Category: IAM & Security Insights

Flexible Identity: IAM solutions need to bend… a little at least!

In the world of Identity and Access Management (IAM), flexibility is the key to stability. While IAMs are not new, the threats that they are helping to protect against and the environment in which they are operating are constantly evolving. Adaptability is more critical than ever.

Negotiating this ever-transforming environment, enterprises need both flexibility and fit in terms of their identity and access management strategy. This means finding an ideal IAM solution that adapts and grows with your business, customers, workforce, tools, processes, and market trends. Your IAM needs to balance user-friendliness and security, or users tend to get frustrated and search for workarounds that can open up security vulnerabilities.

Rushing into a decision about your IAM without a fully-formed strategy can result in a solution that is so rigid it doesn’t solve your problems! An inflexible IAM that does not support your identity and access management needs, can negatively impact user experience and decrease productivity. Technology should enhance security goals, not compromise them. Opt for a flexible IAM solution.

What do we mean by flexibility? It is the ability to use the IAM in the way that you want, without being constrained by its own features.

Flexibility in authentication methods

A flexible IAM offers a wide range of strong and centralized authentication mechanisms that cover cloud and mobile assets, permitting you to set password policies with multiple multifactor authentication (MFA) options. Modern MFA solutions provide users with multiple options depending on the circumstances (for instance, a hard OTP token may be used when working offline). This ensures that while security is the priority, productivity is not compromised.

Flexibility in integration

Your identity provider (IdP) must integrate with your IAM. Identity providers, such as Azure AD, are third-party service providers that store and manage digital identities. Choose the IAM that integrates seamlessly with your IdP, and which integrates with and provides access to a large list of cloud, on-prem, SaaS, licensed, and custom apps. This gives you the flexibility to use any IdP and app, based on the merits, without being tied down by your IAM.

Flexibility in access management

A flexible IAM allows you to define proper access privileges and set custom device restriction rules, in order to balance security with usability. A central directory, for instance, can help to manage access rights by automatically matching employee job titles to locations and relevant privilege levels. Further, a flexible IAM system can be used to establish groups with privileges for specific roles thereby uniformly and securely assigning access rights. By making it easy to define access privileges, your IAM becomes more flexible and user-friendly.

Customization

With IAM solutions, one size does not fit all. Look for a solution that allows you to customize everything from number of users to MFA options to report customization and content restriction. The more you customize the IAM to suit your needs, the better the digital experience your company can provide to its workforce – and the greater the impact on the business and the bottom-line.

Akku is a cloud-based powerful identity and access management solution that is designed with SME/MMEs in mind and their ever-changing needs. Contact us today for a consultation.

Authentication, Authorization, Auditing: the Three Pillars of IAM

In an earlier article, we explored the 3 pillars of a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), with Identity and Access Management (IAM) being one of these pillars. In this blog, we dive deeper into IAM, and the key concepts on which it is built.

2021 saw the average cost of a data breach rising from US$3.86 million to US$4.24 million on an annual basis, according to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021.

Data breaches are increasing. And your Identity and Access Management solution, or IAM, is your first line of defense. IAM secures, measures, monitors, and improves the security of access through a standardized process.

How does an IAM improve security? It offers three pillars of support: Authentication, Authorization, and Auditing.

Authentication

How do you map the correct users to gain access to the correct content, at the correct times? 

Authentication takes place whenever a user attempts to access the organization’s network or assets. Verified credentials serve as a passport that allows users to access data, systems, applications, and resources.

With data breaches becoming more common, user authentication is vital to security. Organizations are prioritizing advanced security through sophisticated additional authentication methods. For instance, your IAM would secure your access management with two-factor or multi-factor authentication by pairing a username and password with a key card or OTP token, a fingerprint, or facial recognition. Every user has unique credentials, and IAM authenticates the user data to confirm that the user is a member of the organization.

Using a strong password policy can also improve authentication security. Verifying whether your IAM allows you to configure and customize your password policy is essential in providing a comprehensive authentication process. 

Authorization

While authentication verifies the users’ identity, the authorization aspect of IAM is what grants the user access to data based on their identity and defined access rules. While the two are related, they are not interchangeable.

In a sense, authorization is the second step to authentication – think of a night club, where the bouncer allows you entry after checking your ticket stamp (authentication), following which another staffer inside decides if your stamp allows you access to every area of the club or restricts you to select areas (authorization).

In organizations, users are granted authorizations according to their roles. Proper authorization is important to prevent data breaches.

