SIA and Corestreet Debut New FIPS 201 Compliance Report

March 21, 2006
FIPS 201-mandated convergence expected to greatly affect government's physical security deployments

Alexandria, VA - The Security Industry Association (SIA), the leading standards, government relations, research and educational body for the physical security industry, and CoreStreet, the leading provider of physical and IT convergence solutions, announced the release of a report titled The Roles of Authentication, Authorization and Cryptography in Expanding Security Industry Technology.

This report, part of SIA's Quarterly Technical Update series, explains key technological requirements for FIPS 201 compliance, as well as the major drivers for physical and IT convergence within the federal government: interoperability, enterprise-wide access control, increasing reliance on IP networks, and adoption of digital certificates.

This is the first time SIA's Quarterly Technical Update will be available to members and non-members at no charge.

"This report is the ideal executive summary of FIPS 201," said Rob Zivney, vice president of Hirsch Electronics. "It is a great starting point for anyone trying to get their arms around the technology of the new PIV smart card. It clarifies the impact on the Physical Access Control System for both the manufacturer and the local site trying to understand the overwhelming number of documents published on the subject. There is just the right balance of technical detail and breadth of scope. We have made it required reading at Hirsch."

To draft the report, SIA turned to CoreStreet, a company with a long history of working with the federal government to design and deploy infrastructure solutions for IT and physical security. Over the past year and a half, CoreStreet has been closely involved with the development of FIPS 201.

"Complying with this standard requires a deep understanding of topics and concepts that many find difficult, such as PKI and digital signatures," said Dave Engberg, CoreStreet CTO and co-author of the publication. "Our hope is that this report will give people from all industries an understanding of the technical requirements so that they can begin to develop solutions."

The 32-page report is available as a free download from SIA (www.siaonline.org) and CoreStreet (www.corestreet.com).