During GovConWire’s “How to Increase Cybersecurity and Return on Investment of Existing PIV Infrastructure for Cross-Agency Encryption” Webinar last week, Kyle Neuman, managing director of SAFE Identity, served a keynote speaker to discuss barriers to adoption, which set up Dr. Chris Edwards, CTO of Intercede, to take the stage for the third keynote address of the event.
Mike Horkey, founder and CEO of Tru-Concepts LLC and the webinar’s moderator, introduced Dr. Edwards, who is responsible for creating Intercede’s MyID product as well as managing the company’s research and development team.
After the brief introduction of his credentials, Dr. Edwards immediately addressed the theory of addressing encrypted emails and specified that the crucial thing to remember is how to get the keys and certificates to the officials who need them and most importantly, how to manage them.
As Edwards explains, someone would obviously need the private keys or certificates to read and decrypt emails across the federal sector, but that information needs to be well protected from any potential threats. Edwards explained that the first thought was a PIV card, which has been commonly used within federal agencies for a long time, and requires full lifecycle management.
However, that creates issues of having too much data on a card that could be misplaced or stolen. He also noted that you’d need access to historical encryption keys for old information, recover keys for new cards and a well-featured Credential Management System (CMS) is necessary.
Edwards went on to break down the encryption process, what features are necessary for a CMS to work for the long term and the challenges of key recovery and protection. After going into detail regarding those challenges, Edwards also explained the potential of using our smartphones to access and store the information government officials would need to effectively do their jobs.
Despite the challenges and bumps in the road, Dr. Edwards expressed his enthusiasm for a CMS program that would be able to handle the security demands, including MyID. However, Edwards gave a word of warning to “mind the gap,” which he said Sam Andoni would be able to explain in the next and final keynote address of the event.
Stay tuned for future GovConWire events! On Aug. 27th, GovConWire will host its Business Development Forum to discuss the latest trends in Business Development (BD). Click here to register for the event.
Featuring Stephanie Shutt from the General Services Administration (GSA) as the keynote speaker, this webinar will dive into current BD trends, tips for securing contracts and FY21 federal budget projections. Don’t miss out on this must see forum!
