Seeking a solution to streamline employee’s access to internal accounts, Volvo Cars of The Netherlands, sought a solution to reduce the number of login and access credentials required of employees to gain access to their (web) applications.
Employees at the dealership use 20 different applications a day, on average, each of which requires a different combination of user name and password. Through Tools4ever’s single sign on, a total of 35 generic web applications, including sales and inventory and workplace management suites, were made ready for single sign on with the help of Enterprise Single Sign On Manager (E-SSOM.) The software’s implementation was carried out in collaboration with Volvo Cars Nederland B.V.’s software and service provider, Beesd A2.
“When Tools4ever presented us with its solution, I was immediately impressed by the product’s ease of use and how fast Tools4ever was able to implement the solution,” Tjeu Bollen, the founder of Beesd A2. “During a pilot run of the program, Tools4ever was able to make 20 applications ready for single sign on in just one day. This pilot, and the relatively low costs of the solution, made our decision to select this suite very easy.”
The European dealer is not alone in its desire to streamline. Dealerships across the globe increasingly are forced to turn to web applications to process and sell automobiles. Typically, each of these web applications requires a different user name and password. As is often the case, employees write down passwords on sticky notes or file them in other non-secure manners in an attempt to remember them. However, a single sign on solution corals all systems together and allows a user to enter just one password or login credential to access them.
The staff at Volvo Cars B.V., in particular, benefit from the software. They no longer have to enter credentials for each individual application, and spend considerably less time on the login process and are spared a lot of frustration.
During a successful pilot at one of the Volvo dealerships, the value of the Tools4ever single sign on software quickly became apparent to the employees, said Dean Wiech, managing director of Tools4ever. “Three salespeople and two receptionists tested the software on site over a period of two months. From the very first day, they were highly enthusiastic about the solution, as they no longer had to log in to each and every application. They realized the immediate efficiencies it created."
“When the two months had ended and the test license expired, they got on the phone and said that they absolutely needed the software.”
The dealership has since implemented Tools4ever’s E-SSOM across all of its 110 branches throughout the Netherlands.
For more about Tools4ever, E-SSOM and to read customer case studies, visit our website.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Managing Free Email Solutions for Education
When educational institutions first began providing student with email accounts, the options were limited – implement an in-house solution from Novell or Microsoft depending on your network infrastructure. There were some also small players in the market that provided hosted solutions. The problems with these options were they were expensive, required resources to set-up and maintain and had an ongoing costs associated with them.
About 5 years ago, Google, as they so often do, upset the proverbial apple cart by giving free email accounts to the educational space. Not to be outdone, Microsoft soon followed up with Live@edu and then Office 365 for Education. Both of these offerings eliminated the requirement for schools and colleges to purchase and maintain hardware for email and also eliminated the need for licensing of Exchange or GroupWise.
One of the initial shortfalls with these offerings was the common fact that there was not an easy way to manage accounts in bulk. They did provide an interface that allowed for “one off” account creation and management, but with the large influx and outflow of students that the typical school or college is faced with each semester, the task can be daunting at best. One recent college I spoke with shared that when they first deployed Google Apps, they spent nearly 300 man hours keying in data, and they only had about 5,000 student accounts to create. Extrapolating this out, they could anticipate spending 3.6 minutes per account, or 75 hours per year, managing email accounts - assuming 1/4th of their students matriculate annually.
Further complicating these deployments was the fact that there was no easy way to synchronize passwords between the network account and the emails account. It was easy to set the initial password as identical but, as is often the case, the user is required to change the password upon initial login. This frequently resulted in 2 different passwords – one for the network and one for email – causing a large number of calls to the helpdesk for password resets in one or both systems.
Fortunately, vendors that specialize in Identity and Access Management stepped in quickly to fill the void. Software tools were made available to allow IT staff to extend their automated user account provisioning to include both the Google Apps and Office 365 environments. By utilizing these connectors, the amount of time to manage an account went form 3.6 minutes to virtually zero. As the solutions offered by Google and Microsoft provide email accounts “for life”, it is important to have procedures in place that insure the email accounts remain active, and possibly moved to an alumni folder, upon student graduation. This needs to occur even when the network access account has been deleted.
