These guidelines cover the identity proofing, authentication, and federation of users (e.g., employees, contractors, or private individuals) who interact with government information systems over networks. They define technical requirements in each of the areas of identity proofing, enrollment, authenticators, management processes, authentication protocols, federation, and related assertions. They also offer technical recommendations and other informative text as helpful suggestions. The guidelines are not intended to constrain the development or use of standards outside of this purpose. This publication supersedes NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-63-3.

This guideline focuses on identity proofing and enrollment for use in digital authentication. During the process of identity proofing, an applicant provides evidence to a credential service provider (CSP) reliably identifying themselves, thereby allowing the CSP to assert that identification at a useful identity assurance level. This document defines technical requirements for each of three identity assurance levels. The guidelines are not intended to constrain the development or use of standards outside of this purpose. This publication supersedes NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-63A.

This guideline focuses on the authentication of subjects who interact with government information systems over networks to establish that a given claimant is a subscriber who has been previously authenticated. The result of the authentication process may be used locally by the system performing the authentication or asserted elsewhere in a federated identity system. This document defines technical requirements for each of the three authenticator assurance levels. The guidelines are not intended to constrain the development or use of standards outside of this purpose. This publication supersedes NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-63B.

This guideline focuses on identity federations and the use of assertions to implement them. Federation allows a given credential service provider to provide authentication attributes and (optionally) subscriber attributes to a number of separately administered relying parties. Similarly, relying parties may use more than one credential service provider. These guidelines are not intended to constrain the development or use of standards outside of this purpose. This publication supersedes NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-63C.

The protection of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) is of paramount importance to federal agencies and can directly impact the ability of the Federal Government to successfully conduct its essential missions and functions. This publication provides organizations with assessment procedures and a methodology that can be used to conduct assessments of the security requirements in NIST Special Publication 800-171, Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Systems and Organizations. The assessment procedures are flexible and can be customized to the needs of organizations and assessors. Assessments can be conducted as independent, third-party assessments or as government-sponsored assessments. The assessments can be applied with various degrees of rigor based on customer-defined depth and coverage attributes.

The protection of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) is of paramount importance to federal agencies and can directly impact the ability of the Federal Government to successfully conduct its essential missions and functions. This publication provides federal agencies with recommended security requirements for protecting the confidentiality of CUI when the information is resident in nonfederal systems and organizations. The requirements apply to components of nonfederal systems that process, store, or transmit CUI or that provide protection for such components. The security requirements are intended for use by federal agencies in contractual vehicles or other agreements established between those agencies and nonfederal organizations. This publication can be used in conjunction with its companion publication, NIST Special Publication 800-171A, which provides a comprehensive set of procedures to assess the security requirements.

As interest in Internet of Things (IoT) technologies has grown, so have concerns and attention to cybersecurity of the newly network-connected products and services offered in many sectors, including energy services, water/waste-water services, automobiles, consumer electronics, and government. This Product Development Cybersecurity Handbook will describe concepts important to developing and deploying secure IoT products for any sector or use case, including discussion of IoT Product architecture, deployment, roles and cybersecurity perspectives. This publication extends and elaborates on NIST’s prior work related to development of IoT products. In addition to discussing the concepts, this publication also demonstrates their application and discusses how satisfaction of cybersecurity in IoT products can be approached.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0 provides guidance to industry, government agencies, and other organizations to manage cybersecurity risks. It offers a taxonomy of high-level cybersecurity outcomes that can be used by any organization — regardless of its size, sector, or maturity — to better understand, assess, prioritize, and communicate its cybersecurity efforts. The CSF does not prescribe how outcomes should be achieved. Rather, it links to online resources that provide additional guidance on practices and controls that could be used to achieve those outcomes. This document describes CSF 2.0, its components, and some of the many ways that it can be used.