The COVID pandemic has disrupted many industries and has fueled the growth of others. According to the Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud report, 90% of companies surveyed are increasing their cloud usage due to the pandemic and the resultant digital shift.
Updated infrastructure
Over the last few years, the number of cyberattacks has increased because hackers have access to better tools and are more tech-savvy than the average employee.
To some extent, this increase in data breaches is also due to the organization’s outdated infrastructure. From an organization’s standpoint, it’s too expensive and infeasible to upgrade their network infrastructure once every few years to make it more secure. This is often seen as one of the biggest reasons for the growing increase in hacking incidents.
Meets compliance
Compliance with statutory regulations and standards is one of the biggest challenges today. In addition to meeting security standards, organizations have to meet stringent laws related to data privacy, ensure transparent data practices, and allow users to stay on top of how their data is used.
Organizations find it increasingly hard to meet these stringent compliance regulations with their in-house IAM solutions. Soffid, on the other hand, helps organizations to comply with these regulations through its features. Our intelligent analytics continuously monitor for and identify new access risks while providing native connectors with GRC solutions so risk managers can create holistic enterprise risk management strategies.
Easy to use
Soffid is not just for security. A simple and quick registration process on customer-facing applications will boost the conversion rates for organizations as more customers would be forthcoming to the idea of a secure login to access the organization’s services. Further, a single sign-on across all the organization’s resources is sure to add to a user’s convenience.
Custom solutions
We can customize our platform to meet an organization’s specific requirements as it supports different identity managements. Further, it can be designed separately for employees and external customers or as a unified IAM solution, depending on the organization’s needs.
Ease of use
Your customers and employees must find it easy to use Soffid solution. This usability is critical for adoption and to reduce the number of helpdesk calls. Also the resultant workload on your IT team. Consider your employees’ and customers’ demographics while deciding on an identity solution and aim to enhance the overall user experience. Consider your future prospects and their demographics as well.
Meets your compliance standards
Every industry has to adhere to a specific set of compliance standards, so make sure you know what these standards are and how Soffid can comply with them. Thus, these are some of the factors to consider.
Why IDaas has become a pandemic tool
It offers many benefits such as better security, a good user experience, compliance with industry standards, and more.
Private and public organizations were on a journey towards a digital business model, digitalization in companies travelling at varying speeds. But the scale of the pandemic has forced a dramatic acceleration, both in the speed of change and the required investment in digital transformation.
According to KPMG’s 2020 global survey, organizations are investing heavily in technology to address immediate concerns like falling revenue and interrupted supply chains, and to build longer-term competitiveness and resilience.
t’s a struggle to find many positives about the current coronavirus pandemic, however there are a few interesting aspects that are starting to emerge. Trends that may well bring significant positive benefits as their full impact is felt in the months and years to come. One of these is the likely acceleration of digital transformation projects.
Cyber security and IT operational challenges, cost pressures, risk aversion and the skills gap are all driving the digital transformation agenda. On the plus side, benefits such as innovation and improvement of products and services, efficiency and an uptick in organizational agility are all expected outcomes.
Why Will COVID-19 Accelerate The Pace Of Change?
As vast swathes of the workforce shift to remote working and pressure increases to enable digital delivery of products and services traditionally rooted outside the online space, the pressure to be a truly digital organization will only increase. Organizations of all shapes and sizes will face renewed commercial pressure to negate the downsides through digital transformation and realize the benefits it offers in order to remain viable.
Organizations and investment in digital transformation
We are in a time where COVID-19 has transformed the future of business forever. Organizations from all sectors globally have been focusing on transforming digitally to ensure that the needs of their organization, customers, citizens, patients, and greater stakeholder community are met. The move from physical and on-premises to digital was critical to ensure organizations’ survival through COVID-19, as well as setting an example for potential challenges that may occur in the future.
There are very few industries unimpacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, retail is an industry that has seen Digital Transformation skyrocket. With the breakneck pace of change required for retailers to compete for business online further compounded by the influx of bricks-and-mortar businesses to e-commerce due to global restrictions and lockdowns, full-scale Digital Transformation very quickly became inevitable.
All this is to say that the conversations in business have shifted rapidly over the past year to a unanimous; understanding that digitization of services in addition to industry disruption due to rapid advancements in the technologies available to businesses are now changing the shape of commerce forever. Businesses that want to keep up, or survive in reality, will need to transform radically – not just digitally, but in mindset too.
The way we interact with services has changed. Many of us are now fully ‘remote’—not only are we working from home, but also learning, shopping, exercising, and other day to day activities.
We’ve all had to adjust. But for companies in particular, it’s raising questions about how to maintain business continuity. Unable to conduct business as normal, many have turned to alternative solutions and business models. Restaurants have started providing food deliveries, gyms are offering virtual classes; and even hairdressers are offering tutorials online to help people cut their own hair.
These alternative solutions will likely require some form of digital innovation or optimization. In some cases, it’s fast-forwarding digitization processes that businesses were already exploring; and in others, it’s bringing to light new ones which hadn’t been considered.