For secure authorization, follow the zero trust principle and provide minimum possible access to each active user and immediately deprovision ex-employees. These two steps ensure that the risk of data breaches caused by improper authorization or disgruntled employees is reduced.

Auditing

Auditing security configurations helps weed out redundancies within the IAM system, such as IAM users, roles, and policies that are not required, and make sure that all users are authorized and authenticated. It also helps secure the system by regularly monitoring who has access to critical enterprise assets.

Audits ensure that compliance requirements are met, incidents are responded to and taken care of within a defined period of time, procedures are streamlined, responsibilities are segregated, transparency and documentation are maintained. 

Audits can also help to understand employee or user contributions on a particular app or data sheet. This can also be used in version control. Knowing who last logged on to the document gives usable information in cases where data has been breached. 

Chinks in authentication, authorization, or auditing can result in a compromised system. Opt for a trusted IAM solution such as Akku, a major emerging player in the APAC region. Akku offers a plethora of customizable options to improve data security, standards compliance, efficiency, and productivity.

 

How to select your IAM service provider

Given the increasing number of cyber-attacks, greater adoption of Cloud Services, and swelling mobile workforce, it’s little wonder that IAM has been gaining recognition as a key technology platform at the forefront of the digital world. 

At the same time, IAM is almost never one-size-fits-all, and so choosing the right solution provider is important. Your IAM needs to work at scale, efficiently, and seamlessly. It also needs to be cyber-attack-proof as well as future-proof.

There are several IAM providers in the market, with more continuing to enter the fray. And why not, considering the global identity and access management (IAM) market size is projected to reach USD 24.76 billion by 2026.

So, how do you know which identity and access management solution is right for your organization? Here are some important factors to consider…

Credentials

What you need is a proven solution, one that can scale and perform. At the same time, if you are not a large enterprise yourself, the large enterprise IAM platforms on the market may prove to be financially unviable.

There are IAM platforms that offer most of the same functionalities at SME-friendly costs. To evaluate these solutions, get information on the following factors to see if you are on the right track:

  • Customer references or testimonials
  • Age of the business. How long has your vendor been around?
  • Any data they may have on product testing, performance tests, security tests, and so on
  • Policy controls regarding data access governance, adaptive authentication, and so on
  • Number of similar projects done as well as case studies. You need to align with an IAM vendor that shares your direction

Identifying an established and well-regarded smaller service provider can be a great way to build the capabilities you need without breaking the bank.

Technical expertise

Deploying an IAM solution is rarely a simple plug and play process. Today, most organizations – whether large enterprises or SMEs – use a range of applications, both cloud-based and on-premise. Integration and deployment support therefore need to be key factors in your selection process. While you yourself may not be fully technically aware, here are some questions you need to ask:

  • Does the IAM’s SSO support all of your current and planned apps? Does it come with pre-built connectors for SaaS applications? Also ask about integration kits, token translation capabilities, and support for a range of industry standards.
  • How does your vendor plan to monitor, track, delegate, revoke, suspend or integrate access across applications?
  • Does your vendor have on-prem deployment options while offering flexibility to sync data from heterogeneous data?
  • What approach does your vendor use to handle the migration from a legacy system?
  • What multi-factor authentication options are supported and can they be accessed via APIs, SDKs, or both? Ask about the types of MFA supported — use of mobile devices, push notifications, SMS, and so on. The MFA options need to balance security and user experience.
  • What range of authorization and access policy controls does it provide?

And finally, are you and the vendor the right fit?

You must align with an IAM vendor that shares your direction. Particularly as a small or mid-sized business partnering with a small or niche vendor, you need to both share the same roadmap so that the journey together is smooth. 

Also, before you select a vendor, ask yourself how much technical help you require – do you possess enough internal technical capabilities to deploy an IAM solution on your own? What about post-deployment tech support?

Here are more questions to have answered so you are the right fit. 

  • How customizable is the solution? Can it meet your tech needs today and tomorrow?
  • Is the authentication policy adaptable? It needs to be because a one-size-fits-all authentication can hinder user productivity, experience, and so on. A customized solution is what you are looking for.
  • Are the authentication policies adaptive and scalable? (Do read our previous article on Alternatives to Okta for more)
  • What plans does your vendor have for large-scale deployments and product performance? How are they adapting to emerging standards considering the industry is evolving rapidly?
  • Most importantly, does the IAM vendor’s long-term strategy align with your objectives?

Akku specializes in creating solutions tailor-made for the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. Call us today if you want IAM solutions that best fit your enterprise needs.

Identity and Access Management in the age of Bimodal IT

An important new practice that has emerged over the past few years in IT management is Bimodal IT, defined by Gartner as the practice of managing two separate but coherent styles of work: one focused on predictability; the other on exploration.

