Securing Identity: What Associations Need to Know About Verifiable Credentials

In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host David Coriale, president of DelCor and host of the Reboot IT podcast, talks with Elena Dumitrascu, CTO of Credivera, and Tim McCreight, CEO of TaleCraft Security. Together, they explore how secure, verifiable credentials can reduce identity fraud, validate professional qualifications, and strengthen cybersecurity. Drawing on real-world use cases in industries like healthcare and safety, the discussion highlights the growing importance of global standards and the role associations can play in adopting these technologies to build trust and security in digital spaces.

Check out the video podcast here:

https://youtu.be/y5RzrCUUTzU

This episode is sponsored by Credivera.

Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings.

 

Transcript

[00:00:00] David Coriale: Hello everyone. This is Dave Corelle, president of DelCor and host of the 501 C technology podcast, Reboot IT, and I am excited to be guest hosting today. We've talked about this technology before on Reboot and I'm so happy to be talking about it again 'cause I think this community needs to talk about this more.

And I have two experts with me who are going to do 90% of the talking. I have Tim McCreight and also Elena Dumitrascu. I want  to welcome you and also have you introduce yourselves. Let's start with you, Elena. 

[00:00:34] Elena Dumitrascu: Thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure. I'm the co-founder and CTO of Credivera. We are a technology company that supports associations with verifiable credentials, secure identity, and secure certifications for their constituents.

I got into this business because I saw over and over again how difficult it is to prove someone's identity from a workforce perspective. The long compliance issues [00:01:00] that come from that, and really some of the fraud that. Sort of seeps in as well. Again, really happy to be here and to talk about this topic.

[00:01:08] David Coriale:  Awesome. Thank you, Tim.

 

Tim McCreight: Thanks folks. My name is Tim McCreight. I'm the CEO and founder of TaleCraft Security. We're a boutique security firm that focuses on developing security programs using a risk-based approach. And after 44 years of doing this, it's nice to finally get a chance to see some of the changes that we wanna make within the industry, and particularly with we're talking about today, these verifiable credentials.

It's been something we've been dealing with, trying to make sure it's Tim doing what Tim's supposed to be doing, nothing more and nothing less, and trying to get to a space where we're seeing that come through. It's great to talk about this today. It's a great opportunity to explore and identify what a verifiable credentials can do for organizations, but how it helps people like me in the security industry truly understand that we can start reducing risk by using this approach.

[00:01:56] David Coriale: And you are also a host of a podcast? 

[00:01:59] Tim McCreight: [00:02:00] Yes sir. I am. I have my own podcast. I co-host with Doug Lease, and it's called Caffeinated Risk. It's two self creamed grumpy security professionals talking about security and risk. And we thought throwing in coffee security and risk, how can you go wrong? So this is year five now with caffeinated risk.

[00:02:17] David Coriale: And I've just gotta mention, 'cause you said this earlier, that the icon for it is the caffeine molecule. Yes sir. Yeah, it's just really fun. It looks good on the mugs and the T-shirts, so it looks really good. Yeah, that's what's important. So thanks for joining. I always like to start at these conversations, kinda the start at the top.

And what are we talking about? So you've talked about verified credentials, risk in cybersecurity, in your backgrounds, and what you are trying to accomplish. I think we're all familiar with cybersecurity. Right. There's plenty of news coming at us with what's happening in cybersecurity breaches and so on.

How is this different, like when you talk about cybersecurity and verified credentials, explain the link between the two and what you mean by verified credentials. 

[00:02:58] Tim McCreight: That's a good one. I'll start [00:03:00] first and then I'll pass it on to Elena. From my perspective, one of the things that we've struggled with for years is making sure that as I access a resource, as I log onto a system, or as I gain access to different data or information across an organization, I need to make sure that Tim is actually Tim, and I need a way to validate that, and I need a way to prove that I'm given or been granted access to these different data stores data resources.

The difficulty with that is over the years w