What does this mean for a post-Covid world?
With many businesses turning to alternative digital solutions now more than ever before. Will there be no going back once the Covid pandemic has passed?
If digital solutions are more convenient, offer a better user experience; and are more scalable for businesses, why would we then revert to time-consuming, inefficient manual or face to face processes?. Are we seeing a glimpse into the future, where digital processes dramatically improve the way businesses function; and the way they serve customers?
We’re familiar with new tech start-ups, for example challenger banks, using digital processes to their advantage. But we may see more digital processes taken up by traditional services, such as mainstream banks. Hotel check-ins, voting and car rentals.
One thing to keep in mind with digital transformation however; is that as it develops, we risk widening the gap between those; who turn to digital options and those who don’t. Not only could this impact businesses, but we must also consider customers who might find it more difficult; to use digital alternatives, for example older generations.
However, if done right, digital transformation could help secure the future of many companies. The pandemic has highlighted the fact that businesses around the world need to become more flexible and more digital. And that through doing so, it could ensure that they emerge from the Covid pandemic stronger than they were beforehand.
Sources:
(1) KPMG
(2) Deloitte
(3) CioInsight
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Global data or personal data security, cyber data security online
Nowadays security issues are a prime concern because most identity methods are not so effective. The more technology is improving, the more new threats are coming and IAM is needed to significantly mitigate them. Due to the amount of information which is stored, used and transmitted, companies must define certain restrictions regarding who is allowed to access data. Providing a secure access is a serious challenge to IT professionals who must simultaneously meet the needs of different users across numerous, disparate applications.
Meeting these demands across a variety of on-premises and cloud applications requires the use of agile identity and access management solutions. Effective IAM solutions help enterprises provide secure and efficient access to technology resources across diverse systems. They also deliver a number of significant benefits which is a good reason to implement Identity and Access Management IAM solution in your business.
Identity and access management (IAM) helps you securely control who has access to your systems, applications, and data within your organization, as well as where they can go within those systems.
With proper IAM solutions in place, organizations will be able to define who has what level of access.
What Is IAM?
Identity and access management encompasses a lot, but at its core IAM is about identity. IAM is set of policies, procedures, and protocols used to secure access to computing resources. Its primary purposes are security, compliance, and business continuity.
IAM is set of policies, procedures, and protocols used to secure access to computing resources.
The identity part of IAM is the methods by which an organization can verify that an individual is who they say they are. Additionally The access part of IAM refers to the process of determining how each individual should be allowed to access specific information, hardware, or software tools within an organization’s infrastructure.
The purpose of IAM is to provide access control to IT resources by managing user accounts, devices, applications, files, services, systems, and networks. In doing so, an organization can ensure that all business data is secure. IT can also create data policies that prevent data loss or theft.
Components of Identity and Access Management
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s break down exactly what identity and access management entails. There are four basic components:
User provisioning
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
Account security
Integration
An enterprise should have at least three to five goals when choosing an IAM solution — and again, these will depend on your unique needs. A good way to tell if your system is outmoded or inefficient is by monitoring login success rates. Ideally, your success rate should be above 95%. If it’s hovering around 75% or less, then something is wrong!
Main Benefits of Identity and Access Management
Improved security
IAM solutions help identify and mitigate security risks. You can use IAM to identify policy violations or remove inappropriate access privileges, without the need to search multiple distributed systems.. You can also leverage IAM to ensure that security measures are in place to meet regulatory and audit requirements.
Information sharing
IAM provides a common platform for access and identity management information. Additionally you can apply the same security policies across all the operating platforms and devices used by the organization. IAM frameworks can help you enforce policies related to user authentication, privileges, and validation, and attend to “privilege creep”.
Ease of use
IAM simplifies signup, sign-in and user management processes for application owners, end-users and system administrators. IAM makes it simple to provide and manage access, additionally and this promotes user satisfaction.
Productivity gains
IAM centralizes and automates the identity and access management lifecycle, creating automated workflows for scenarios like a new hire or a role transition. Additionally this can improve processing time for access and identity changes and reduce errors.
Reduced IT Costs
IAM services can lower operating costs. Using federated identity services means you no longer need local identities for external uses; this makes application administration easier. Additionally cloud-based IAM services can reduce the need to buy and maintain on-premise infrastructure.
Compliance managagement
AM systems are instrumental in compliance efforts. Additionally It can provide many of the safety controls required by security standards and can demonstrate to auditors that corporate information is appropriately controlled.
In today’s world of enterprise IT, there are many factors that a company. Must consider in order to decide whether a cloud infrastructure is the right fit. Conversely, there are many companies that are unable make the leap into the cloud. Instead relying on their tried-and-true legacy and on-premise applications and software to do business.
Which path is the correct one for your enterprise depends entirely. On your needs and what it is you’re looking for in a solution.
Deployment
On Premises: In an on-premises environment, resources are deployed in-house and within an enterprise’s IT infrastructure. An enterprise is responsible for maintaining the solution and all its related processes.