While the application of the Bimodal concept within an enterprise has been the subject of much discussion, employing these two modes of management in the context of Identity and Access Management has not.

Here’s our take on how the Bimodal concept fits into our scheme of things as an Identity and Access Management solution provider.

Mode 1

By the standard definition of Bimodal IT, the focus of Mode 1 is on ensuring that existing applications and business functions are kept running smoothly. Therefore, Mode 1 clearly prioritizes stability over innovation.

In the context of IAM, businesses are becoming increasingly complex in the digital age, with touchpoints and interactions with increasingly large numbers of people or users, both within and outside the organization. 

Managing this change requires IAMs to undertake a gradual evolution towards becoming simpler and more scalable. A good example of this would be the need to build in the ability to automate decision-making for setting access rules and permissions based on dynamically collected information on users, from multiple sources.

This evolutionary approach is important to ensure continued forward movement, embracing new practices and technologies, while continuing to place primary emphasis on seamless operations.

Mode 2

Mode 2 in Bimodal IT, on the other hand, places its focus squarely on innovation. In Mode 2, the priority is to undertake larger, but less certain, leaps forward, to enable the existence of entirely new business processes and approaches. 

To look at the Identity and Access Management universe, in Mode 2, the mandate would be to build the next, future-ready new IAM platform. This could involve the development of an all-new, simpler and more scalable architecture from scratch, or incorporating increased agility to adapt to a fast evolving environment, for example.

Mode 2 involves planning and building for scenarios and use-cases that go beyond what conventional thinking can conceive of, to drive the next big change. But with this focus on innovation comes a need to accept some risk as well.

Akku is an enterprise IAM solution, and our journey to get here has involved adopting different facets of Bimodal IT. This process has helped us build a platform that delivers solutions to a range of use-cases that few others can match, and to do it reliably and seamlessly. Talk to us today to see how Akku could enable identity and access management, and more, at your organization.

The Road Ahead: Emerging Trends in the Technology Sector

With each passing year, newer technologies emerge and companies of all sizes adopt them to keep up the competitive, ever-changing business landscape. According to a study by Gartner, the technology roadmap for 2020-2022 is said to be largely based on three major themes – remote work, productivity, and operations.

Here are five major trends expected to shape the future of technology in mid-sized enterprises in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Modernizing network infrastructure 

With the drastic rise in the remote work culture, thanks to the pandemic, mid-sized enterprises are busy equipping themselves better to embrace it in the long term. Some of the major investments in this area include container networking and virtual extensible local area network (VXLAN).

Small and mid-sized enterprises may leverage this opportunity to make work-from-home more mainstream in order to bring down long-term logistical and maintenance costs.

Facilitating secure remote access

In a bid to evolve traditional remote access and VPNs and plug in any related risks of using them while working from home, companies are also seriously considering investments in secured access service edge (SASE) and other cloud-based secure edge technologies.

What’s more, they are also gearing up to incorporate more edge technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR), and so on.

Democratizing of tasks

With the aim to improve speed and agility across business teams, enterprises are deploying citizen integrator tools. to bring data and applications together.

The emphasis will be on deploying no-code or low-code applications that are user-friendly and will promote “citizen development”.

Investing in automation tools and AI

In order to enhance employee productivity and streamline product/project delivery, more and more enterprises are also adopting automation tools for workload automation, event correlation, and so on.

A number of AI technologies that facilitate natural language processing and chatbots are also in the pipeline, although not until a year or so later. 

Adopting monitoring technologies

With the expansion of the virtual workplace, manual monitoring of employees and tasks is becoming obsolete. And with that, a slew of different monitoring tools for Digital experience monitoring (DEM) and application performance monitoring (APM) have hit the market.

Enterprise-wide workplace analytics solutions are also in the offing for a majority (80%) of mid-sized enterprises.

Redesigning security practices

With virtualized firewalls, software-defined security, and firewall-as-a-service solutions, mid-sized enterprises are simplifying the provisioning of security services at par with their larger counterparts.

They are also centralizing the governance of policies to support mixed workloads, keeping in mind the future of work.

Revamping front-end and back-end operations

With more focus on newer front-end operation technologies, enterprises are strengthening their cloud infrastructure and application development processes by deploying serverless computing, microservices, and OS containers.

At the same time, legacy back-end infrastructure, if any, is also being modernized. In this way, they are making the move towards low-risk, high-value investments that also minimize the time and effort needed for infrastructure management.

