Author: Bhaskar RV

Akku – Secure your Enterprise Communication

Akku is a great way to control and authenticate communication channels for any enterprise.

One of the biggest threats to any organization is the possibility of a data breach, which can result in loss of data, loss of trust, and ultimately, loss of growth of the business. This makes data security a critical aspect to consider in any enterprise.

An important consideration, especially for SME businesses, is to secure their data – most companies still look for a way to do it in the traditional approach to data security – with an on-premise local environment.

Running the organization with an on-premise environment requires a dedicated workforce, this can be replaced with a secure cloud-based environment. But how does this fit in with Akku? Akku is a pure cloud Identity and Access Management solution that can be integrated with cloud, hybrid or on-prem applications.

So how can Akku help your organization?

Akku’s first great feature would be its Single Sign-on (SSO), where any enterprise’s user accounts and applications can be integrated into a single platform – making access easy for users and control easy for admins.

Unauthorized access is restricted by Akku, which is built on a certificate-based authentication architecture.

It is also possible to filter the content accessed by an organization’s users – DNS filtering to control websites that can be accessed, YouTube filtering to ensure only relevant video content is viewed, and even personal email blocking to improve productivity and security.

Akku also maintains highly granular logs, allowing for detailed reporting on user behavior – time, location, OS and so on for users logging in.

These are just a few of the functionalities that Akku brings to the table to add value to your organization’s data security.

So fight back against data breaches, and tell the world “My Data and Communication are secure!”

Is Your Data Secure? No…

As per a survey by Forrester Research (Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper, February 2017), in the last 4 years, out of every three organizations, two have had an average of at least 5 breaches. There are nearly 6 billion data records that were stolen and lost in the past 10 years. According to www.breachlevelindex.com, an average of 165,000 records are compromised every hour. According to this article published on www.csoonline.com, global cybercrime related damage is expected to exceed US$ 6 trillion annually by the year 2021.

How can IAM help protect data?

  • Identification: Users make their claim on their identity by entering a username and verify through an authentication process
  • Authentication: Authentication may be a password or may rely on advanced technologies, such as biometric and token-based authentication
  • Authorization: The IAM system must then verify the user’s authorization to perform the requested activity and also ensure that users perform actions only within their scope of authority

Together, these three processes combine to ensure that specified users have the access they need to do their jobs, while unauthorized users are kept away from sensitive resources and information. Effective IAM solutions help enterprises facilitate secure, efficient access to technology resources across these diverse systems.

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the information security discipline that allows users access to appropriate technology resources, at the right time. It incorporates three major concepts:

According to this article on BizTech magazine, improved data security is one of the three main reasons to deploy an IAM solution.

The article highlights the fact that consolidating authentication and authorization functionality on a single platform provides IT professionals with a consistent method for managing user access. And when a user leaves an organization, IT administrators may revoke their access in the centralized IAM solution with the confidence that this revocation will immediately take effect across all of the technology platforms integrated with that IAM platform.

So implement an identity and access management solution at your organization to take a major step towards improved data security.

Password Security Threats

Most people use a Password Manager to save their account passwords. A password manager is an app or device which serves as a single collection point for all of a user’s account credentials. LastPass and Dashlane are two well-known password managers in the market. The usage of a password manager presents a security risk in case of a data breach. In fact, as per the Independent, the password manager LastPass was hacked and a data breach did occur, compromising user credentials.

Another high-risk method that many users follow is to save their passwords in their browsers, and use auto-fill for convenience.

In today’s world, data breaches are the highest level of threat – don’t forget, all your data is being protected by your passwords! No security initiative can come with 100% convenience – but it is important to understand and prioritize security.

This is even more important for enterprises, where the tools they are providing their users to manage their passwords are eventually protecting the company’s data.

There are enterprise IAM tools available in the market which help enterprises to provide a secure single sign-on (SSO) and other access control lists such as IP- and device restrictions, time and location restrictions, and multi-factor authentication. These functionalities help end users as well as administrators to protect company data with additional layers of protection.

Delving deeper into MFA as a means to improve password security, the trend today is that many leading SaaS providers have started deprecating SMS as the medium to send the OTP, since this is an old-school method and comes with dependencies in order to serve its purpose. The modern and more convenient way to run an MFA is using TOTP and push notification.

Implementing a single sign-on (SSO) with an MFA is a powerful way to boost the security of your passwords while ensuring a minimal compromise on the convenience front. And of course, type your password each time instead of saving it in your browser or a password manager to minimize the security risk.

Everything You Need to Know About Secure Passwords

Your password – your secret passphrase or PIN that you use for your email, social media profile, or applications at work – is necessary for you to gain access to your accounts. But more importantly, your password plays a critical role in ensuring that no one else has access to your accounts, ensuring the security and privacy of your own as well as your organization’s data and applications.

