Why is multi-factor authentication indispensable?

Ever heard of the butterfly theory? A single flap of a butterfly’s wings in Australia has the potential to cause a tsunami in Indonesia. Similarly, a minor tweak in your IT infrastructure has the potential to make every node of your network vulnerable to serious attacks, irrespective of their relationship. To ensure that network security remains as streamlined as possible through any number of changes to your IT systems, it is crucial to add a virtually unhackable component to your network security.

Continue reading Why is multi-factor authentication indispensable?

The IAM Imperative: Through An SMB’s Eyes

Today’s MNCs were once small or medium businesses (SMBs). Small and medium businesses are the proving ground for emerging technology, as they have tight budgets and require specific, targeted functionality that suits their style and processes. Once products and solutions pass this litmus test, they start becoming more mainstream, being absorbed more widely by companies and consumers.

Continue reading The IAM Imperative: Through An SMB’s Eyes

Password Managers can be Hacked. Now What?

On average, every person has 7.6 accounts – that’s a lot of user IDs and passwords for an individual! Remembering the user ID and password for all these accounts is obviously very cumbersome, and third party service providers have capitalized on this to provide password management services. A password manager is essentially a single repository for all your credentials. Two very popular password managers are LastPass and Dashlane. These are applications which will store your credentials in a “secure” database. However, they haven’t been spared by hackers, who breached their security to get access to thousands of user credentials.

Continue reading Password Managers can be Hacked. Now What?

Why Blocking Personal Emails in the Workplace is Essential

Your employees accessing their personal email at work for a few minutes in a day sounds harmless enough. But access to personal email in the workplace is in fact a potential hazard to company data, security, and productivity for a number of reasons.

Continue reading Why Blocking Personal Emails in the Workplace is Essential

Can you Trust the Agent on your Active Directory?

If a company works with very few applications, user repositories would have to be mapped individually for each application. Every new user needs to be validated with each individual user directories to be able to access the respective protected application. This means that the same user has to log in separately every time he/she wants to use each application on the network. The inefficiency of this model was reduced greatly with the advent of Active Directory and LDAP.

A significant number of identity and access management solutions have the need to work with Active Directory as the repository of user information against which access is verified. Active Directory generally controls user identity and access permissions to everything from files, networks, and servers, to on-premise and cloud applications. However, integrating an Active Directory or LDAP with on-premise and cloud applications require third-party agents to be installed on your network.

Continue reading Can you Trust the Agent on your Active Directory?

Cloud Multi-factor Authentication is the Future of Network Security

Is the only thing standing between your business’ critical data and a cyber attack a set of usernames and passwords? If yes, then it’s definitely time for a security upgrade for your cloud and on-premise applications.

We are increasingly using applications on our smartphones for business and personal purposes. Everyday activities have become much easier and more efficient to perform; what used to take us days to process can take us seconds today.

Continue reading Cloud Multi-factor Authentication is the Future of Network Security

DNS Filters for a Safe, Compliant, Productive Workplace

Domain Name System (DNS) is an addressing system used by the internet through which domain names are located and translated into internet protocol (IP) addresses. When a user attempts to access a website through an internet browser, a DNS query is performed. The DNS server matches the request to the respective IP address of the domain and responds to the query by loading the requested web page on the user’s browser.

So what is DNS Filtering? It is a technique by which access to specific websites, web pages, or IP addresses, can be blocked or permitted. If a DNS filter is in place, the IP address being returned from the DNS server will be checked before it is permitted to load on the user’s browser. Therefore, DNS filtering ensures that the user is protected from online threats like viruses, malware, ransomware, and so on. DNS web filtering can also be used to block inappropriate websites and web pages that the user may be searching for, especially at the workplace.

Continue reading DNS Filters for a Safe, Compliant, Productive Workplace

Adaptive Authentication for more efficient MFA security

Adaptive authentication, method for enforcing the right authentication factors depending on users profile and tendencies. It acts to balance the level of trust against risk.

Adaptive authentication is the way that two factor authentication or multi factor authentication can be configured or deployed.

Continue reading Adaptive Authentication for more efficient MFA security

IAM using SSO and Federated Identity Management

Identity management encompasses several operational mechanisms for managing users across a large system or network of applications. Two of the most prominent of those are Single Sign-on (SSO) and Federated Identity Management. Due to its evolving nature, identity and access management has several terms thrown around ambiguously. Even among developers, major differences are often missed while talking about federated identity and SSO. In this article, we aim to break down the difference between the two.

Continue reading IAM using SSO and Federated Identity Management