Top Six Things to Consider with an Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) Solution – Blog 5 of 6

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5. Robust Access Policies and Multi-factor Authentication (MFA)

 

Centrify LogoToday you live with the risks of users accessing many more services outside the corporate network perimeter as well as users carrying many more devices to access these services. Users have too many passwords and the passwords are inherently weak. In fact passwords have become more of an impediment to users than they are protection from hackers and other malevolent individuals and organizations. In short, in many cases, passwords alone cannot be trusted to properly and securely identify users.

Consequently, you need a better solution that incorporates strong authentication and one that delivers a common multi-factor experience across all your apps — SaaS, cloud, mobile, and onpremises. The solution also needs to have access policies that take into account the complete context of the access request and helps to overcome these new security risks. In addition, you need the capability to establish flexible access policies for each app for more granular and adaptive control. For example, if a user is accessing a common app from a trusted device on the corporate network from his home country during business hours ,then simply allow him silent SSO access to the apps. But if that same user is accessing an app outside the corporate network from a device that is not trusted, outside of business hours, and from a foreign country then deny them access — or at least require additional factors of authentication.

Specifically, you need an IDaaS solution that ensures security authentication by combining multi-factor authentication (MFA) and rich, flexible per-app authentication policies.

Multifactor authentication methods should include at least:

• Soft token with one-button authentication to simplify the experience
• One Time Passcode (OTP) over SMS text or email
• Interactive Phone Call to the user’s mobile device and requirement for a confirmation before authentication can proceed
• User configurable security question to act as a second password

Per-app authentication policies should allow, deny or step up authentication based on a rich understanding of the context of the request based on any combination of:

• Time of day, work hours
• Inside/Outside corporate network
• User role or attributes
• Device attributes (type, management status)
• Location of request or location of user’s other devices
• App client attributes
• Custom logic based on specific organizational needs

A Sobering Day for All CEOs

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Sadly, the CEO presiding over Target during the recent data breach resigned today.  See USA today article.

This series of unfortunate events for Target begs a key question relating to the risks every company CEO faces today. Did Target leadership ask the right questions about overall IT security and the risk every company faces?

Protecting a company from Cyber bad guys is a never ending battle.  It’s a game of leap frog with some serious consequences if you get behind.  With all the opportunity for full-time, professionally paid, government backed hackers to spend all day every day figuring out new ways to wreck a company, the priority for combating this enemy needs to be pretty high on the list for every CIO and CEO.  But it’s not just about spending all the money you can afford to spend.  It’s about understanding where to spend the money on the right technology.

How do leaders responsible for protecting a company sort out all the noise from the real threats?  This has become a constant exercise in analyzing risk and applying financial priorities accordingly.

As fast as the bad guys are coming up with new ways to exploit a target, new innovative minds are working to counter their moves.  Many of these great technologies are being folded into a portfolio of products and solutions that can be layered across an enterprise to protect and prevent the latest threats from creating the worst kind of headlines.

IBM has been on a major buying spree for the last several years snapping up some of the best and brightest technologies and resources across the globe.  They are quickly assembling an array of tools that are being shaped into the worlds best security risk analysis platform.  By leveraging this risk-based assessment direction, IT leaders can depend on technologies that will not only provide the intelligence about where to address risk, but can be assured that these technologies are probably the best that money can buy.

IBM is currently the third largest security company in the world with the goal of being the largest and the best.  As a Premier IBM Business Partner, we see this investment first hand.  See ComputerWorld’s perspective.

PathMaker Group serves our customers by planning, implementing, and managing these security solutions across the enterprise.  IT Security is a rapidly changing, complex business and our partnership with IBM helps us keep our customers one step ahead of the bad guys.

Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit

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How Can a Company Guarantee a Successful, Strategic Identity Access Management Program?

The Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit is right around the corner and leaders from all over the world will be coming to try to get this question answered.  Here are a few ideas from our ten years in the industry.

Strategic Identity and Access Management (“IAM”) projects can be difficult and the new challenges with mobile, social, and cloud compound the problem.  Protecting the perimeter is not enough anymore.  Safeguarding identities are the key to a truly secure enterprise.

The industry has seen way too many train wrecks with IAM.  To get beyond basic capabilities and really use IAM systems as a foundation for strategic IT, a company MUST take the time up front to consider the long-term plan.  Near-term, immediate priorities can be solved with client-based single sign-on, basic provisioning, simple roles and audit reports.  But with a short-term (and maybe short sighted) plan, a company can just as easily limit their ability to solve more complex problems.

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7th Stage (Security) of IS growth, Part II

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A little background:

Now that you’ve been in the CIO’s position for your first quarter, it is time to prepare for your first review with the board of directors.  The agenda for the IS presentation will cover key factors that you discovered in your operations, your accomplishments and your plans for the next year.  Since this is the quarter for your next year’s budget, it should contain the funding needed to accomplish the IS plan.

One of the key factors in the review of your operations was discovering the lack of security focus and non-compliance issues that made the operations vulnerable to unwanted intrusion in your network.  Listed in your accomplishments is the Security Assessment study and recommendations provided by PathMaker Group when you engaged them for a study of your IS environment.  One of their recommendations was to deploy IBM’s Security products for managing Identify and Application Access in your enterprise network.  This is an important undertaking as your company will replace the outdated security monitoring with IBM’s Showcase Solution to keep unwanted intruders out while making it easier for the authorized users to have easy access to their applications.  As a result of PathMaker Group’s findings and recommendations, you asked them to submit a proposal for the corrective solution using IBM Security Products and PMG Professional Services to deploy them in your IS Network.

This section of your review was very well received by the board of directors and they gave you the approval to get started.

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User Self Service Registration Demonstration

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This demo video walks through the steps of user self-service registration, a workflow approval for account creation, and the advanced security registration (including OTP) process.

The following systems are used during this demonstration:

OAAM: Oracle Adaptive Access Manager – Advanced authentication and fraud prevention

OAM: Oracle Access Manager – Single Sign-On, authentication services, and web services security

OIM: Oracle Identity Manager – Role based provisioning, user self-service, complex workflow, and permissions attestation

OVD: Oracle Virtual Directory – User source consolidation, data transformation, and DSML gateway

OID: Oracle Internet Directory – LDAP V3 repository, highly scaleable, and user record storage Read more

Strengthening the Authentication of Your Users

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They say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  In the world of IT systems, you don’t want that weak link to be user authentication.  Once a hacker gains access to a system as a valid (potentially high level) user, the amount of damage they can do is unlimited.  There are different ways to validate a user’s identity and they have different levels of security.  Using the three little pigs as an analogy, let’s take a look at the options:

1)      The straw house – This is what we call single factor authentication.  This just involves something you know or have.  An example for physical security is a badge that is tapped on a door reader to gain access.  If someone gets hold of the badge, that’s all they need to walk into the building.  Another in the IT world is the familiar user ID and password.  It’s what a majority of users use to gain access to their computer’s OS and applications. This has the potential to be fairly secure, but often times isn’t due to poor password choice.  Users frequently pick passwords that are easy for them to remember which means they are easy for hackers to crack. Once they know the password they have total access to the system/application.  Read more