Another feature available from software vendors was a password synch tool. Anytime a user changed a password in their network account, the new entry was immediately passed to the mail account, insuring consistency and a significant reduction in calls to the helpdesk. Extending this one step further is providing a self-service reset password application whereby the student can rest a forgotten password based on challenge questions. This reset password can also be synched to the email solution, once again insuring consistency.
Summary
While the email offerings provided by Google and Microsoft are free, the time required to set-up and manage thousands of student and faculty accounts can be overwhelming and expensive. Fortunately, cost effective solutions are commercially available to reduce or eliminate the burden placed on the IT staff by automating the user and email account lifecycle.
For more information, please visit our website.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Healthcare provider saves Time and Money
Lifestyle Hearing is a healthcare provider of hearing solutions with over 50 clinics, as well as many independently owned network member locations throughout Canada. These clinics provide customers with a series of auditory services including testing patients for hearing, recommending and providing a customized solution, as well as following up with ongoing visits and making sure everything is working properly. Recently the company has grown rapidly from just 2 employees to over 130 and continues to expand across Canada.
This rapid growth of Lifestyle Hearing created many IT complications within the company such as departments and roles needing to be created and formed. Since they started as a small company, many employees had responsibilities which included several roles that needed to be clearly defined as the company grew. This meant that user accounts needed to be created in multiple systems and controls needed to be put in place. Franco Butera, IT Director at Lifestyle said, “This task took about half an hour for IT to complete, and that was only if we had all the correct information at the beginning. If not, we had to track down the employees in an attempt to get the information, and wait for a response which could take up to an hour or more.” It is critical to unsure all information is correct such as credentials for doctors since they are operating in the healthcare arena. All of this work was taking valuable time away from the IT department, but could not be completed by department managers due to lack of technical knowhow.
Butera knew just how to solve these problems due to his positive experiences with Tools4ver’s User Management Resource Administrator (UMRA) at previous companies. He had come in contact with and used UMRA at both a larger telecommunications company in Canada and a higher education facility in Bermuda. Both projects had been extremely successful and had easily solved all of the organizations’ account management problems.
Completely controlled project
Tools4ever implemented UMRA at Lifestyle Hearing in a three phased approach. “The entire process was exceptional, from gathering the requirements, to deployment, to the types of resources Tools4ever provided.” Tools4ever was able to promptly implement the solution and get it up and running to start creating accounts in just the first phase. “The Project never slipped away, and was completely controlled. I was juggling many complex projects at the time, and Tools4ever’s UMRA was by far the easiest to work on.” Tools4ever was also even able to customize the solution to meet Lifestyle Hearings needs by building a connector to the company’s procurement resource system, Coupa.
No IT involvement
UMRA completely eliminated the account creation process from IT and is now handled entirely through the human resources department. Before UMRA, IT was the bottleneck due to the fact that they often had to handle other important tasks and were not able to create accounts quickly for new employees. HR now has controlled access through a web based form to create an account which allows them to easily enter the employee’s information, define their profiles and which systems they need accounts in. Lifestyle Hearing used to have a 4 to 5 day window for account creation, but with UMRA employees are now able to have their accounts created right away and start working the same day they are hired as needed.
Substantial savings
“Tools4ever’s UMRA saved our IT department a significant amount of time in the long run.” IT at Lifestyle Hearing no longer has to even hear about account creation and can focus on more important issues. Franco stated, “If you multiply how many long it took for IT to create an account by the number of accounts that we need created and edited, the savings is substantial.” UMRA is also able to track and audit Lifestyle Hearing so that it easily meets all audit requirements. “I have seen it manage thousands of accounts without any issues. It’s a must have application for companies of any size!”
For more information, please visit our website.
This rapid growth of Lifestyle Hearing created many IT complications within the company such as departments and roles needing to be created and formed. Since they started as a small company, many employees had responsibilities which included several roles that needed to be clearly defined as the company grew. This meant that user accounts needed to be created in multiple systems and controls needed to be put in place. Franco Butera, IT Director at Lifestyle said, “This task took about half an hour for IT to complete, and that was only if we had all the correct information at the beginning. If not, we had to track down the employees in an attempt to get the information, and wait for a response which could take up to an hour or more.” It is critical to unsure all information is correct such as credentials for doctors since they are operating in the healthcare arena. All of this work was taking valuable time away from the IT department, but could not be completed by department managers due to lack of technical knowhow.
