IAM by Industry Archives

Protecting IT Systems: Why MFA is Essential for the Security of Tech Businesses

While the share of employees working remotely worldwide has increased significantly in recent years, to 28% in 2023, IT has the highest share of employees working primarily remotely by industry, with 67% of employees reporting working remotely.

This means that the IT industry has unique security challenges that need to be addressed by a strong security solution that protects sensitive systems in IT companies. That’s where Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) comes in.

MFA adds an extra layer of safety for critical systems, factoring in risk context to prevent unauthorized access and secure sensitive data. As an enterprise identity and access management (IAM) solution, Akku brings you a robust MFA module that you can roll out quickly and cost-effectively.

Here’s how Akku MFA improves security for IT businesses…

Securing Development Environments

Development environments – used for coding, testing, and software development – are high-risk areas. If not properly safeguarded, they are potential focal points for data breaches and attacks.

Akku secures these environments, as well as associated cloud platforms and repositories, through multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA can help prevent the impersonation of authorized users through credential misuse.

Akku MFA is also equipped with adaptive MFA, which flags unusual login attempts to trigger an intelligent step-up authentication process. This requires the entry of additional authentication factors as needed before granting access and works on any authentication point, including remote desktops. Since it doesn’t blindly demand an additional authentication factor for every login attempt, it reduces login fatigue while securing these critical systems.

As a result, Akku MFA:

Protects Intellectual Property by keeping unwanted users away from sensitive development environments. This prevents project data from falling into the wrong hands.
Prevents Data Breaches by implementing multiple forms of verification as needed, preventing unauthorized login.
Improves Internal Team Security by restricting access to verified team members alone.

In addition, Akku MFA seamlessly integrates with all commonly used development tools, making access security easy and maximizing productivity.

Safeguarding Admin Access to Critical Systems

System administrators require blanket access to various vital systems and confidential information. This is essential for productivity and efficient operations. On the other hand, this means that misuse of admin access can pose a serious security risk.

Without proper security measures, stolen passwords or insider threats can lead to unauthorized access, data leaks, and system problems. A strong authentication system helps confirm identities and block unauthorized entry.

Akku MFA introduces an additional layer of security through multi-factor authentication and adaptive MFA, which dramatically reduce the risk of impersonation and credential misuse. This ensures that even if passwords are lost or compromised, only authorized administrators can access these critical internal systems.

Akku MFA can:

Prevent Unauthorized Admin Access ensuring only fully verified admins control critical systems, sharply reducing hacking risks and unauthorized access.
Reduce Insider Threats by reducing the risk of intra-team credential theft and misuse.
Strengthen Network Security by safeguarding critical admin access points, thereby minimizing the risk of cyberattacks and data breaches.

Akku MFA can integrate with multiple major tools and platforms, making it an ideal security solution for managing all aspects of mission-critical tech systems.

By implementing MFA, your IT businesses can strengthen access security, protect critical systems, and stay ahead of evolving cyber threats. And by choosing Akku MFA, you benefit from seamless integration, adaptive authentication, and a comprehensive authentication factors library. Don’t wait for a security breach – take control now.

Boost security, streamline operations: Here’s how IAM can help your ITeS/BPO business

In the ITeS and BPO industry, striking the right balance between productivity and security can mean the difference between success and failure. Security breaches can have serious financial and reputational consequences, but at the same time an excessive tilt to security at the cost of efficiency can hurt competitiveness.

Let’s dive a little deeper into the key challenges that most ITeS and BPO businesses face, which find solutions in identity an access management.

High employee turnover

The BPO industry is known for its high employee turnover (some reports peg it as high as 40%). This means a continuous cycle of provisioning, de-provisioning, and updating access for constantly changing staff – a logistical nightmare for your IT admin team, and a high risk for unauthorized access.

Remote work

The pandemic may be behind us, but remote work remains 3-4x as prevalent as it was in 2019. Ensuring secure access is a major challenge this presents because the office firewall just doesn’t cut it anymore. At the same time, applying excessive restrictions across the board often stifles productivity.

Data sensitivity

At most ITeS and BPO companies, there are significant volumes of sensitive client data to be managed. Unauthorized access to this data is a major can result in major erosion of client trust and loss of business.

Complex access needs

Employees often need access to multiple systems and applications, each with different access requirements. Improper manual management of these access rights can lead to errors and security gaps.

Here’s how IAM solves each of these problems.

Automated provisioning and deprovisioning

Advanced IAM systems such as Akku help you automate the process of provisioning, de-provisioning, and updation of user access permissions. When employees join or leave, their access rights are automatically updated, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and ensuring compliance.

