Case Study

JSL creates new Federal Student Aid system that protects students' data

Client

U.S. Department of Education
Federal Student Aid (FSA)

Time Frame

Ongoing

Website

studentaid.gov

Customers Served

+ 0 million

Authentifications

+ 0 billion

The Situation

With 85+ million users, the U.S. Department of Education Federal Student Aid’s Person Authentication Service (PAS), known as the FSA ID, provides a common authentication and authorization solution for FSA’s applications used by financial aid borrowers, students, and parents.

A focused improvement area was the need to offer higher Authenticator Assurance Levels (AAL) to combat an increasing number and intensity of phishing attacks.

The Solution

JSL began working on a multi-factor authentication (MFA) solution to help secure student/borrower accounts at FSA.

JSL reviewed a dozen market-leading, time-based, one-time password products to determine the best fit. The team then developed a successful proof of concept for a broad, frictionless adoption across 5 million weekly user logins.

The Impact

JSL worked with our FSA customer to roll out a seamless implementation and adoption of MFA for our PAS application.

The implementation was successful for FSA as evidenced by no uptick in support calls or deadline cycle disruptions. Adoption of MFA helped bring FSA into compliance with government requirements and improved the security posture for all user accounts.