Butera knew just how to solve these problems due to his positive experiences with Tools4ver’s User Management Resource Administrator (UMRA) at previous companies. He had come in contact with and used UMRA at both a larger telecommunications company in Canada and a higher education facility in Bermuda. Both projects had been extremely successful and had easily solved all of the organizations’ account management problems.
Completely controlled project
Tools4ever implemented UMRA at Lifestyle Hearing in a three phased approach. “The entire process was exceptional, from gathering the requirements, to deployment, to the types of resources Tools4ever provided.” Tools4ever was able to promptly implement the solution and get it up and running to start creating accounts in just the first phase. “The Project never slipped away, and was completely controlled. I was juggling many complex projects at the time, and Tools4ever’s UMRA was by far the easiest to work on.” Tools4ever was also even able to customize the solution to meet Lifestyle Hearings needs by building a connector to the company’s procurement resource system, Coupa.
No IT involvement
UMRA completely eliminated the account creation process from IT and is now handled entirely through the human resources department. Before UMRA, IT was the bottleneck due to the fact that they often had to handle other important tasks and were not able to create accounts quickly for new employees. HR now has controlled access through a web based form to create an account which allows them to easily enter the employee’s information, define their profiles and which systems they need accounts in. Lifestyle Hearing used to have a 4 to 5 day window for account creation, but with UMRA employees are now able to have their accounts created right away and start working the same day they are hired as needed.
Substantial savings
“Tools4ever’s UMRA saved our IT department a significant amount of time in the long run.” IT at Lifestyle Hearing no longer has to even hear about account creation and can focus on more important issues. Franco stated, “If you multiply how many long it took for IT to create an account by the number of accounts that we need created and edited, the savings is substantial.” UMRA is also able to track and audit Lifestyle Hearing so that it easily meets all audit requirements. “I have seen it manage thousands of accounts without any issues. It’s a must have application for companies of any size!”
For more information, please visit our website.
Friday, November 16, 2012
The Monster Called RBAC
In the world of identity and access management, Role Based Access Control (RBAC) is gradually becoming a frequently used term. Dictated in part by legislative and regulatory norms, an increasing number of organizations wish to manage and assign all access privileges across the network in a structured way. This is possible through the use of RBAC software. So how can companies achieve an adequate implementation of RBAC across their entire organization?
Organizations are faced with two pitfalls when it comes to assigning and revoking access rights. To assign rights, they often create a copy of a colleague’s account, also known as “template user.” This creates the risk that new employees are provided with unwarranted access to business applications and systems.
Added to which, organizations do not pay sufficient attention to revoking access rights when they create copies of existing user accounts. After all, their most important consideration is enabling new employees to do their job rather than checking for excess access rights. Dictated by standards, IT auditors and unnecessary licensing costs for suites including Microsoft Visio, Projects and Adobe CS, organizations have come to acknowledge the importance of a responsible handling of authorizations.
HR System as Basis
RBAC is a technique for implementing authorization management across organizations. This technique involves assigning rights on the basis of RBAC roles rather than assigning access rights to individual users. These roles in turn comprise the department, function, location and cost center associated with an employee.
Although organizations acknowledge the importance of RBAC, they are cautious about implementing this technique. RBAC has undeservedly gained the reputation that it involves a large effort – particularly in terms of management overhead – as well as lengthy and complex implementation cycles. In fact, RBAC is viewed as a monstrous entity. This misunderstanding is the result of an incorrect approach to its implementation.
In the past, the people who have been responsible for RBAC implementations were under the illusion that 100 percent of the staff could be molded into a single RBAC role. More often than not, there are as many functions in an organization as there are employees. This results in an endless list of roles in relation to resources, so that assigning an RBAC role to each employee becomes a lengthy process. Another question is whether everybody and everything has to be included in RBAC. Isn’t RBAC exclusively needed for user groups, which require a careful authorization set-up from the point of view of risk management, regulations and efficiency?
