Only a small percentage of people across industries understand the difference between Identity Management and Access Management. The two concepts are certainly related and intricately interwoven, but they are still distinct in meaning and function.
Continue reading Exploring the Difference Between Identity Management and Access Management
Tag: IAM basics
Managing Identity and Access in the Workplace
Identity and access management, sometimes simply known as identity management, refers to the IT function of maintaining security through the management of digital identities. In a workplace, this includes provisioning employees with accounts to all applications and platforms they will be using for their official tasks, assigning them with the right kind of permissions to each of these applications/platforms, and making sure that the right people have the right access to the right resources and data. Continue reading Managing Identity and Access in the Workplace
Begin Here to Build a Trusted Business
According to the PwC 21st Annual Global Survey, reliability, congruence, consistency, and transparency are the four pillars for building trust among customers and other stakeholders. The same survey also found that 65% of CEOs are concerned about declining trust in business. If you have the same concern, here are some useful suggestions!
Identity and Access Management for Social Engineering Attacks
When in action, a social engineering attack could look like an email received from a government organization or your own organization asking your employees to divulge their credentials. The basis of social engineering attacks is to induce fear or urgency in unsuspecting users and employees into handing over sensitive information. Over the years, these attacks have become more sophisticated – even if you open a mail or message from a possible attacker, malware is immediately installed on your system. Continue reading Identity and Access Management for Social Engineering Attacks
Security vs. Usability
Security vs. usability – the debate has been around for quite a while now. Which one would you prioritize? Would you consider convenience more important than security when it comes to the identity management of consumers? What are your users more inclined to? Is there a way to find a balance between the two? Continue reading Security vs. Usability
What is ADFS and why do you need it?
ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) is an SSO solution created by Microsoft to authenticate users logging into applications which are incompatible with Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA) and Active Directory (AD).
ADFS provides organizations with the flexibility needed to simplify the user experience while improving the control that admins have over user accounts across owned as well as third-party applications. Since ADFS implements SSO, your employees are required to remember only one set of credentials for all the applications. Continue reading What is ADFS and why do you need it?
Customer Identity and Access Management – How is it different from IAM?
For organizations, it is crucial to ensure data security and, therefore, IAM has become a crucial part of every network security effort. Identity and access management at the organization-level – mostly include IAM solutions for enterprise applications used by organizations to authenticate and validate employees and a relatively small number of users. But how different is the situation with B2C businesses and other organizations who have huge numbers of internal and external users using their online services every day? Continue reading Customer Identity and Access Management – How is it different from IAM?
What is Continuous Authentication?
Technology users today are spoilt for choice when it comes to the types of devices and the variety of platforms through which they can stay connected to work and social groups. They can access their accounts from simply anywhere and at any time, as long as they can authenticate their identities.
However, the process of authentication as we know it has remained largely static – the user provides the system with their credentials at the time of access, the system matches it against its database of user data and provides the user access to the network on successfully validating their credentials.
Continuous authentication brings in a new approach to network security, and the reception it has received goes to show the importance companies attach to their security today. Continuous authentication can help your organization protect itself from ‘session imposters’ who try to take over sessions which are open even after the employee is done using them. It also helps you protect your network from credential stuffing attacks and phishing.
What is Continuous Authentication?
In continuous authentication, users are rated based on ‘authentication scores’ which aim to determine, based on user behavior, if the user is actually who he/she is claiming to be. With advanced algorithms which are fast becoming smart enough to understand human behavior, networks can essentially monitor user behavior to determine a user’s authenticity.
For example, in a banking application, if the security solution detects an anomaly in user behavior, it can prompt a logout or request for additional information like fingerprint or password to ensure that the account is used only by the designated person.
Continuous authentication has become powerful enough to analyze information from the various sensors of smartphones and other devices to monitor the pressure on the keypad, the amount of time being spent on an application etc.
With certain continuous authentication solutions, organizations can also assign restrictions based on tolerable risk by specifying the minimum confidence score and factors like a user’s location or time of the access request.
When you implement a continuous authentication solution, think in terms of acceptable risk and context – certain applications in your network might need lower authentication scores than other, more critical, applications.
While planning to deploy a continuous authentication system, it is also important to ensure that it is compatible with your existing security solution and covers all the areas of your organization’s network.
We understand that cybersecurity is becoming more fluid and security solutions are becoming more powerful and customizable. Akku’s DNS filtering and geolocation features can be used to score your users, and this information can be used to continuously authenticate them. To know more about how we can help you, get in touch with us now.
A How-to Guide to Privileged Identity Management
Privileged Identity Management (PIM) refers to the control and monitoring of access and activity involving privileged user identities within an organization. Privileged identities include those of superusers or super control users such as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Database Administrator (DBA), and other top management officials.
Usually, such accounts are given access to all applications and data within an organization, along with the highest levels of permissions. However, many times, such unlimited access has been the cause for data breaches. When an organization’s data is compromised from a privileged user or their account, it is known as Privilege Abuse or Privileged User Abuse. Continue reading A How-to Guide to Privileged Identity Management
What is advanced server access?
Advanced Server Access is a relatively new aspect of identity and access management system for the cloud. In fact, it fits better under the umbrella of privileged access management (PAM). PAM is built on top of IdPs and ADs, which are crucial for identity and access management for on-prem networks. By being used in conjunction with ADs, PAM has been able to successfully provide enhanced control over identity for administrators and other privileged users.
What is PAM?
Privileged access management helps to secure and control privileged access to critical assets on an on-premise network. With PAM, the credentials of admin accounts are placed inside a virtual vault to isolate the accounts from any risk. Once the credentials are placed in the repository, admins are required to go through the PAM system every time they need access to the critical areas of a network. For every single login, their footprint is logged and authenticated. After every cycle, the credentials are reset, ensuring that admins have to create a new log for every access request. Continue reading What is advanced server access?