With advancements in technology, it is important to be aware that there are equally advanced ways in which people steal information belonging to others, and even more ways through which they can misuse that information. Therefore, it goes without saying that secure passwords are of prime importance.

Common Password-Related Mistakes

You can’t blame yourself for being naturally inclined to choose a simple password that will be easy to remember. Unfortunately, these are the very same passwords that are also easy to guess or crack with a hacking software. Remember that, if information about you that can be found online – your date of birth, favourite colour, pet’s name, and so on – is incorporated into your password, it becomes even more vulnerable.

Another mistake made by most people is that a common password is used across multiple online accounts. The problem with doing this is, if someone manages to crack your password to one account, you are giving them free access to the rest!

Writing down your password or saving it somewhere online? This is a very naive act that can put your entire online data at risk of being accessed and stolen easily. Some of the other mistakes you might be making when it comes to passwords is that you don’t change the factory-set or default password, you use the same password for too long, and so on.

Tips to Set Up a Secure Password

    • Create a long password with a minimum length of 10-12 characters
    • Use a combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters
    • Special characters need to spread out across the password and not be limited to the first or last place
    • Do not use the same password for multiple security points
    • Change your passwords every 1-3 months
    • Avoid using words with obvious references to your personal life
    • Avoid using dictionary words as a whole

Passwords in the Workplace

In the workplace, the importance of a secure password is further amplified because the breach of a corporate network can have consequences that will affect the entire business.

Employees, who are otherwise the biggest assets to a company or business, also become the weakest link in the security chain protecting its data. The reason? Poor password selection and the subsequent compromise to data security. A single password, if compromised, can open the security gates and let intruders in.

Combating Weak Passwords in the Workplace

A good password policy is the weapon of choice when it comes to combating the threat of weak passwords.

A password policy is a set of guidelines that help users set up strong and secure passwords. When a password policy is enforced, a user is not allowed to create a password that does not abide by these guidelines.

Some essential features of a password policy are:

1) Password Length & Complexity Requirement

The password policy ensures that every password created is of a minimum length (for example, at least 6 characters long) and needs to use a variety of character types (uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, special characters).

2) Minimum & Maximum Password Age

This part of the password policy decides how often a password is to be changed. Ideally, a good password policy ensures the expiry of a password once in 3 months, so the user is forced to create a new password. However, if a policy prompts the user to change their password too often, they may be tempted to write it down or store it elsewhere. This, again, will compromise security.

3) Password History

When a user is prompted to change a password, he/she may tend to reuse a password they had earlier used for the same application. By enforcing a good password policy, users will not be allowed to reuse an old password at least for another 5 times.

4) Number of Failed Attempts

A password policy also establishes the maximum number of invalid attempts allowed before an account will be locked out temporarily. Once locked, the account may need administrator support to be unlocked and made accessible again.

Beyond Password Security

For companies and businesses that use highly-sensitive data, it may be required to go one step beyond just a good password policy that enforces strong passwords. In such cases, a two-factor or multi-factor authentication functionality may be enforced, where additional layers of security are integrated into the sign-in process.

With such a functionality, users will be required to re-validate their identity using one or more of the following:

    • A one-time password or PIN
    • A thumbprint or retina scan
    • A Yubikey, smart card, USB token, or magnetic strip card

Usually, a good Identity and Access Management (IAM) like Akku by CloudNow Technologies will provide companies and businesses with the security features they require by enforcing strong password policies, multi-factor authentication functionalities, and other advanced security features like IP and device-based restrictions.

Are your users’ weak passwords keeping you up at night? Speak to us to see how Akku can help with Password Policy Enforcement and Multi-factor Authentication.

Secure and Easy User Management: SCIM through the Fundamentals

What is SCIM?

The System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) is an open standard specification, designed to make user management easy. It essentially allows admins of cloud and on-premise networks to move users in and out of their systems quickly and easily. The system builds on inputs from existing user management schemas and allows the integration of powerful authentication models. It uses a common user schema in coordination with an extension model which allows for seamless migration of user data between different nodes of the system.

SCIM transmits user data between identity providers (like Akku by CloudNow) and service providers (SaaS applications) using a secure protocol. When this is used in conjunction with a robust authorization system, it gives rise to a powerful identity and access management solution. If not for SCIM, the IT departments of every organization would have to dedicate time and resource to managing access control, instead of simply automating the process.

How does SCIM help in Creating a Powerful Identity and Access Management Solution?

Like we mentioned earlier, SCIM enables the communication between the identity provider and an enterprise SaaS application which needs user information to process, create, modify or remove users from accessing a network. SCIM is built using REST and JSON to define and establish the roles of the client and server – in this case, the identity provider acts as the client and the SaaS application acts as the server.

