Author: Madhav Sattanathan

Madhav Sattanathan stepped into the technology realm at a very young age and, having nurtured this passion for technology consistently and persistently, has emerged as a technology leader equipped with the skills and knowledge to provide the right solutions for business growth. A Finance degree from Purdue University and a wealth of experience across various industries have trained him to solve real-world business problems with practiced knowledge and intuitive vision. Madhav, with his penchant for innovation, resolved to combine his technology and business know-how to deliver high-quality products and services at low costs. Akku was his brainchild at a time when the cloud was quickly gaining ground, and control over cloud environments was an increasingly felt need. Akku has evolved considerably under Madhav's watch to become the enterprise-grade identity and access management platform it is today, with the genuine ability to go toe-to-toe with the biggest global names in the industry.

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.

Burn down the Firewall! The Future is Device-level Security

Many enterprises have built their cybersecurity around their firewalls. But increasingly, the firewall is losing favor in modern enterprises with apps and data on the cloud being accessed from devices and networks anywhere in the world.

The traditional cybersecurity tool is a network security device that monitors traffic to or from the network. It allows or restricts traffic based on a defined set of security rules.

Legacy firewalls: Blurring boundaries

The issue with this is that firewalls do not go far enough in securing your systems. By the nature of their operation, firewalls create boundaries around your network. Today, with enterprises using many interlinked networks, multiple IPs and cloud computing, boundaries are fading. As a result, firewalls are less effective.

Based on a recent study, businesses are increasingly mistrustful of firewalls. Over 60 percent of respondents stated that: (1) their legacy firewalls don’t prevent cyberattacks against critical business and cloud-based applications; (2) their legacy firewalls cannot contain a breach of their organization’s data center perimeter; and (3) their legacy firewalls do not enable enterprise-wide Zero Trust.

As Gartner puts it, Zero Trust is “useful as a shorthand way of describing an approach where implicit trust is removed from all computing infrastructure”.

In addition, legacy firewalls impact organization flexibility and speed to a large extent. It is hard to update security rules on the firewall, and the study found that on average, enterprises take as much as three weeks to update firewall rules to accommodate any update needed. This can have a crushing security impact. They also limit access control, with policies that are often not sufficiently granular.

For all these reasons, legacy firewalls are increasingly falling into disfavor with enterprises of all sizes.

Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)

A traditional firewall stands between your network and a non-trusted network (for example, the Internet). However, cloud data and apps are hosted on the Internet and as a result, legacy firewalls are not very good at protecting apps and data on the cloud.

Just like a traditional firewall protects the trusted network against attacks, a CASB protects cloud assets (applications, data, platforms and infrastructure) against cyberattack. They act as a foundational cybersecurity tool and resolve many of the issues associated with legacy firewalls.

A cloud-hosted or on-premises software, a CASB acts as an intermediary between users and cloud service providers, and can secure SaaS, PaaS or IaaS environments. It provides visibility into application access, maintains logs of activity, and allows enterprises to modify and create policies that suit cloud infrastructure and assets. A good CASB brings together key elements of privilege access management (PAM), identity and access management (IAM) and identity governance and administration (IGA).

Identity and Access Management solution (IAM)

As many as 90 percent of businesses believe that an IAM is indispensable to their cybersecurity plans. An IAM offers device-level security. This helps plug the gaps left by legacy and CASBs. Through IAMs, enterprises can provide granular access control, with unique rules defined for each user and class of user.

IAM offers comprehensive password management support, in the form of password policy management and single sign-on (SSO) SSO allows users to create and remember just one set of credentials for a whole suite of applications. This reduces risk of password loss and noting the password in unsafe locations. With password policy management, businesses can define rules to create strong, secure passwords that are less prone to cracking.

User-friendly provisioning and deprovisioning makes errors less likely. IT administrators find it easier to remember to revoke access when employees leave the organization when deprovisioning can be done with a single click. This also secures cloud apps against unauthorized access.

In a very real way, identity is the new firewall. When the device is secure against unauthorized logins, business-critical apps and data are as well, whether housed on-premises or on the cloud. Secure identity and access with an IAM you trust – like Akku, the premier IAM. Contact our experts today to discuss how to get started.

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!

Password Spray Attacks: What Are They & How To Avoid Them?

Ever wondered why organizations emphasize the importance of setting a complicated password as opposed to something convenient like ‘password123’? In today’s world, hackers are getting creative with their cybersecurity attacks. One type of attack that has gained a lot of traction in the past year is ‘password spraying’ – a type of brute force attack in the cybersecurity realm that goes beyond the traditional forms of hacking into an account.

Picture this – in the past, hackers would attempt to gain unauthorized access to a single account by constantly guessing the password in a short period of time. But with organizations bringing measures such as locking an account when three or more attempts have been made, the user gets notified about any attempted security breach. Continue reading Password Spray Attacks: What Are They & How To Avoid Them?

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!