Finding it difficult to keep up with evolving trends? CloudNow Technologies has a solution that includes all that your business needs for secure remote working, seamless operations, and enhanced productivity in the new normal. It also comes equipped to evolve with your business as it grows. Get in touch with us to know more!

Digital Transformation: Considerations for a Post-Pandemic World

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“Digital transformation” has been a buzzword well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In those pre-COVID times, digital transformation was only seen as a fancy way of saying that a business was being modernized. Many assumed that digital transformation is a one-time effort; a new tool/technology is introduced and it is considered done. Often an initiative spearheaded and undertaken by a handful of stalwarts within the company, it didn’t often have the support or involvement of other stakeholders.

Shifting Perspectives

Today, we hear the term “digital transformation” once again. But this time, it sounds different, important, and even necessary! Did the COVID-19 pandemic contribute to this paradigm shift in perspective? Indeed, it appears so!

In the post-COVID world, the importance of digital transformation is coming to the forefront, as the pandemic forced people to stay indoors and search for ways to work efficiently from home. There has been a pressing need for the rapid rise in the use of technology across industries and around the world. Workers and employers are connecting digitally and learning new skills and ways to manage their responsibilities through the use of technology. And this is pushing businesses, institutions, and governments out of their comfort zones and into the threshold of digital transformation.

Several experts are also stating that digital transformation is the way to building a resilient business in the new normal, causing many businesses of all sizes to consider it seriously.

If you are one of them, here are three important facts you must first know:

Digital transformation is not easy

Over 70% of digital transformations fail. Although different organizations fail due to different reasons, mismatched goals among management teams, the lack of expert support, a top-down approach that doesn’t involve employees and end users, and “exhaustion” from attempting to scale/transform too quickly are among the top reasons reported by companies.

Commitment is one of the most crucial elements to kick-start a digital transformation. There will be challenges, but if you keep the end goal in sight, you can keep at it till you succeed.

Digital transformation is a journey

You can choose to call it a journey, a process, or a metamorphosis – but what digital transformation is not is something that can be achieved overnight. From strategizing to setting clear goals and finding the right technology that will work well with your employees and customers – there’s a lot that leads the way to a solid digital transformation.

Moreover, for a digital transformation to stay relevant, it is important for it to also adapt and evolve with the progress of your company.

Digitize, digitalize, then digitally transform

The road to digital transformation begins with digitization. In other words, the conversion of analog data and documents to digital format. Digitization is the important first step because the digitized data becomes the source for leveraging digital technologies; or digitalization.

Digital transformation goes beyond digitization and digitalization (but includes the two) to an organization-wide adoption of digital technology, accompanied by cultural change. Digital transformation, therefore, cannot be complete without the stakeholders.

There are Challenges, Threats and a World of Opportunities

While digital technology has paved the way for many employees to work from home during the pandemic, it has also underlined multiple challenges and barriers that people and communities may have. Uneducated people, for example, cannot enjoy the luxury of working from home. The case is similar to those who cannot afford a computer or stable internet connection and those in regions that lack proper infrastructure.

Another reason why technology is sometimes seen as an enemy in developing countries is the fear that robots and technological innovations will reduce the need for manpower. It is true that technology can replace low-skilled manual labor in a manufacturing unit to mass-produce products faster and, now, to reduce the risk of disease spread. It is also true that the rise of popular online stores that offer contactless shopping experiences can put physical shops at risk.

However, technology is also an enabler of jobs and opportunities, as it has led to the creation of many new occupations and jobs. It can create safer, more comfortable, and efficient alternatives. It can help companies grow and do business in countries around the world, without the need for physical presence. The digital world is also becoming a platform for people of all backgrounds to showcase their talents and get recognized.

Digital transformation can mean different things to different organizations and different people. What you need is the right vision, commitment, expert support, and the right tools that match your needs and are ready to journey from one stage to the next with you.

CloudNow’s Akku BCOR is a holistic solution that is designed to power your digital transformation, regardless of whether your business is struggling to survive, trying to revive operations, ready to drive productivity, or preparing to thrive in the new normal! Get in touch with us to know more.

5 Facts You Need To Know About Data & Data-Driven Decision Making

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Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) is the process of using insights drawn from data to aid the process of decision making in an organization.

In as early as 2016, a survey by PwC revealed that data-driven organizations are three times more likely to experience significant improvements in the decision-making process when compared to those that don’t. According to the same survey, data-driven decision making brings together the right combination of “mind and machine”.