Identity providers like Akku contain a directory of user identities which is normally extracted by the server. In most cases, the server can extract information from directories other than the identity providers as well. But migrating the data to an identity provider can significantly improve the security of the user management system. When the client or identity provider makes changes to any user information, it immediately reflects in the server or SaaS application by using the SCIM protocol. With SCIM, you can create, replace, delete, search and update user information.

The client or identity provider can also view the data present on the server and record any mismatches. If irregularities between the client and server are not immediately noticed and rectified, it could lead to a potential security breach.

How can Akku help you?

With organizations moving their operations to the cloud at breakneck speeds, the need to streamline and implement a Single Sign-on solution is constantly rising. Akku is one of the best Identity and Access Management Solutions available in the market, allowing you to integrate with third party applications as well as our own suite, to take your identity and user management efforts to the next level. This simplifies the work of your organization’s cloud or on-premise network administrators to grant access to several users and applications. For your users, this means remembering only one set of credentials for several applications.

Speak to us to see how Akku’s Single Sign-on can help you manage your users more efficiently.

Addressing Challenges in Implementing “The Use of Company Property” policy at a Leading Insurance Company

Company X is a leading insurance company which provides laptops to all employees for their work, regardless of their grade in the organization’s hierarchy.

The company has deployed a gateway firewall, incorporated with a DNS filter to blacklist or whitelist access to certain websites. In this manner, users are denied access to malicious websites, and threats due to unauthorized website use is prevented while users are within the office network.

How DNS Filtering Works?

Whenever a user makes an internet search, a request is passed on to the network through an IP. However, when DNS filtering is implemented in an organization, the relevant web page is redirected to the firewall where the restrictions are verified. If it has been blacklisted, access to the webpage is blocked.

Loophole Causing Security Concern

When more and more users beginning to work from home or work while travelling using the laptops provided by the company, Company X began facing new security concerns.

Although the firewall’s DNS filter was effective when users were within the office network, the user’s laptops were outside of the firewall’s reach. This meant that users could access any site or download any software without any restrictions, exposing the company-owned devices (COD) at risk due to unauthorized websites. This, in turn, threatened to compromise both the devices and the data stored in them.

It also made the devices non-compliant to the Company Owned Device (COD) policy.

Prognosis

The DNS filtering rules set by the company no longer applied when users took their devices outside their network and firewall. Addressing this issue, CloudNow’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution was deployed. With its website filtering feature, maintaining DNS filter rules was made possible, even outside the firewall.

With Akku, requests made by users to access any website goes through its DNS filter, which checks for restrictions and blocks unauthorized web pages. Here, the router acts only as the connecting bridge to the internet. This makes it possible to maintain website blocking instructions for devices, disregarding where the users access them from through the internet.

Why is DNS Filtering Outside your Firewall is a Necessity?

It is a vital for all organizations to increase the security of their data by preventing access to malicious websites in CODs. Additionally, this feature ensures that all CODs comply with security standards and remain audit-ready.

Maintain your DNS filter rules even outside your office premises with AKKU’s website filtering feature.

Harnessing the Power of YouTube for your Institution

Many tools or resources we use come with both pros and cons depending on how we make use of them. YouTube is no different – in the scenario of a school or college, it can be a gamechanger if used effectively, or it can have a negative impact on work and productivity if misused.

As the most popular platform for accessing video content, YouTube is a major e-Learning resource, where it is possible to access content on almost any subject. It provides access to answers to queries and presents content visually, which tends to be faster and more effective for learning than reading.

YouTube has huge volumes of content and e-learning videos from different parts of the world by certified teachers and professors, all of which are accessible at no cost, offering a major benefit to institutes.

However, YouTube access is restricted in almost every educational institution, because of its potential negatives. One major concern of management is students accessing irrelevant content.

For example, if a student is trying to access any video from YouTube there is a high chance of him/her getting distracted by content from unrelated topics, leading to a loss in productivity and concentration.

YouTube itself provides a filtering solution to address this issue – YouTube’s Restricted mode. But even if YouTube is used in Restricted mode, irrelevant videos can be accessed if the user uses an incognito window or uses YouTube without signing in.

Therefore it is vital for both the institute and its students to provide access only to relevant videos from YouTube.

Most institutes block students from accessing unwanted websites through firewall settings. However, students from today’s generation are aware of loopholes by using a proxy server to access any sites they want, which does not serve the purpose of having the firewall in place.

So completely blocking access to YouTube is not the right solution, since this is also often not completely effective, and you will end up restricting access to the biggest learning platform for your students.

Instead, putting in place a YouTube Filtering mechanism, which can act as a firewall and give access only to relevant content from approved channels and categories on YouTube while denying access to irrelevant content is the optimal solution.

Leverage the power of YouTube for your institutions without worrying about the downside with the help of Akku’s YouTube Filtering.

To know how YouTube filtering works: https://www.akku.work/blog/youtube-usage-at-the-office-is-no-longer-a-worry/