RCS - Crossword Cybersec - Identiproof's commitment to Open Badges V3

Crossword CybersecurityAnnouncement

07/07/2022 07:16

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RNS Number : 5864R  Crossword Cybersecurity PLC  07 July 2022

Crossword Cybersecurity Plc

Crossword's Identiproof demonstrates early commitment to Open Badges V3 in the
Jobs for the Future Plugfest

 

7 July 2022 - London, UK - Crossword Cybersecurity Plc
(http://www.crosswordcybersecurity.com/) (AIM:CCS, "Crossword", the "Company"
or the "Group"), the cybersecurity solutions company focused on cyber strategy
and risk, is pleased to announce that its Identiproof
(https://www.crosswordcybersecurity.com/identiproof%20) verifiable credentials
(VC) product has successfully achieved its first milestone at the recently
held Jobs for the Future (JFF) Plugfest. The plugfest focused on making
verified digital Learning and Employment Records (LERs) more widely and safely
accessible to a larger number of employers via digital wallets. Twenty
companies from the USA, Europe and Australasia participated in the first JFF
Plugfest held on 6 June 2022.

Crossword is participating in the project through its involvement with the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Verifiable Credentials for Education Task
Force (VC-EDU) initiative. Crossword participated in the technical
discussions, and created a demo, using Identiproof's iPhone wallet connected
to its Issuer. As a result, Identiproof has successfully passed the first
milestone requirement of displaying certificates in a user-friendly format as
a verifiable credential as defined by the Open Badges V3 standard.

 

The JFF Plugfest plays an essential role in driving the growth of a
skills-based marketplace, especially important at this time of labour
shortages, by enabling employees to hold their LERs in their digital wallets.
Digital LERs are digital resumés with secure, verifiable, and readily
accessible records of people's skills, educational experiences, and work
histories.

 

The JFF Plugfest is being organised in the USA by JFF, the National LER
Advisory Council, the National Governors Association and Brain Trust, in order
to demonstrate interworking between W3C VC products, and is being funded by
Walmart (amongst others).

 

According to the National Governors Association, governors and state leaders
in the USA are concerned about the current labour shortage, occurring during a
time when so many skilled workers are unemployed or underemployed.
Skills-based approaches to hiring and recruiting can make pathways to good
careers more broadly accessible to a wider segment of the workforce and reduce
workforce inequities by focusing on what workers can do, not on the degrees or
credentials they've earned.

 

Participation in the JFF Plugfest and working with the Open Badges V3 standard
places Crossword and its Identiproof platform at the forefront of the market
in the drive for interoperability in the education sector.  With 10.8 million
certificates issued for vocational and other qualifications in England in the
2020 to 2021 academic year, the education sector is one of the exciting
sectors for Identiproof to support digitisation and improved security through
VC.

 

Jake Holloway, Chief Product Officer at Crossword, commented: "Identiproof is
at the forefront of the credentials verification sector, and we are delighted
to be participating in this prestigious project with leading organisations in
the USA. Credentials verification is a critical requirement in matching skills
and jobs. This is particularly important in the fast-moving technology sector,
where coding and programming skill sets are in high demand but hard to quickly
and easily verify at present. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the move
towards the digitalisation of everything, and credentials verification is one
of the key growth areas."

David Chadwick, R&D Director at Crossword, added: "As Crossword's leading
Self Sovereign Identity (SSI) product, Identiproof is targeted at the
professional qualification's market, amongst others, demonstrating
interoperability with other verifiable credentials products will increasingly
become a "must-have" customer requirement. Playing a leading role in
specifying the technical requirements for JFF will allow Crossword to ensure
that Identiproof stays ahead of the crowd".

The JFF Plugfest has more than sufficient funds to award every successful
participant at least $10K per completed Plugfest milestone. Two further
Plugfest milestones are envisaged, to demonstrate credential issuing
interoperability and credential verification interoperability. The next
Plugfest is scheduled for November 2022.

 

Identiproof's VC technology has wide ranging applications including digital
ticketing, certificates, licenses, memberships, passports, proof of ownerships
and many others. It provides a central technology in applications for the
issuing of digital certificates and documents that cannot be forged or
transferred, and that respect the privacy of the holders of those
certificates.  It does this through selective disclosure, whereby the
recipient requests the minimum of information in conformance with GDPR.
Identiproof is one of the first systems built to the 2019 W3C recommendations:
The Verifiable Credentials Data Model and Web Authentication (FIDO2) - two new
global web security standards.

 

Verifiable Credentials Limited, the provider of Identiproof™, was acquired
by Crossword in May 2021. Identiproof achieved its early adoption of the W3C
verifiable credentials standard thanks to Emeritus Professor David Chadwick
being one of the six co-authors and editors of the standard and a well-known
expert in the field of digital identity and verifiable credentials.

 

 

Contacts

 

Crossword Cybersecurity plc - Tel: +44 (0) 333 090 2587

Email: info@crosswordcybersecurity.com

Tom Ilube, Chief Executive Officer

Mary Dowd, Chief Financial Officer

 

Grant Thornton (Nominated Adviser) - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7383 5100

Colin Aaronson / Jamie Barklem / Daphne Zhang / Ciara Donnelly

 

Hybridan LLP (Broker) - Tel: +44 (0)203 764 2341

Claire Louise Noyce

 

For media enquiries contact:

Financial PR:

David Hothersall, Kinlan Communications

davidh@kinlan.net (mailto:davidh@kinlan.net) - Tel: +44 (0) 207 638 3435

General:

Duncan Gurney, GingerPR

duncan@gingerpr.co.uk (mailto:duncan@gingerpr.co.uk) - Tel: +44 (0)1932 485
300

 

About Crossword Cybersecurity plc

Crossword offers a range of cyber security solutions to help companies
understand and reduce cyber security risk. We do this through a combination of
people and technology, in the form of SaaS and software products, consulting,
and managed services. Crossword's areas of emphasis are cyber security
strategy and risk, supply chain cyber, threat detection and response, and
digital identity and the aim is to build up a portfolio of cyber security
products and services with recurring revenue models in these four areas. We
work closely with UK universities and our products and services are often
powered by academic research-driven insights. In the area of cybersecurity
strategy and risk our consulting services include cyber maturity assessments,
industry certifications, and virtual chief information security officer
(vCISO) managed services.

 

Crossword's end-to-end supply chain cyber standard operating model (SCC SOM)
is supported by our best-selling SaaS platform, Rizikon Assurance, along with
cost-effective cyber audits, security testing services and complete managed
services for supply chain cyber risk management. Threat detection and response
services include our Nightingale AI-based network monitoring, Nixer to protect
against application layer DDoS attacks, our Trillion and Arc breached
credentials tracking platforms, and incident response. Crossword's work in
digital identity is based on the World Wide Web Consortium W3C verifiable
credentials standard and our current solution, Identiproof, enables secure
digital verification of individuals to prevent fraud.

 

Crossword serves medium and large clients including FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and
S&P listed companies in various sectors, such as defence, insurance,
investment and retail banks, private equity, education, technology and
manufacturing and has offices in the UK, Poland and Oman. Crossword is quoted
on AIM of the London Stock Exchange.

 

Visit Crossword at https://www.crosswordcybersecurity.com/
(https://www.crosswordcybersecurity.com/)

 

 

More about the JFF Plugfest can be found at:
www.nga.org/projects/skills-driven-state-community-of-practice/
(http://www.nga.org/projects/skills-driven-state-community-of-practice/)

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