Cloud: While there are different forms of cloud computing (such as public cloud. Private cloud, and a hybrid cloud), in a public cloud computing environment. Resources are hosted on the premises of the service provider but enterprises are able to access those resources and use as much as they want at any given time.
Cost
On Premises: For enterprises that deploy software on premise, they are responsible for the ongoing costs of the server hardware, power consumption, and space.
Cloud: Enterprises that elect to use a cloud computing model only need to pay for the resources that they use. With none of the maintenance and upkeep costs, and the price adjusts. Additionally up or down depending on how much is consumed.
Control
On Premises: In an on-premises environment, enterprises retain all their data and are fully in control of what happens to it, for better or worse. Companies in highly regulated industries with extra privacy concerns are more likely to hesitate to leap into the cloud before others because of this reason.
Cloud: In a cloud computing environment, the question of ownership of data is one that many companies – and vendors for that matter, have struggled with. Data and encryption keys reside within your third-party provider, so if the unexpected happens and there is downtime, you maybe be unable to access that data.
Security
On Premises: Companies that have extra sensitive information, such as government and banking industries must have a certain level of security and privacy that an on-premises environment provides. Despite the promise of the cloud, security is the primary concern for many industries, so an on-premises environment, despite some of its drawbacks and price tag, make more sense.
Cloud: Security concerns remain the number one barrier to cloud computing deployment. There have been many publicized cloud breaches. Additionally and IT departments around the world are concerned. From personal information of employees such as login credentials to a loss of intellectual property, the security threats are real.
Compliance
On Premises: Many companies these days operate under some form of regulatory control, regardless of the industry. Perhaps the most common one is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). For private health information, additionally but there are many others. Including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which contains detailed student records. Additionally and other government and industry regulations. For companies that are subject to such regulations, it is imperative that they remain compliant and know where their data is at all times.
Cloud: Enterprises that do choose a cloud computing model must do their due diligence and ensure that their third-party provider is up to code and in fact compliant with all of the different regulatory mandates within their industry.
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Converged IAM (Identity and Access Management). Unifies disparate physical and logical access control systems to create a singular trusted identity and credential to match rights and access them across the enterprise. Additionally Converged IAM can’t exist without network connections between these logical and physical identity systems.
Soffid unifies processes, policies and procedures across enterprise access systems, additionally enabling comprehensive governance and simplified compliance. The platform provides centralized and converged identity and access governance that extends across physical, logical and operational access environments. The solution provides preventive risk analysis and active policy enforcement in addition to converged risk and identity analytics, including unified user access view.
The corporate world
Experienced a significant uptick in physical and cybersecurity threats due to the pandemic sending millions of employees home to work. Nevertheless, technology available today makes linking the physical and cybersecurity realms easier than it ever has been before. And the changing role of today’s CISO provides a more comprehensive view of keeping all forms of security cohesive, and up to date.
CISOs and their supporting departments struggle with providing the right people. With the appropriate level of access to the right technology . The process of managing the level of provisioning for identity and credential management for all employees that join. Leave, or move within the organization is already a high-volume task. Additionally, the expansion of the gig economy has forced corporations to have to factor in additional users that need. Access to corporate data, tools, content, and access to physical spaces from third parties and contractors, only adding to the overall risk for the organization.
Managing
That amount of change requires technology to support the process. Identity and access management tools have been heavily invested in by organizations to create central control over access to their virtual networks, applications, and data such as Soffid. These solutions become the gateway to propagate identities and the correct level of control across the entire environment. To ensure up-to-date and authoritative information is being utilized and is connected to the rest of the organization. Having a link to employee directories allows technology to rapidly identify authorized users and de-provision users to remove facility access quickly and easily.
Forward-thinking CISOs and CSOs are now looking more broadly at security and how to not only mitigate risk but also how they can make their departments more efficient. These leaders are looking at how they connect the IAM solution to other parts of the organization such as physical access control as a more centralized process as well as ensuring that there is a single record of truth on individual access. These CISOs expect access control solutions to integrate their IAM solutions with their physical credentialing and access control. Ultimately, by doing this, their teams save time and effort, by utilizing a single source of truth for access (physical and virtual), automatically eliminating access upon offboarding.
From a data and risk management perspective, with these systems connected. CISOs and threat analysts in the Security Operations Center (SOC). Additionally have more data and visibility as they investigate threats and understand the level of risk or exposure from a cyber and physical event.
The IAM industry
Today needs a solution that can provide holistic solutions with a proactive approach to security – Converged IAM enables this possibility, bringing together Access Management, additionally Identity Governance and Administration, and Privileged Access Management in single platform. This improves the cybersecurity landscape by leaps and bounds, making. IAM easily accessible for organizations of all market sizes while decreasing budget. Overruns that come with acquiring multiple separate IAM solutions. It also eases supplier management, reduces lengthy invoices and makes IAM easier to use. This increases user adoption, dramatically increases ROI and therefore retains stakeholder interest.
We’d love to hear from you. See how Soffid can help you stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving digital world. Get Started!
References:
(1) EC-Council Global Services
(2) Security Infowatch
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