This means significant amounts of time saved when new employees join your organization or change roles, with the required access permissions assigned with a single click. And when an employee leaves the company, your administrators no longer need to delete the user from each of your applications separately. With one-click deprovisioning, you save time and ensure no access permissions are accidentally left active which could leave the door open to security risks.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

SSO allows employees to access multiple applications with a single set of credentials. This improves their user experience and efficiency, and also enhances security by reducing the number of credentials that your users need to manage, which could potentially become compromised.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA adds an extra layer of security on top of your password. This is even more important in remote or hybrid operations where you have no way of verifying that the person logging in with a set of credentials is actually a genuine user. MFA goes a long way toward securing your organization’s sensitive data from fraudulent login attempts with stolen user credentials.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

A comprehensive IAM solution like Akku enables you to enforce role-based access control, ensuring that employees only have access to the information necessary for their roles. RBAC allows you to control what end-users can access by assigning them to roles such as administrator, team lead, executive, or business analyst, for example. Permissions can then be aligned with these roles ensuring job functions can be performed without providing excessive or universal access which opens up security risks.

Secure remote access

When it comes to remote operations, ensuring secure access practices is vital to protect sensitive data and applications. An IAM solution like Akku addresses this in multiple ways.

For example, you can set up an IP-based access restriction to allow access to certain sensitive data only from the office to prevent misuse and ensure security. All other functions can be performed remotely to promote productivity and convenience.

Or access to certain resources can be limited to only whitelisted devices using device-based restriction.

Each user can be limited to access resources relevant to them only during their defined work shift and access can be prevented at other times through time-based restrictions.

And access can even be disabled from other countries to prevent malicious activity originating outside your area of operations through location-based restriction.

Partnering with a service provider such as Akku, which has tailored IAM solutions for the BPO and ITeS industry can help you protect sensitive data and maintain compliance with industry regulations besides enabling streamlined operations and collaboration across departments. Contact Akku today to learn more!

The urgent need for Identity & Access Management at Universities and Educational Institutions

Cyber threats can affect any educational setting, from elementary schools to universities, whether online or brick-and-mortar. Limited resources, budget constraints, outdated software, and inadequate security systems, cause some of the biggest risks.

Education ranks as the fifth most targeted industry for security breaches in the United States, with more than 1600 publicly disclosed cyberattacks on schools between 2016 and 2022. Just last year, a security lapse in India’s Education Ministry app, Diksha, exposed millions of students’ and teachers’ personally identifying information due to an unprotected cloud server storing the data.

With the increasing adoption of technology in education, and even more so after the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for Identity & Access Management (IAM) systems is now vital for security and productivity at educational institutions.

But first, what are the unique challenges in IAM for educational institutions?

Diverse user base

Educational institutions cater to a diverse range of users including students, faculty, staff, administrators, and sometimes even external collaborators. Managing identities and access rights for such a diverse user base can be complex.

Outdated IT systems

Limited IT budgets result in legacy systems that are challenging to maintain, costly to fix, and may lack effective customer service. They also pose security risks due to outdated infrastructure. Users with multiple roles face challenges as each role is treated as a separate ID, leading to multiple credentials and fragmented access.

Remote learning

The rise of remote learning and the prevalence of BYOD or Bring Your Own Device policies have introduced additional difficulties in managing identities and securing access to resources. Educational institutions must ensure secure access to resources from any location and on any device while maintaining data privacy and security.

Data breach risks

Educational institutions handle large amounts of personal and sensitive information, including academic records, personal information, and research data making them prime targets for data breaches. Maintaining data security is essential for building trust and preventing breaches or leaks.

Changing user roles

Colleges and universities frequently onboard and offboard thousands of new users or new students each semester, each of whom require access to university resources before arriving on campus. Also, access for graduating students needs to be disabled promptly. Also, colleges handle transient users on a massive scale, including students taking semesters off and contingent faculty.

Manual provisioning and de-provisioning

Manual provisioning and de-provisioning of user access leads to high costs, security threats, and help desk overload. Manual authorization workflows for user access are prone to delays, mistakes, and compliance/security concerns. IT staff are responsible for frequently authorizing access requests, leading to inefficiencies. Also, there is a lack of auditing.

No integration with cloud-based platforms

Educational institutions face challenges integrating IAM systems with cloud-based platforms. The absence of dedicated IT help desk teams results in an increased workload for IT staff to resolve password and account unlock requests.

How can IAM address these challenges?

Centralized management and access

IAM solutions provide a centralized platform for managing user identities, authentication, and authorization. This helps to streamline user provisioning, de-provisioning, and access management across the institution, reducing administrative overhead.