In any case, RBAC can be handled differently -- quicker and with less complexity.
RBAC as Lego Blocks
The advice for RBAC is to use a bottom-up and stacked approach. This approach involves the creation of a foundation that can be expanded at a later stage. After all, the majority of employees need access to standard applications such as Microsoft Office and Outlook. For a large number of employees, access rights on the organizational level (logging in, word processing, e-mail) and departmental level (access to the department share and departmental applications) can be assigned right away. In this context it is important to determine the top 50 combinations of department and function for active employees.
The HRM system is an excellent source for determining these combinations. This will pave the way for a role model on the organizational level. As an example, a hospital in Lynbrook has a surgery department that includes the functional role of “Nurse.” The organizational role can be created on the basis of the function; department and location found in the HRM system. These are “Nurse” and “Surgery Nurse,” respectively. After “Nurse” and “Surgery” have been defined, a nurse in the surgery department will automatically be identified as “Nurse + Surgery” and assigned the stacked roles.
Using this method, it becomes very easy to populate more than 80 percent of the RBAC table. A major benefit of this approach is that new employees can start working on their first day while time is liberated for the assignment of specific rights on an application and system level.
A subsequent step is to translate these organizational roles into application or system roles, which will comprise the remaining 20 percent of the RBAC table. The basis for this is already present and now further stacking will take place. The assignment of the system roles can easily be handled by the relevant manager. After all, managers, rather than HR, are responsible for the access rights of their employees. On the basis of a special workflow, the relevant manager will be prompted by an e-mail notification and/or web form to specify the access rights and applications for the employee concerned. The RBAC software can subsequently record the manager’s choices to further populate the empty sections of the RBAC table and eventually achieve a fully populated table.
This means it is possible to have a manager handle all the translations of roles within their department, with an option to delegate tasks to a colleague. An action triggered by the manager may also result in a workflow notification to a license manager. This allows managers to exactly determine and manage what happens within their department or cost center.
Detailed Access Rights
Because the system and application roles contain the detailed access rights for the application in question, the role can be implemented. The responsibility for the actual provision of network access lies within IT, as well as Functional/Technical Application Management. It is also possible to automate this part of the process (provisioning) with the help of identity management software.
The major advantage of implementing RBAC in this way is the speed of implementation. Where it takes other vendors a year, Tools4ever, for example, is able to create a first standard for organizations within two months. Added to this, customers can easily achieve SoD (Segregation of Duty), by refusing certain access rights in case of forbidden combinations of roles and departments. In case of downsizing initiatives, it will not be necessary to recreate the RBAC table from scratch.
The only thing that will have to be modified is the “Who are you” section, and this can be conveniently done in the HRM system. By taking the HRM system as the basis and continuously polling it, managers are ensured of the most up-to-date information and have a populated dashboard at their disposal with the function, department, location and cost center for all their staff. This requires a direct connector with the HRM system, since that is the source of all the information. There are multiple vendors that can provide a connector like this.
Pyramid
It is possible to catch this method in a pyramid running from the top to the bottom of the organization (top), via the department, location and function down to individual employees (basic layer). The top layer (organization and location) will exclusively include access rights that apply to all employees. This section can be populated right away. Organizations may wish to consider stop populating the RBAC table at the department/function level. The remaining details will be handled on an ad hoc basis, through a workflow. They will subsequently be able to further populate the pyramid and thus the RBAC table.
Conclusion
RBAC currently attracts the attention of many organizations because this access methodology allows them to assign and revoke access rights in an efficient, transparent and controllable way. An RBAC implementation does not necessarily have to be complex. It is often recommended that organizations use a stacked approach to RBAC and to automate the assignment of access rights on an organizational and departmental level (through their HRM system), focusing on the top 50 combinations of functions and departments. This should enable a quick and convenient population up to 80 percent of the RBAC table. The detailed access rights of the remaining 20 percent cause organizations a great many headaches. To handle these remaining 20 percent in a pragmatic way using the RBAC model, organizations should have their managers handle the assignment of access rights to employees. The managers will be able to determine and modify the detailed access rights for their team.
