OMB requires use of approved PKI vendors

The Office of Management and Budget is requiring agencies to use one of three approved shared-service providers for public-key infrastructure and electronic-signature services.These three service providers are the Agriculture Department’s National Finance Center, VeriSign Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., and Betrusted U.S. Inc. of New York.In a memo to agency chiefs, Karen Evans, OMB’s administrator for e-government and IT, and David Safavian, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said agencies must use these shared-service providers to mitigate security risks.