In federated identity management, firms ________.

• A. Both A and B
• B. Query one another's identity management databases
• C. Neither A nor B
• D. Send assertions to one another

Answer: (A)

Federated identity management enables cross-domain authentication by establishing trust relationships between organizations and sharing identity information to let users access services across partner boundaries without new credentials. In practice, a user from one firm authenticates with their home identity provider, which issues a signed assertion about that user and any needed attributes. This assertion is sent to the service provider in the other firm, which trusts the issuer and grants access based on the assertion. At the same time, partners can interact to verify identity status or retrieve additional attributes by querying each other’s identity repositories as needed. This combination of exchanging trusted assertions and, when necessary, querying external identity data is what allows users to move securely and seamlessly across federated environments. That’s why selecting both behaviors reflects how federated identity management operates.