Over time, the RBAC model will allow organizations to collect more and more information on the choices and selections made during the assignment of access rights. After a review cycle by the security officer, this information can be used to further enrich the RBAC table and to increase the 80 percent to perhaps 100 percent. Knowledge and feedback from the organization help to beat the RBAC monster.
For more information, please visit our website.
Organizations are faced with two pitfalls when it comes to assigning and revoking access rights. To assign rights, they often create a copy of a colleague’s account, also known as “template user.” This creates the risk that new employees are provided with unwarranted access to business applications and systems.
Added to which, organizations do not pay sufficient attention to revoking access rights when they create copies of existing user accounts. After all, their most important consideration is enabling new employees to do their job rather than checking for excess access rights. Dictated by standards, IT auditors and unnecessary licensing costs for suites including Microsoft Visio, Projects and Adobe CS, organizations have come to acknowledge the importance of a responsible handling of authorizations.
HR System as Basis
RBAC is a technique for implementing authorization management across organizations. This technique involves assigning rights on the basis of RBAC roles rather than assigning access rights to individual users. These roles in turn comprise the department, function, location and cost center associated with an employee.
Although organizations acknowledge the importance of RBAC, they are cautious about implementing this technique. RBAC has undeservedly gained the reputation that it involves a large effort – particularly in terms of management overhead – as well as lengthy and complex implementation cycles. In fact, RBAC is viewed as a monstrous entity. This misunderstanding is the result of an incorrect approach to its implementation.
In the past, the people who have been responsible for RBAC implementations were under the illusion that 100 percent of the staff could be molded into a single RBAC role. More often than not, there are as many functions in an organization as there are employees. This results in an endless list of roles in relation to resources, so that assigning an RBAC role to each employee becomes a lengthy process. Another question is whether everybody and everything has to be included in RBAC. Isn’t RBAC exclusively needed for user groups, which require a careful authorization set-up from the point of view of risk management, regulations and efficiency?
In any case, RBAC can be handled differently -- quicker and with less complexity.
RBAC as Lego Blocks
The advice for RBAC is to use a bottom-up and stacked approach. This approach involves the creation of a foundation that can be expanded at a later stage. After all, the majority of employees need access to standard applications such as Microsoft Office and Outlook. For a large number of employees, access rights on the organizational level (logging in, word processing, e-mail) and departmental level (access to the department share and departmental applications) can be assigned right away. In this context it is important to determine the top 50 combinations of department and function for active employees.
The HRM system is an excellent source for determining these combinations. This will pave the way for a role model on the organizational level. As an example, a hospital in Lynbrook has a surgery department that includes the functional role of “Nurse.” The organizational role can be created on the basis of the function; department and location found in the HRM system. These are “Nurse” and “Surgery Nurse,” respectively. After “Nurse” and “Surgery” have been defined, a nurse in the surgery department will automatically be identified as “Nurse + Surgery” and assigned the stacked roles.
Using this method, it becomes very easy to populate more than 80 percent of the RBAC table. A major benefit of this approach is that new employees can start working on their first day while time is liberated for the assignment of specific rights on an application and system level.
A subsequent step is to translate these organizational roles into application or system roles, which will comprise the remaining 20 percent of the RBAC table. The basis for this is already present and now further stacking will take place. The assignment of the system roles can easily be handled by the relevant manager. After all, managers, rather than HR, are responsible for the access rights of their employees. On the basis of a special workflow, the relevant manager will be prompted by an e-mail notification and/or web form to specify the access rights and applications for the employee concerned. The RBAC software can subsequently record the manager’s choices to further populate the empty sections of the RBAC table and eventually achieve a fully populated table.
This means it is possible to have a manager handle all the translations of roles within their department, with an option to delegate tasks to a colleague. An action triggered by the manager may also result in a workflow notification to a license manager. This allows managers to exactly determine and manage what happens within their department or cost center.
Detailed Access Rights
Because the system and application roles contain the detailed access rights for the application in question, the role can be implemented. The responsibility for the actual provision of network access lies within IT, as well as Functional/Technical Application Management. It is also possible to automate this part of the process (provisioning) with the help of identity management software.
