AGIIS Update

Coming Soon: AGIIS Password Management Enhancement

By Josh Wall, AgGateway AGIIS Product Manager

CYBERSECURITY BREACH. In a world full of threats and dangers, these are two of the scariest words in modern business, from the largest corporations to the work-from-home contractor. And you see it everywhere on TV news and social media – some business somewhere is suffering through the aftershocks of a cyber-attack.

In this digital age, it is a must for every individual and company to be proactive about protecting their digital assets, which is why the AgGateway Directory Oversight Committee has approved an enhancement to strengthen the current Ag Industry Identification System (AGIIS) Password Management Solution.

The Password Management enhancement will add new features, modify existing features, and improve functionality to the existing Password Management solution to meet industry standards. One of the objectives is to strengthen security while avoiding unnecessary negative impact to the user experience.

The first noticeable change will be the addition of self-service functionality for password recovery. By clicking a “Forgot Password” link that will be available on the AGIIS home page, the user will be able to retrieve their password by answering three security questions correctly. After submitting the responses correctly, the user will receive an email that contains an URL to reset their password. Users will be able to set up the security answers the first time they log into AGIIS after the password management release goes live.

Another important component of the enhancement is ensuring the strength of user passwords. The AGIIS user interface and server will enforce password creation featuring a minimum length of characters as well as a combination of upper case, lower case, numeric, and special characters. Also, a visual aid will alert the user of the password level of strength (e.g., “Red” for weak password, “Amber” for moderately strong and “Green” for strong password). The password hardening techniques will make it more difficult for AGIIS to be breached.

The Password Management Enhancement is tentatively targeted for release at the end of March or early April. We plan on providing another update to AGIIS subscribers in mid-March with additional implementation details and a finalized release schedule.

This is one step in an ongoing process of improvement. AgGateway and the Directory Oversight Committee continue to explore and research enhancements that will provide value and security to AGIIS subscribers.

If you have any questions about the Password Management Enhancement or have any suggestion on continued improvement, please contact Member Services at Member.Services@AgGateway.org or +1 (866) 251-8618.