For users too, with a single sign-on provided by an IAM platform, all applications are brought onto a single platform. This eliminates the hassle of multiple passwords and logins and makes the login process fast and effortless.

Automated provisioning and de-provisioning

A comprehensive IAM solution like Akku automates the process of provisioning and de-provisioning user accounts based on predefined rules and policies.

This ensures users have timely access to resources they need and access is revoked promptly upon role changes or departure from an institution, reducing the risk of unauthorized access. Also, IAM solutions implement role-based access. This granular control ensures users have access only to resources necessary for their job functions.

Learn-from-anywhere security

IAM solutions often go beyond user permissions to access applications. For example, Akku offers extensive access management features that let you permit access to your institution’s resources only from specific whitelisted network IP addresses, or only from whitelisted devices.

Suspicious login attempts can also be identified and flagged when a user attempts to log in from an unfamiliar location or at an unexpected time.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Many IAM solutions offer MFA capabilities, adding an extra layer of security beyond passwords. By requiring users to authenticate using multiple factors such as passwords, biometrics, or one-time codes, MFA helps prevent unauthorized access even if credentials are compromised.

Akku makes implementation of MFA effortless and cost-effective with a range of authentication factors to choose from, including passwordless authentication.

Integration with LMS and other education-specific platforms

IAM solutions integrate with LMS platforms and other applications used in educational settings, which allows for single sign-on (SSO) capabilities, enabling users to access multiple resources with a single set of credentials, thereby enhancing user experience and productivity.

With Akku, the process of integration is effortless with plug-and-play connectors to over 500 popular applications.

Auditing and compliance reporting

An end-to-end IAM solution like Akku provides robust auditing and reporting capabilities, allowing institutions to monitor user activity, track access privileges, and generate compliance reports. Akku’s Smart Analytics dashboard provides clear visibility across the institution’s users as well as intelligent insights on unused application licenses, provisioned user access, and more.

IAM solutions can help educational institutions improve security, streamline administrative processes, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, enabling a safer learning environment for students and staff. Akku’s IAM solutions are tailored to meet these unique challenges, so reach out to us today so we can help you stay secure.

A Customized Device-Based Access Control Solution for an Automotive Ancillary Major using Akku

Data security is a critical business priority today – this is especially true for businesses in industries such as manufacturing, where intellectual property as well as customer data are involved.

This was the case for our client too – a leading player in the automotive ancillary manufacturing space. In this blog, we explore their specific challenge in safeguarding their digital assets, and how Akku was able to deliver a customized solution to address the client’s needs.

The Challenge

The client runs regular audits to assess their security posture, and to identify areas where their existing Google Workspace could itself provide adequate security measures in terms of access control.

In one such audit, they identified a critical gap. Employees at the company were increasingly needing to work remotely, but the existing endpoint security solution was only capable of restricting access to the company’s network and disabling all remote access.

Additionally, it was necessary to permit access for any user from any approved company laptop or desktop – a challenge given that the conventional device-based restriction approach generally maps one user to one device.

Akku’s Innovative Approach

Our team at Akku addressed this challenge with a customized device-based restriction strategy.

To allow any user to access applications and data from any of the company’s laptops or desktops, we decided to implement a many-to-many mapping system. This unique solution involved the development of a custom application, the Akku Agent, installed on every whitelisted device.

The Implementation

Through the client’s inventory system, all machine serial numbers were captured and uploaded to Akku. The login process was then revamped to require all users to authenticate via Akku only.

When a user logs in, the Akku Agent now verifies the device’s serial number against the whitelisted devices in Akku, and allows access from any location, including outside the client’s network, as long as the request is made from an approved device.

This solution seamlessly addressed the core challenge of permitting remote user access from approved devices.

Tackling Mobile Access

The next hurdle was controlling mobile access. Based on the Google Workspace plans assigned to the company’s users, the Google Workspace Advanced MDM functionality addressed mobile access control for only a subset of the company’s users.

For all other users, access from any mobile device remained unchecked. Additionally, inventorying all personal devices of employees was impractical.

Akku’s solution was to restrict user mobile access to a controlled number of manually approved devices per user. By default, users were not permitted mobile access. Upon necessity, they could contact the admin to get a device approved, ensuring secure and controlled mobile access. And in case of a change of device, such as on purchase of a new phone, the admin would be able to deactivate access to the old device and enable access to the new device.

The Outcome

By integrating Akku, the client not only overcame the limitations of their existing security system, but also enabled secure remote access for their employees with seamless device-based access control measures.

