NIST and CISA finalize the token forgery guidance cloud customers can now cite

NIST and CISA have finalized guidelines to help federal agencies and cloud service providers protect identity and access tokens from forgery, theft and misuse; the guidance is NIST IR 8587, "Protecting Tokens and Assertions from Forgery, Theft, and Misuse".

The guidance explains how agencies and cloud providers can strengthen key management, token verification and token lifecycle controls, and covers how identity providers and authorization servers should be designed and managed.

The guidance focuses on protecting the cryptographic keys used to sign tokens and assertions, limiting how those keys can be used, and making sure tokens are properly verified before access is granted; it addresses token lifetimes, revocation, session management, logging, and protections against the reuse of stolen tokens.

Cloud providers are responsible for protecting the infrastructure and services they operate, including securing identity providers and authorization servers, protecting signing keys, issuing tokens securely, and providing customers with security features and configuration options.

Customers are responsible for configuring the services they use, managing access policies, reviewing permissions, and making use of the security controls available from their providers.

Some security tasks require coordination between provider and customer: responding to compromised tokens or signing keys, sharing security signals, revoking access, and investigating incidents.

"This publication provides implementation considerations for protecting tokens appropriately," said Ryan Galluzzo, NIST Digital Identity Program Lead and one of the publication's authors.

"Anyone who is using tokens as part of their access management infrastructure can look to this for insights, whether they are in government or commercial industry," said Ryan Galluzzo.

Organizations should collect information about token use and look for activity that could indicate stolen credentials, forged tokens or unauthorized access; maintain logs that support security monitoring and incident investigations; monitor changes to access permissions and configurations; and have procedures for responding when tokens or signing keys may have been compromised.

AI agents use the same kinds of signed tokens to access email, files, APIs, tools and other systems; NIST says organizations should apply these token protections to AI agents too, but acknowledges that agents introduce broader identity and access problems the guide does not cover and that additional standards and guidance will follow.

The final report updates the initial public draft and incorporates feedback on token validation, secrets management and detection at scale, as well as input from government and industry experts that CISA gathered through its Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative.

The report expands on the NIST Special Publication on Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations and supports Executive Order 14306 on secure software development practices; it emphasizes Secure by Design principles for interoperable defense across cloud environments.

Neither the NIST and CISA announcement nor the CISA resource page states a compliance date or mandated deadline for IR 8587.

The report lists four tasks that require coordination between cloud provider and customer.

A token forged with a stolen but legitimate signing key passes signature verification at services that trust the issuing key, so signature checking alone does not detect it.