Continue reading Begin Here to Build a Trusted Business

Web Authentication – The Future of Going Passwordless

Best practices and common sense dictate that we use unique, hard-to-guess passwords for each application that we use. However, most of us place convenience over security and give in to the worst password habit – using a single, easy-to-remember password across all our applications. This is simply because of the management of multiple passwords, each following different password policy rules, can be difficult. The problem with this approach is that our single password if hacked or even guessed successfully, can be used in a credential stuffing attack to gain access to several of our personal accounts. Continue reading Web Authentication – The Future of Going Passwordless

The Key to Data Security: WebAuthn

What is WebAuthn?

WebAuthn (Web Authentication API) is a global standard specification for secure authentication on the Web, formulated in 2018 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

This browser-based API allows user authentication on web applications through the creation of strong “credentials” and user-agent-mediated access to authenticators. This could be either in the form of hardware tokens (like U2F security keys) or in-built modules (biometric readers like Google Hello, Apple Touch ID) in the platform. Web Authn has garnered the support of all leading browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and is compatible with all leading platforms.

How does WebAuthn Work?

With WebAuthn, a relying party (such as web service) can integrate a strong layer of authentication into applications with a choice of authenticators. It replaces the need for a password with the generation of a private-public key pair (credential) created for a website. While the private key is stored on the user’s device, the public key is generated randomly and shared with the server. The server then uses the public key to confirm the user’s identity.

The following steps are involved in WebAuthn:

The user opens a website using their device
On the request of the web service (replying party) through the Credential Manager API, the browser generates a new credential, specifying the user’s device capabilities.
During the registration process, the user is offered multiple authentication options. This may vary from external authenticators to biometric authenticators like fingerprint analysis or facial recognition.
Choosing any of the authenticators offered, the user completes the registration process.
The authenticator generates a key pair (a public and a private key) – the public key is forwarded to the server, the private key is stored in the user’s device

Why use WebAuthn?

The public key and private key, both need to be used in conjunction. Therefore, by eliminating the need for a “secret” such as a password, WebAuthn drastically improves data security and prevents data breaches. Even if the public key is hacked, it will not function without the private key – which is stored in the user’s device – and becomes useless.

These are some of the scenarios in which WebAuthn can be useful:

Setting up two-factor authentication (with or without passwords) that is resistant to friction and phishing
Using biometric authorization that eliminates the need for passwords
Recovering lost or stolen devices and bootstrapping of new devices

Find out how you can improve data security and prevent data breaches with Akku. Get in touch with us for a free demo today!

7 Ways in Which Akku can Help you Address Security Challenges

While it is natural to feel apprehensive on the cloud, especially if you are new to it, remember that there are a number of ways to stay in control of your organization’s applications and data, even while ensuring that authorized users can access them with greater ease.

Here are 7 ways in which Akku, the Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution from CloudNow, can help you address security challenges

1.Helping users create strong passwords

A password is the first and most basic level of security you can apply to protect your applications from unauthorized access. However, with several hackers and bots lurking on the internet, a password is also vulnerable to attack. With the provision to set up and enforce a strong password policy, Akku allows users to only set up strong, complex passwords that are difficult to crack.

2.Adding multiple layers of security

If your business relies on highly sensitive data, you need to protect it with more than just your users’ passwords. Akku’s Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) functionality does just that, integrating a powerful additional layer of security into the sign-in process. If this functionality is enabled, Akku demands users to reconfirm their identities by using a TOTP or a push notification.

3.Enabling admins to set up restrictions

Typically, a cloud application can be accessed from anywhere and at any time. This, while being one of the biggest boons of cloud computing, can also be a potential threat. This is why, Akku enables administrators to set up restrictions — to limit access to one or more critical applications outside of a certain time slot or location, or even from unrecognized IPs or devices.

4.Preventing suspicious logins

In addition to enabling administrators to set up tailored restrictions for each user based on time, location, IP address and device, Akku also detects and responds to suspicious and unusual user activity. For example, if a user has logged in from two different countries (one familiar, one unfamiliar) within a matter of minutes or hours, access will be denied.

5.Keeping admins in control, remotely

Akku comes with a smartphone application which enables admins to receive notifications and alerts, even when they are not in the office. Moreover, with one-click access to their dashboard, they can view or review user activity as well as provide, edit or revoke access and permissions to users.

6.Encrypting all data

Akku comes with custom salted-hash functionality – a combination of salting and hashing techniques – that is used to encrypt user credentials. This way, even if users are accessing your organization’s applications form unsafe or open networks, the data is kept safe in an encrypted format.

7.Maintaining filters for company-owned devices

Akku protects your company-owned devices from malicious content by enabling you to maintain DNS filters – blocking personal email, irrelevant website access, and YouTube filtering – even when the device is being used from a network outside the organization’s firewall.

Akku is a robust, flexible identity and access management (IAM) solution that can help your organization leverage the cloud without worrying about data security, privacy, compliance with standards, and productivity. To know more or to see how Akku can be integrated with your organization’s applications, get in touch with us today!