The solution addressed the unique challenges faced by our client through Akku’s flexibility and our team’s custom development and deployment solution.

Akku’s flexible and innovative IAM solutions can transform your organization’s security landscape too. Talk to us to know more today.

IAM as the Solution to Healthcare Sector Challenges

Healthcare organizations are unique in the volume and sensitivity of information that they hold. Reports say that healthcare is among the 5 most cyber-attacked industries over the past 5 years.

The 2020 Breach Barometer published by Protenus reports that in 2019, more than 41 million patient records were breached, and around 40% of the respondents surveyed in Europe and the U.S. were concerned hackers would breach their digital data.

The importance of bolstering cloud security in such an environment is therefore vital, and deploying an Identity and Access Management (IAM) system can play an important role in this process.

Here is a look at some of the key challenges facing the healthcare sector, and how an IAM could help to overcome them.

#Challenge 1: Enabling easy but secure access

Very often, breaches of patient data occur due to a lack of caution on the part of patients themselves, with the use of easily compromised passwords. This applies equally to healthcare providers too, with the need to access multiple applications, and therefore, the need to memorize multiple passwords.

The IAM Solution:

Enforcing a strong password policy can help ensure that patients and providers alike set strong passwords that are more difficult to breach. Additionally, by enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA), an additional layer of security is added above the password. And to make things easier for providers, bringing all applications onto a single platform to provide them with a single point of access means that just one set of credentials is all that they need to remember.

# Challenge 2: Compliance with regulations

Healthcare is a highly monitored industry and there are certain established regulations to follow. For instance, in the USA you have the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), as well as newer industry-specific regulations like Electronic Prescribing for Controlled Substances (EPCS), for which compliance is non-negotiable.

These newer regulations call for adherence to certain prescribed standards of data security along with detailed audit capabilities.

The IAM Solution:

With an appropriate IAM solution, compliance requirements can be largely met through strong data encryption, implementing standards-compliant password policies across users, providing only the minimum necessary access to users, and comprehensive logging of every user action across applications and data points.

# Challenge 3: Driving digital transformation

COVID-19 has accelerated the speed of digital transformation, with the healthcare sector right at the center of the revolution. Telemedicine, Patient Access Management, and a host of other new requirements, each need control over a number of identities and access entitlements.

The healthcare industry is under growing pressure to adapt to changing business models and technology innovation, as there is an ever-increasing need to protect access to sensitive data.

The IAM Solution:

With features like single sign-on, IAM offers an integrated approach to patient care, enforcing security and compliance capabilities to increase efficiency. In order to support the new digital-first world of healthcare, therefore, IAM has become a necessity rather than an add-on.

Clearly, IAM is the need of the hour in the healthcare industry. And Akku, the powerful and flexible enterprise cloud control solution created by CloudNow helps to facilitate identity and access management across your healthcare enterprise’s cloud environment. Talk to us today to discuss how Akku may be able to help with your compliance requirements.

4+1 WAYS THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IS NAVIGATING THE NEW NORMAL

The manufacturing industry took a big hit at the start of the pandemic-imposed lockdown, mainly due to two reasons. Firstly, most manufacturing units require workers to be on-site and remote working was not an option, unlike certain other sectors. This meant that manufacturing came to a complete stop, at least until they were allowed to reopen with several regulations in late April. Secondly, in many manufacturing sectors, the demand went down due to the slowing down of overall economic activity.

While times have continued to be challenging over the past months, here’s how manufacturing companies are changing their approach to cope with the new normal:

Adopting automation

Before the pandemic, most manufacturing companies relied heavily on manual activities and intervention at every step of the manufacturing and distribution process. Today, wherever possible, companies are minimizing manual intervention to enable social distancing and create safer workspaces for employees and workers.

Automation and other digital solutions that help workers collaborate better also improve the speed of manufacturing, making up for months of lost time, work, and revenue. What’s more, automation can also improve production efficiency by 3-5% and increase the global manufacturing output by 1.3 trillion USD.

Rethinking the supply chain

A smooth and seamless supply chain is crucial to the success of a manufacturing company as it prevents bottlenecks, prevents the accumulation of manufactured goods, and reaches customers/end-users without delay. All of this, unfortunately, were affected during the pandemic.

To tackle this issue, manufacturing companies are building more avenues through which their goods can reach their end-users. For example, companies like Frito-Lay, PepsiCo, and Kraft Heinz have introduced direct-to-consumer sites, to shorten or even eliminate the long supply chain.

