Beyond PIV: Advanced Credential Management for High-Assurance Environments

Date: 2025-10-22
Author: Paul Foley, Chief Service Officer at Versasec

But is PIV enough for all needs in today’s world of rapid cloud adoption, remote work, and aggressive cyber threats? Is sticking to the PIV mandate enough?

For IT Security Directors, Managers, and Administrators in high-assurance sectors, the real strategic goal isn’t just checking the PIV box. It’s about building a comprehensive, future-proof identity posture that extends securely beyond the physical smart card. This means moving from a compliance mindset to a holistic Credential Management System (CMS) that expertly shepherds every form of multi-factor authentication (MFA) under one roof.

Expanding Security: The MFA Toolbox Beyond the Card

While PIV offers an exceptional, cryptographically secure MFA, it can be cumbersome. It’s not always the best fit for an engineer accessing cloud apps on the go or an administrator logging into a server remotely. To deliver high-assurance security and usability, consider broadening your portfolio with phishing-resistant MFA options, all governed by the same strict PIV standards.

Here are some modern credentials and their use cases:

By weaving these methods into the enterprise identity strategy, you’re not only boosting security coverage but also improving the daily experience for your entire workforce.

Centralized Control: One Source of Trust

Trying to manually manage PIV lifecycles, virtual smart cards, and FIDO2 devices across separate systems can become a high-risk operational back pain. A robust Centralized Credential Management System (CMS) solves this by acting as the unified identity backbone for your entire organization.

The power of a CMS lies in its ability to enforce consistency and provide visibility:

• For the IT Security Director: Prove Compliance.
  The CMS delivers the single source of truth and provides comprehensive, immutable audit logs required to prove compliance with FIPS 201/PIV and your Zero Trust mandates to any auditor.
• For the IT Security Manager: Gain Efficiency.
  Centralizing issuance, renewal, and revocation across all credential types drastically cuts down on manual tickets and administrative burdens, freeing your team to focus on strategic risk.
• For the IT Security Administrator: Mitigate Risk Instantly.
  Imagine an employee separation: with a centralized system, you can instantly and globally revoke all associated credentials (PIV, virtual smart cards and FIDO keys) from a single screen. This is a critical capability for neutralizing insider threats immediately.

Centralization ensures that the high level of trust established during PIV identity proofing is consistently and automatically applied to every other credential issued to that individual.

Reducing Risk: The Credential Lifecycle in Action

The greatest threats often arrive via credential compromise. This makes meticulous Credential Lifecycle Management, the process of managing an identity’s authenticator from creation to retirement, the most powerful tool in your risk mitigation arsenal.

Let’s look at two critical stages often overlooked:

1. Secure Issuance and Enrollment

You can’t afford any weakness at the start. A CMS enforces your PIV compliance standards (including vetting and identity proofing) as a hard gateway. If an individual isn’t properly vetted for a PIV card, the CMS simply will not provision a PIV or a FIDO key. This keeps high-assurance status protected from day one.

2. Immediate Revocation and Deactivation

When a credential is lost or an employment status changes, speed is everything. Delays in revocation open doors to risk.

• Hypothetical Scenario: A contractor ends their contract on November 1st. Their PIV card is physically revoked at the guard gate, but their permission hasn’t been revoked.
• CMS Solution: The HR system termination automatically triggers a centralized CMS action on the same day, which immediately sends a command to revoke the PIV certificates, and the FIDO key simultaneously. Access is cut instantly and completely, protecting the agency’s assets.

By thinking Beyond PIV and integrating your ecosystem with a CMS, you aren’t just meeting compliance deadlines—you are proactively building a scalable, resilient security framework that keeps pace with modern access needs while neutralizing your biggest risks. A CMS transforms your identity program from a compliance burden into a genuine security advantage.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Ready to move your organization’s identity management from a necessary compliance hurdle to a strategic security advantage? If your team is struggling to unify PIV, derived credentials, and FIDO keys, or if you need robust, immutable auditing for your next Zero Trust compliance review, we’re here to help. Contact our specialized team today to discuss a strategy for centrally managing your high-assurance credential lifecycle and achieving a superior security posture.

About the Author

Paul Foley is a co-founder and the Chief Service Officer (CSO) at Versasec, a global provider of identity and access management (IAM) solutions. He has been a fundamental part of the company since its inception in 2007. With a background in computer science, his professional experience includes working as a developer and then a senior security consultant on large-scale IT security and smart card projects, including his role as an independent PKI Security Consultant for a major UK-based health system project. As CSO, he is responsible for leading the expansion of Versasec’s Support and Services, focusing on a customer-centric approach to deliver fast and secure identity and access management solutions, a role that leverages his expertise in the Identity Management space and his commitment to customer satisfaction.