[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 64 (Friday, April 3, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 18198-18200]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-07590]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No.: 150318278-5278-01]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence Access Rights 
Management Use Case for the Financial Services Sector

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 security platforms for access rights management 
for the financial services sector. 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 financial services sector program. 
Participation in the use case is open to all interested organizations.

DATES: Interested parties must contact NIST to request a letter of 
interest template. 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 May 4, 2015. When the use case has been completed, NIST 
will post a notice on the NCCoE financial services sector program Web 
site at http://nccoe.nist.gov/financial-services announcing the 
completion of the use case and informing the public that it will no 
longer accept letters of interest for this use case.

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD 
20850. Letters of interest must be submitted to 
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#9cfaf5f2fdf2fff5fdf0c3d2dfdff3d9dcf2f5efe8b2fbf3ea"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="a8cec1c6c9c6cbc1c9c4f7e6ebebc7ede8c6c1dbdc86cfc7de">[email protected]</span></a> or via hardcopy to National Institute of 
Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9600 Gudelsky Drive; Rockville, MD 
20850. 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:  http://nccoe.nist.gov/node/138.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael Stone via email at 
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#294f404748474a40484576676a6a466c6947405a5d074e465f"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="fb9d92959a9598929a97a4b5b8b894bebb9592888fd59c948d">[email protected]</span></a>; or telephone 240-314-

[[Page 18199]]

6813; National Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9600 
Gudelsky Drive; Rockville, MD 20850. Additional details about the 
Financial Services Sector program are available at http://nccoe.nist.gov/financial-services.

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 Access 
Rights Management use case for the Financial Services Sector. The full 
use case can be viewed at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/NCCoE_FS_Use_Case_IDAM_FinalDraft_20140501.pdf.
    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 use case 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 use case. 
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. 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.
    Use Case Objective: The goal of this project is to demonstrate ways 
to link together the management of existing disparate identity and 
access mechanisms and systems into a comprehensive identity and access 
management (IDAM) system. This will enable financial sector entities to 
centrally issue, validate, and modify or revoke access rights for their 
entire enterprise based on easy-to-understand business rules. This IDAM 
system will abstract, unify, and simplify the complex task of dealing 
with multiple types of access systems, such as Windows Active 
Directory, Unix/Linux, Resource Access Control Facility (RACF), 
automatic class selection (ACS2) and myriad legacy and internally 
developed application-specific mechanisms. This IDAM system will also 
produce consolidated reports and statistics so that administrators and 
managers can make accurate risk management decisions. This IDAM system 
will, at a minimum, automate the monitoring and analysis of identity 
related activities in a manner that enables administrators and managers 
to make timely and informed risk management decisions.
    Requirements: Each responding organization's letter of interest 
should identify which security platform components or capabilities it 
is offering. Components are listed in section six (for reference, 
please see link in PROCESS section above) of the Access Rights 
Management for the Financial Services Sector use case and include, but 
are not limited to:

<bullet> Mainframe (may be simulated or remotely accessed) such as RACF
<bullet> Representative ``homemade'' financial sector application(s) 
with internal user access database and logging system

    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how their products address one or more of the following desired 
solution characteristics in section two (for reference, please see link 
in PROCESS section above) of the Access Rights Management for the 
Financial Services Sector use case:

1. Is a single system that is capable of interacting with multiple 
existing accesses
2. Has management systems to provide a complete picture of access 
rights within the organization
3. Complements, and does not replace, existing security infrastructure
4. Utilizes secure communications among all components
5. Automates logging, reporting and alerting of identity and access 
management events across the enterprise
6. Can be queried for information (ad-hoc reporting) in order to answer 
management, performance and security questions (i.e. show all activity 
for a given user in a certain time period)
7. Does not introduce new attack vectors into existing systems
8. Supports multiple access levels for the IDAM system (e.g. 
administrator, operator, viewer)
9. Provides fine-grain privilege controls (e.g. groups, users, 
directory, file, and record)
10. Provides the ability to attach expiration dates/time limits on 
access controls
11. Provides the ability to map user's access requests via ``service'' 
account access

    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 Access Rights 
Management use case for the Financial Services Sector 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 Access Rights Management for the 
Financial Services sector use case are available at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/NCCoE_FS_Use_Case_IDAM_FinalDraft_20140501.pdf.
    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 
agreement in the development of the Access Rights Management for the 
Financial Services sector capability. 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

[[Page 18200]]

platform user instructions, and demonstration plans and scripts 
necessary to demonstrate the desired capabilities. Each prospective 
participant will train NIST personnel as necessary, to operate its 
product in capability demonstrations to the financial services 
community. 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 security platforms that meet the security objectives of the 
Access Rights Management for the Financial Services sector use case. 
These descriptions will be public information. Under the terms of the 
consortium agreement, 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 Access Rights Management for 
the Financial Services sector 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 access rights 
management across an entire financial services sector 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/.

Richard Cavanagh,
Acting Associate Director for Laboratory Programs.
[FR Doc. 2015-07590 Filed 4-2-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-13-P


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