Undertaking contract manufacturing

With import and export being severely affected and international transport still limited post the COVID-19 outbreak, how are manufacturing companies delivering their products across borders? Through increased collaborative efforts within the industry!

Many international/overseas manufacturers have taken to local contract manufacturing to make sure their customers continue to receive products from the brands they prefer. Contract manufacturing is also helping some manufacturers diversify their company’s product offerings during this time, without having to make expensive investments. Here is an example from the pharma manufacturing sector.

Addressing immediate needs

The manufacturing industry thrives on a fine balance between demand and supply. During the COVID-19 pandemic, while supply was temporarily affected by movement restrictions, demand underwent a paradigm shift.

People were no longer buying cars – they had nowhere to go. Instead, as healthcare facilities struggled to accommodate the growing number of COVID-19 cases, the demand for ventilators and PPE shot up! Automotive companies were quick to identify the need and shift gears to supply exactly what was in demand. That’s not all – even beauty brands began making hand sanitizers! In this way, several companies have stayed profitable by repurposing existing manufacturing facilities to produce products that are in high demand or experiencing shortages during this time.

Staying innovative

Necessity is the mother of invention, but innovation is what will keep manufacturing companies thrive in the new normal!

If you are in the manufacturing industry, we have just the right tools to help you streamline your operations, so you can keep innovating without worries! Talk to us about our Business Continuity & Operational Resilience (BCOR) solution today.

Identity and Access Management Challenges in the Education Industry

The education industry faces unique identity and access management challenges; different education systems have specific IAM needs that depend on their environment. The central challenges include: Continue reading Identity and Access Management Challenges in the Education Industry

Why an IAM solution is a Crucial Investment for Financial Services Organizations

Today, migrating to the cloud is a crucial stage in a financial enterprise’s growth and development. It is, quite simply, the most efficient way of running operations. With this in mind, financial services organizations are investing significant resources in cloud-based technologies, including infrastructure, platform, and software as a service. Continue reading Why an IAM solution is a Crucial Investment for Financial Services Organizations

Overcoming the Challenges of the Media Industry With Identity

When the digital revolution started, media companies were among the first ones to embrace it. Today, most media companies create content targeted exclusively at online subscribers on digital platforms, pivoting their efforts to become more user-friendly for a digital audience.

In order to convert free digital users into paid users, it is also important to effectively profile them and target the right ads to the right users. Therefore, it becomes crucial to learn more about the users logging in to view media content – whether on an online magazine or a video streaming platform. At the same time, user information that is collected online needs to be safeguarded and the methods used for data handling must adhere to strict regulations. Continue reading Overcoming the Challenges of the Media Industry With Identity

Healthcare Data, HIPAA Compliance, and Akku

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has been effective in the USA since 1996.

The Act actually has five different section titles, namely Health Insurance Reform, Administrative Simplification, Tax-Related Health Provisions, Application and Enforcement of Group Health Plan Requirements, and Revenue Offsets – however, the mention of ‘HIPAA Compliance’ most often refers to compliance to the second title – Administration Simplification.

This is the most challenging aspect of the HIPAA Act, as it comes with strict regulations on protecting the data of patients in an industry that is often a major target for data breaches and malicious activity. Identity and access management across applications used in a healthcare facility, therefore, becomes critical to HIPAA compliance.

Here’s how Akku can help in ensuring data privacy and preventing both outsider and insider attacks on patient data, and, ultimately, compliance to HIPAA’s stringent regulations.

Protecting your data

Akku strengthens security around the login process by allowing you to set up and enforce a strong password policy as well as multi-factor authentication to reinforce password-based security
It also employs a custom salted-hash encryption methodology – a combination of salting and hashing techniques – for user credentials and data

Preventing unauthorized access

Akku allows you to exercise tight control over which users have access to what applications and data, so that access is not available to users who may not require it
It prevents accidental and malicious data breaches by allowing access to applications only from whitelisted network IP addresses and devices
The system also automatically blocks suspicious access attempts at abnormal times or from unexpected locations, and also enables the set up of time-based and location-based restrictions

Ensuring privacy and accountability

Every Akku implementation is set up independently in a separate server instance, so privacy on the cloud is ensured
Akku provides administrators with complete visibility by maintaining detailed logs maintained for every activity taking place across the apps and in the server

Beyond HIPAA

In addition to helping your healthcare facility become HIPAA compliant, Akku also makes it easy to set up integrations across your Hospital Information System (HIS), Lab Information System (LIS), Patient Management System (PMS) and more. This, in turn, improves collaboration between various departments and enhances overall productivity.

To know more about Akku’s complete set of features and their specific benefits to your facility, contact us today!