What is NIST IAL3 Verification and Why Is It Important?

Traditional in-person proofing is costly, slow, and inflexible when applied to remote workforces. HYPR Affirm offers an easy solution using chat, video, facial recognition with liveness detection and document authentication - not to mention step-up reproofing to lower cyber liability insurance costs and security risks.

IAL3 provides sophisticated fraud protection by linking initial, high-assurance identity verification with an authenticator such as YubiKey physical authentication tokens. This safeguard prevents "stand-in fraud", where one person is verified before giving access to another individual who then gains entry.

NIST IAL3 verification

NIST IAL3 verification is an identity verification process that utilizes document authentication and biometrics to authenticate individuals. This helps businesses ward off fraudsters while meeting regulatory requirements while improving customer experiences, ultimately saving both time and money while adhering to various regulations.

At IAL3, evidence must support both an applicant's real world identity and his or her claimed one, as well as showing the claim is associated with it. This level can be met either through remote or in-person identity verification; CSPs must accept assertions at this level by an RP, possibly including use of KBV for comparison processes.

NIST's Digital Identity Standards provide guidance for how much trust a government-issued ID should offer its user. These guidelines include Identity Assurance Levels (IAL), Authenticator Assurance Levels (AAL) and Federation Assurance Levels (FAL), which HYPR's FIDO Certified passwordless authentication and comprehensive identity verification platform meets. Ultimately helping organizations comply with NIST's digital identity standards while eliminating vulnerable passwords.

IAL3 identity proofing

Due to the vulnerability of traditional usernames and passwords, high-assurance identity proofing has become an ever-greater priority among government agencies, businesses of various types, as well as individuals requesting access. Government agencies need an extra level of assurance to make sure individuals seeking entry are who they claim they are; using IAL3 identity proofing helps safeguard against fraud and cybercrime.

NIST 800-63-3 digital identity guidelines outline three levels of identity proofing, known as Identification Authority Levels (IAL), Authenticator Assurance Levels (AAL), and Federation Assurance Levels (FAL). Of these levels, Identification Authority Level 3 (IAL3) represents the highest standard. IAL3 requires either physical presence in person or via remote session supervision and biometric comparison with supporting evidence from applicants.

Tradition has long dictated in-person proofing as the primary way of reaching an IAL3 certification, but this method can be costly, time consuming, and doesn't flex to remote workforces. Trust Swiftly patent technology offers an alternative which meets NIST standards as well as FedRAMP High compliance.

NIST 800-63A IAL3

IAL3 is a direct countermeasure against today's most sophisticated infiltration tactics. Requiring live, supervised sessions and comparing biometrics against official documents with trusted hardware, it compares real biometrics against official documents to detect deepfakes and AI impersonation as well as laptop farm fraud that allows an employee from North Korea to log into their corporate account remotely using laptop farming fraud tactics. Furthermore, after each supervised session IAL3 ensures the authenticator (such as YubiKeys) are securely linked directly with identity thereby eliminating stand-in fraud opportunities that would exist otherwise.

Traditional in-person proofing can be expensive, slow, and nonscalable for remote workforces - creating security risks and compliance bottlenecks. Trust Swiftly NIST 800-63A IAL3 solution is the only hardware-based, remote verification process that meets NIST standards while saving you money - eliminating risky password resets while creating an audit trail to meet auditors and security teams requirements. Furthermore, CSPs pursuing FedRAMP High authorization find this an invaluable asset as it removes a large hurdle for high-risk users such as system administrators or DevOps engineers to obtain authorization.

IAL3 compliant solution

NIST has defined Identity Verification Level 3 (IAL3) as their highest identity verification process, requiring either physical presence in person or remote supervision and comparing an applicant's live image against their strongest piece of identity evidence. Furthermore, this level includes liveness detection technology - an essential safeguard against presentation attacks and spoofing.

Ideally, an IAL3 compliant solution would incorporate document authentication, biometric verification, facial comparison and face binding technology - which attaches unique biometric credentials with robust identities data for protection from SIM swapping or MFA bypass attempts - in order to establish enrollee identity.

An effective IAL3 compliant solution should be compatible with modern mobile devices and software, enabling you to inspect identity documents quickly while also using device camera live biometric capture, leading to more secure verification process. Furthermore, such solutions support various capture modalities including dual iris capture as well as facial and fingerprint biometric capture methods, helping meet NIST IAL3 standards while protecting customers from cyber fraud and identity theft.