechanisms based on a wide variety of technologies to perform local or remote authentication. The use of multifactor authentication (MFA) adds an increased layer of security to transactions by using multiple forms of eAuth mechanisms during a transaction.

Electronic Authentication and NSTIC
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is a White House initiative developed to catalyze the marketplace for secure credentials—so we can choose from a variety of credentials to use for online transactions that are more secure, convenient, and privacy-enhancing than passwords. NSTIC has a broad charge: the creation of an Identity Ecosystem, "an online environment where individuals and organizations will be able to trust each other because they follow agreed upon standards to obtain and authenticate their digital identities." For more information, please see http://www.nist.gov/nstic/.