What Is Self-Sovereign Identity and Its Impact on Cybersecurity?

 

Within the World Huge Internet Consortium, the idea of self-sovereign identification seems in a collection of paperwork describing “verified claims” and “decentralized identifiers” (the time period the consortium makes use of to explain what others name SSI), however and not using a particular structure or applied sciences for implementation.

With SSI, there nonetheless have to be some credential issuer that’s trusted by the school or college. The distinction is that the credentials, as soon as issued, are positioned beneath the management of the consumer and the verification (authentication) process occurs unbiased of the credential issuer.

The proposals for the way SSI credentials might be saved and verified are sophisticated, however all mix a giant dose of cryptography and blockchain technology.  The cryptography retains the credentials and any related private data non-public, and is used within the authentication course of much like how passkeys or digital certificates are used for authentication. Blockchain creates a public ledger, so that after the credentials are issued, they are often locked in place and verified by anybody who has a duplicate of that exact blockchain.

All of those applied sciences give SSI its fascinating traits: The consumer could be authenticated even when the credential issuer goes offline. As soon as the credentials are saved on the blockchain, the consumer can determine which items of his or her digital identification to share with every net software, preserving privateness.

DIG DEEPER: Four things you should know about passwordless authentication.

SSI and Larger Training

The targets behind SSI mesh properly with cybersecurity strategies in higher education. As a result of SSI credentials aren’t tied to a selected issuer, college students might extra simply take their digital identities with them from college to highschool and employer to employer — together with transcripts, levels and certifications — with out the present cumbersome means of verifying towards every particular person establishment. Duties equivalent to transfers between establishments, even worldwide ones, and diploma certification for a job can be simplified and instantaneous in a well-designed SSI undertaking.

As a result of SSI is constructed round privateness preservation, college students might determine what data they wish to share, slightly than hoping that the establishment follows the person’s directions or the institution’s own privacy policies.

SSI additionally might ship advantages to establishments that take part, equivalent to diminished alternative for fraud and tampering. As soon as data is printed on the blockchain, it may be cryptographically verified and might’t be modified by the top consumer.

Larger training IT groups that wish to experiment with SSI will discover a lot to discover. However SSI right this moment just isn’t like InCommon or EduRoam, the place a college can simply be part of and achieve the advantages of cross-institution federated identification providers. Slightly, SSI is a mix of privateness necessities, architectural concepts and applied sciences which are evolving primarily based on tasks and experiences. Though the concept of SSI has been round for almost a decade, it’s nonetheless a transferring goal, particularly in an space like greater training.