One of the leading providers of smart credentials for the federal government will now be outfitting those same employees with YubiKey technology. XTec Incorporated is an identity and access management specialist that has supplied various federal agencies with more than 35 million smart cards over the course of the past ten years.
Now XTec has teamed up with Yubico to provide those same federal agencies with secure authentication tokens. The company will specifically be distributing keys from the YubiKey 5 FIPS series, which are compatible with the government’s PIV authentication standard.
According to the two companies, the partnership will help federal agencies comply with President Biden’s recent executive order for cybersecurity. The order was issued after a series of high-profile security breaches, and gave federal organizations 180 days to implement multifactor authentication and encryption technology.
XTec and Yubico have already started a pilot program, and will be distributing YubiKey 5 keys to employees of a federal Department that operates at the Executive Cabinet level. The keys will supplement the HSPD-12 PIV credentials that are currently being used in the Department.
“As one of the leading credential and identity management and smart card providers in the Federal government, we recognize the use cases that require alternative tokens and our partnership with Yubico gives us the ability to meet that demand while maintaining security,” said XTec Executive Vice President Kevin Kozlowski.
Yubico formally launched the YubiKey 5 FIPS Series back in May. At the time, the company suggested that the portfolio was ideal for government applications, and the partnership with XTec would seem to lend support to that claim.
The keys themselves boast FIPS 140-2 Overall Level 1 and Level 2 certification, and are available in six different form factors, including the YubiKey 5 NFC, YubiKey 5C NFC, and YubiKey 5Ci. They also offer additional support for USB-A, USB-C, NFC and Lightning connections.
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