Federal Tech Talk

Identity management and mobile devices

Jeremy Rissi, vice president Commercial and Public Sector at MobileIron, joins host John Gilroy on this week's Federal Tech Talk to explain how a phone based sy...

July 10, 2019 7:06 am

1 min read

Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Fed Tech Talk’s audio interviews on Apple Podcasts or PodcastOne.

This week on Federal Tech Talk, Jeremy Rissi, vice president Commercial and Public Sector at MobileIron, joined host John Gilroy to talk about identity management and federal cybersecurity.

What precipitated the interview was the recent update of the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12), which is 15 years old, believe it or not. In internet time, it was written by Benjamin Franklin.

Jeremy Rissi, vice president, Commercial and Public Sector, MobileIron

Essentially it admits that systems have been breached and the only way to protect data is to use an approach with strong identity credential and access management. It has been said that it extends HSPD-12 to the digital world.

Rissi outlines why MobileIron has an offering that can help agencies reach this noble assignment. When it comes to Identity Credential Access Management (ICAM) he suggests that everyone already has a phone, why not use its unique characteristics for identification.

The argument goes that a system can be in place that can validate the device, establish user context, check app authorization, verify the network, and then detect and remediate threats. It is Rissi’s contention that a phone-based system can eliminate passwords and give flexibility for changes in endpoint management in the future.

The wide-ranging discussion also includes some insight on using open standards like FIDO, OIDC (Open ID Connect), and SAML as potential building blocks for handling identities.