If you haven’t yet embraced data in the way you should for decision making, here are some reasons why you should:

Every organization collects data in some way or the other

Believe it or not, your ops staff are spending 2-3 hours a day collecting data of some kind. In most cases, the data simply goes into a folder, for reporting or record-keeping. In fact, almost 54% of the data collected by a company goes “dark” or unused. Why not leverage it instead? By putting your data to work, you will be amazed at how much it can help you improve your operational efficiency and fuel your business growth!

Start with the data you are already collecting to use in decision making and you can gradually expand your databases depending on the need.

Data can help you make informed, unbiased decisions

Usually, the process of decision making is highly influenced by preconceived notions, suggestions of superiors, our own intuitions, and your team’s past experiences. While MIT and Harvard experts agree that intuition cannot be neglected altogether (for in some ways, even intuition is data-driven), relying on data means that your decision eliminates bias and is backed up by hard facts. Reducing the effect of bias in decision making can help you achieve up to 7% higher returns (McKinsey). Your only challenge here is to ensure that the data you collect is accurate and without errors – a problem that can be solved by using automation instead of manual methods.

As long as your data is authentic, you can be assured that it will make a difference to your bottom line.

Data helps you learn from the past and make predictions for the future

The power of data is that it can not only be used to study historical trends for decision making, but also to build futuristic predictions with the right tools. While it is true that we cannot foresee the future, it is possible to make near-perfect estimations using predictive and prescriptive analytics.

Leverage the right technology to auto-generate data-driven insights through easy-to-understand graphical representations in intuitive dashboards.

DDDM contributes to increased productivity and profitability

The Wall Street Journal records an MIT study that proved primarily data-driven benefited from 4% higher productivity as well as 6% higher profits. If you do not collect enough within your organization to use for decision making, opt for big data resources. According to studies by BARC, big data can help increase profit by 8–10% and ensure an overall cost reduction of up to 10%.

In short, the effectiveness of using data in decision making is time-tested and proven.

DDDM can be used to enhance multiple areas of your business

From zeroing in on cost-effective measures for different processes to identifying the right channels for marketing your new product with maximum ROI, and enhancing turnaround time for customer service – data-driven decision making can be utilized to improve all areas of your business.

We recommend that you begin with internal processes, such as reviewing employee productivity based on the number of working hours and then branch out to other areas gradually.

Getting Started with Data-driven Decision Making

  1. Find out what data you already collect, identify ways to incorporate it into your decision-making process
  2. Assess your data collection methods, improve it using automation technology to reduce time taken for collection, improve accuracy of data, and effectiveness of the overall process
  3. Use a data integration tool to bring all your collected data to one common platform in a readily usable format and maintain a master repository for easy access
  4. Incorporate business intelligence and use intuitive dashboards to make data analysis and visualization a hassle-free step in the process.

At CloudNow, we offer automation, data integration, data analysis. intuitive dashboards and much more for data-driven decision making through a holistic Business Continuity and Operational Resilience (BCOR) solution. To make the most of your data today, get in touch with us now!

Cybersecurity Trends 2020: What’s in Store

The year 2019 has been a significant one in the technology world, with several high profile cases grabbing headlines. In fact, according to a recent article by DataQuest India, there were at least four areas of interest which were highlighted this year – Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) threats, showstopper vulnerabilities like in the case of URGENT/11, speculative execution vulnerabilities such as Meltdown and Spectre, and finally the many ransomware attacks. 

As we move on to a whole new decade, it’s important to take stock of what the past decade has taught us and what the future has in store. In the cybersecurity world, experts bear past experiences in mind and routinely predict a number of innovative techniques that could be used to infiltrate security systems. Each year, different methods and new approaches are introduced or discussed, touching upon all those concerns about data protection and the challenges ahead.  Continue reading Cybersecurity Trends 2020: What’s in Store

Understanding Offensive Security

Approximately two billion records were stolen between July and October 2019. That’s just in one quarter of a year! This is several times more than what was stolen last year – half a billion records. Even as organizations continue to invent new technology and pump in more and more funds (an estimated $124 billion in 2019) to secure data, the number of breaches also continues to rise – at an alarming rate!

It’s becoming evident that cybersecurity software solutions alone are not enough anymore. There is an urgent need to train employees and bring in experts who can close the loopholes left by software solutions. Therein arises the concept of offensive security. Continue reading Understanding Offensive Security

5 Identity Governance & Administration Mistakes You Should Avoid

Identity governance and administration (IGA) is the policy-based implementation of user identity and access to ensure security and compliance across the IT environment. In IGA, the first step is to remain aware of risks and then follow the best possible practices to mitigate them by improving visibility and accountability. Continue reading 5 Identity Governance & Administration Mistakes You Should Avoid