80 FR 48821 - National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Attribute Based Access Control Building Block

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Institute of Standards and Technology

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 157 (August 14, 2015)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) invites organizations to provide products and technical expertise to support and demonstrate security platforms for the Attribute Based Access Control Building Block. 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 Attribute Based Access Control Building Block. Participation in the building block is open to all interested organizations.

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 157 (Friday, August 14, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 48821-48823]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-20041]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket Number: 150508436-5436-01]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Attribute Based 
Access Control Building Block

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 the Attribute Based 
Access Control Building Block. 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 Attribute Based Access Control Building Block. 
Participation in the building block is open to all interested 
organizations.

DATES: Interested parties must contact NIST to request a letter of 
interest template to be completed and submitted to NIST that identifies 
the organization requesting participation in the Attribute Based Access 
Control Building Block and the capabilities and components that are 
being offered to the collaborative effort. 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 September 14, 2015. When the building 
block has been completed, NIST will post a notice on the NCCoE 
Attribute Based Access Control Building Block Web site at http://nccoe.nist.gov/content/attribute-based-access-control announcing the 
completion of the building block and informing the public that it will 
no longer accept letters of interest for this building block.

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD 
20850. Letters of interest must be submitted to [email protected] 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

[[Page 48822]]

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: Bill Fisher via email at to [email protected], by telephone 240-314-6838; or by mail to National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9600 Gudelsky Drive; 
Rockville, MD 20850. Additional details about the Attribute Based 
Access Control Building Block are available at http://nccoe.nist.gov/content/attribute-based-access-control.

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 
Attribute Based Access Control Building Block. The full building block 
can be viewed at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/content/attribute-based-access-control.
    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 and which identifies the organization requesting 
participation in the Attribute Based Access Control Building Block and 
the capabilities and components that are being offered to the 
collaborative effort. NIST will contact interested parties if there are 
questions regarding the responsiveness of the letters of interest to 
the building block objective or requirements identified below and to 
obtain additional information. 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 the Attribute Based Access Control Building Block. 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 (for reference, see ADDRESSES section 
above). 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.

Building Block Objective

    Enterprises face the continual challenge of providing access 
control mechanisms for subjects requesting access to corporate 
resources (e.g. applications, networks, systems and data). 
Authentication is required for a diverse set of subjects, who may be 
known or unknown to the enterprise, and may present the organization 
with differing credentials. Once authenticated, enterprises require a 
strong authorization system that enables fine-grain access decisions 
based on a range of users, resources, and environmental conditions. 
These challenges, combined with the growth and distributed nature of 
enterprise resources, as well as the need to share information among 
stakeholders that are not managed directly by the enterprise, has 
spawned the demand for highly flexible access control mechanisms.
    This building block will use commercially available technologies to 
demonstrate an enterprise Attribute Based Access Control implementation 
that makes run-time authorization decisions and enforces a rich set of 
access control policies consistently across an enterprise (or 
enterprises). Information about a subject, the resource being accessed, 
and the environmental context at the time of attempted access shall 
form the basis for access control decisions, rather than pre-
provisioned privileges within individual systems.
    Through the use of an attribute exchange platform, this project 
will exhibit a federated access control environment, allowing for the 
secure sharing of IT resources across multiple enterprises. In this 
manner, enterprises enable unanticipated, yet valid, federated 
identities to gain access, without the traditional challenge of waiting 
for identity provisioning or authorization approvals.
    A detailed description of the Attribute Based Access Control 
Building Block are available at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/content/attribute-based-access-control.

Requirements

    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
which security platform component(s) or capability(ies) it is offering. 
Letters of interest should not include company proprietary information, 
and all components and capabilities must be commercially available. 
Components are listed in section ten of the Attribute Based Access 
Control Building Block (for reference, please see the link in the 
PROCESS section above) and include, but are not limited to:

     Identity management software that includes functions like: 
Account provisioning, de-provisioning and directory services
     Platform for exchanging attributes
     Federation server
     Databases for policy database, identity store, subject 
attribute repository, object and attribute repository
     Policy server, to serve as the policy administration point
     Access management system, which may include the policy 
decision point, policy enforcement point and context handler
     Authentication server and components supporting two factor 
authentication
     Cryptographic means to protect subject privacy during 
interactions between RPs, IDPs, APs and the attribute exchange 
platform.
    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how their product(s) address one or more of the desired solution 
characteristics in section five of the Attribute Based Access Control 
Building Block description (for reference, please see link in PROCESS 
section above).
    Additional details about the Attribute Based Access Control 
Building Block are available at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/content/attribute-based-access-control.
    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 CRADA 
in the development of the Attribute Based

[[Page 48823]]

Access Control Building Block. 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 platform user instructions, and 
demonstration plans and scripts necessary to demonstrate the desired 
capabilities. Each participant will train NIST personnel, as necessary, 
to operate its product in capability demonstrations. 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 Attribute Based Access Control 
Building Block. These descriptions will be public information.
    Under the terms of the consortium CRADA, participants will commit 
to providing:

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 Attribute Based 
Access Control Building Block 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)
    In addition, 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 Attribute Based Access 
Control Building Block 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 Attribute Based 
Access Control within the 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. 2015-20041 Filed 8-13-15; 8:45 am]
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