Factoring the Authentication Equation: The Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) "Cohortium"
Call for Participation
Summary
The Internet2 Scalable Privacy Project (ScalePriv) is seeking campuses to participate in the Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) "Cohortium". The MFA Cohortium will be a ScalePriv-supported group of institutions sharing their explorations, experiences, expertise, artifacts, and overall "journey" in learning about, planning for, and deploying multi-factor authentication for a variety of key use cases within each institution, as well as federated access to services. It will be a facilitated and focused 15-month effort to help you (as a participating institution) make real progress towards MFA deployments. It will enable your institution, and higher education more broadly, to answer the questions "where do we need MFA?", "how do we deploy it?", and "what will it cost and what is our ROI?". And it will be focused on the research and education (R&E) community, dealing with issues and use cases of particular concern within R&E such as integrating MFA into WebSSO, sensitive data, cloud services, distance learners, bring-your-own-device, and the return on investment (ROI) within the R&E environment.
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This MFA Cohortium opportunity, and the overall ScalePriv project of which it is part, is made possible by a grant from the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) initiative, and by support from InCommon and Internet2.
Important highlights:
- Will provide your institution broader access to expertise, resources, and collaborators to help you accomplish your MFA goals.
- Enable a significant advancement in the deployment of Multi-factor Authentication across Higher Education.
- Combining MFA with federation can multiply the impact and reach of MFA to inter-institutional, shared resource, and cloud service environments.
- A key effort within the Internet2 Scalable Privacy Project.
- 15-month facilitated collaborative effort beginning in April 2013 and ending in June 2014.
- Participation document submission deadline: April 12, 2013.
- Number of institutions accepted for participation in the Cohortium may need to be restricted, depending on response, to ensure value and effective collaboration for the member institutions.
This document outlines the intent and goals of the Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) "Cohortium", and the requirements and expectations for participating institutions.
Table of Contents
- Program Dates
- Program Information
- "One Pager" Participation Submission Information
- About the Internet2 Scalable Privacy Project
Program Dates
- April 12, 2013: "One pager" participation document submission deadline. (Details below.)
- Week of April 29 - May 3: Organizational & Kickoff call for the Cohortium.
- Bi-weekly calls through to June 2014.
- April 22 - 24, 2013: Cohortium support staff will be available for conversations during the 2013 Internet2 Annual Meeting.
- Fall 2013: Broad release of MFA integration artifacts for Shibboleth and CAS
- November 2013 (mid-month): Potential opportunity for Cohortium meeting during the in-discussion Internet2 Identity Week.
- Spring 2014: Begin to finalize the structure, organization, and content of the public-facing "MFA for Higher Education" website.
- June 2014:
- Wrap-up Meeting of the MFA Cohortium.
- Each participating institution must submit a case study or similar document by the Wrap-up Meeting.
- Conclusion to the formal activities of the Cohortium.
Program Information
A key deliverable of the Internet2 Scalable Privacy Project (ScalePriv) is the promotion of multi-factor authentication (MFA), under the tenet that "good privacy begins with good security". Just a few of the links between privacy and MFA are:
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- One pager submission to identify your desire to join the Cohortium, key reasons why you wish to participate, and your willingness to share MFA plans and artifacts more broadly. (See the next section for more details on this "one pager".)
- Must identify at least one individual who will participate in the MFA Cohortium on behalf of the institution. Ideally, a team of individuals, representing key stakeholders for MFA deployment within the institution, would participate. The number of participants from an accepted institution will not be limited.
- Participate in bi-weekly calls (should have at least one representative on most bi-weekly calls).
- Actively participate on the mailing list(s), wiki, etc.
- Contribute artifacts (sample use cases, plans, strategies, planning documents, cost/benefit analyses, etc.) as appropriate.
- Participating institutions must submit at least one MFA case study, or similar document or artifact, by the Wrap-up Meeting in June 2014.
"One Pager" Participation Submission Information
Interested institutions should submit a document (one page is sufficient) describing:
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There may be a limit to the number of institutions that are accepted to participate, but there will be no limit to the number of participants from each accepted institution. (A campus team approach is encouraged, with key stakeholders represented.)
About the Internet2 Scalable Privacy Project
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) initiative is a "White House initiative to work collaboratively with the private sector, advocacy groups and public-sector agencies" with the goal of advancing the "NSTIC vision that individuals and organizations adopt secure, efficient, easy-to-use, and interoperable identity credentials to access online services in a way that promotes confidence, privacy, choice and innovation." The Internet2 Scalable Privacy Project (ScalePriv) is one of five pilot projects to receive funding from the first round of pilot funding in September 2012. The ScalePriv Project contains several major thrusts around identity and privacy, including a focus on promoting the adoption of Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) across Higher Education institutions. The ScalePriv Project includes three partially supported leadership deployments of MFA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Texas System, and the University of Utah, as well as the commitment of building the MFA Cohortium described in this Call for Participation.
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