We have mostly avoided the federal agency/FIPS 140 criteria, but I was looking at 63B#0120, which is taken word for word from 800-63B and requires “verifiers to meet FIPS 140 Level 1 or higher.”    

“Verifiers” refers to an organization, typically the CSP – specifically, 63 defines it as “an entity that verifies the claimant’s identity by verifying the claimant’s possession and control of one or two authenticators using an authentication protocol. To do this, the verifier may also need to validate credentials that link the authenticator(s) to the subscriber’s identifier and check their status.”

But FIPS 140 is Security Requirements for devices, specifically Cryptography and Cryptographic Modules.  So, I can’t figure out what they want here.

63B#0120

Federal agencies SHALL only operate verifiers which have been validated as meeting FIPS 140 Level 1 or higher.

 (possibly that cryptographic authenticators should meet FIPS 140 – but that would appear to conflict with other criteria and guidance?)

Jimmy