The major advantage of implementing RBAC in this way is the speed of implementation. Where it takes other vendors a year, Tools4ever, for example, is able to create a first standard for organizations within two months. Added to this, customers can easily achieve SoD (Segregation of Duty), by refusing certain access rights in case of forbidden combinations of roles and departments. In case of downsizing initiatives, it will not be necessary to recreate the RBAC table from scratch.
The only thing that will have to be modified is the “Who are you” section, and this can be conveniently done in the HRM system. By taking the HRM system as the basis and continuously polling it, managers are ensured of the most up-to-date information and have a populated dashboard at their disposal with the function, department, location and cost center for all their staff. This requires a direct connector with the HRM system, since that is the source of all the information. There are multiple vendors that can provide a connector like this.
Pyramid
It is possible to catch this method in a pyramid running from the top to the bottom of the organization (top), via the department, location and function down to individual employees (basic layer). The top layer (organization and location) will exclusively include access rights that apply to all employees. This section can be populated right away. Organizations may wish to consider stop populating the RBAC table at the department/function level. The remaining details will be handled on an ad hoc basis, through a workflow. They will subsequently be able to further populate the pyramid and thus the RBAC table.
Conclusion
RBAC currently attracts the attention of many organizations because this access methodology allows them to assign and revoke access rights in an efficient, transparent and controllable way. An RBAC implementation does not necessarily have to be complex. It is often recommended that organizations use a stacked approach to RBAC and to automate the assignment of access rights on an organizational and departmental level (through their HRM system), focusing on the top 50 combinations of functions and departments. This should enable a quick and convenient population up to 80 percent of the RBAC table. The detailed access rights of the remaining 20 percent cause organizations a great many headaches. To handle these remaining 20 percent in a pragmatic way using the RBAC model, organizations should have their managers handle the assignment of access rights to employees. The managers will be able to determine and modify the detailed access rights for their team.
Over time, the RBAC model will allow organizations to collect more and more information on the choices and selections made during the assignment of access rights. After a review cycle by the security officer, this information can be used to further enrich the RBAC table and to increase the 80 percent to perhaps 100 percent. Knowledge and feedback from the organization help to beat the RBAC monster.
For more information, please visit our website.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Five reasons to use Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
• Improve Security of Systems and Applications
Do you know exactly who has access to what at your company? Often when new employees need accounts a copy of another account is made, which is called a ‘template user’. This creates a security risk since access to applications and systems are also copied and are often forgotten to be revoked. RBAC allows you to easily see the resources that employees have available to them based upon their role in the organization. This will allow you to ensure that nobody has access to secure systems and applications that are not supposed to, and make changes as necessary.
• Easily Make Security Changes
Employees frequently change roles and jobs within an organization and subsequently need different access privileges. With RBAC in place, it can handle changes that occur no matter how difficult. Complex changes such as a part time employee working to two different departments can also be handled without significant effort.
• Easily Meet Audit Requirements
Using RBAC makes meeting strict audit requirement easy. Industries such as healthcare and financial, need to be able to show that their information is secure and have had more strict requirements put on them in recent years. With RBAC companies can easily ensure that secure information remains that way, and can easily access this information for audits.
• Increase Productivity of Employees
Assigning new employees their correct access rights can be time consuming and for both the IT employee and the end user. With RBAC, new employees do not have to wait for their privileges to be assigned and are able to begin working with the necessary applications such as word processing, email and departmental shares, and then receive more specific privileges later on.
• Reduce costs
Since the IT staff can see which applications are being used and how often they can determine which are necessary for their business needs. Those that are not being accessed can be eliminated, or have licensing counts reduced, thus saving the organization money.
For more information on RBAC, please visit our website
Friday, October 19, 2012
Two Factor Authentication
According to Wikipedia, Two-factor authentication (TFA, T-FA or 2FA) is an approach to authentication which requires the presentation of two or more of the three authentication factors: a knowledge factor ("something the user knows"), a possession factor ("something the user has") and an inherent factor ("something the user is").
As organizations of every type are more concerned with security of their networks, they are increasingly turning to enhancing the normal user name and password credentials with an additional strong authentication method. Banking has used this concept for years with the ATM card – you must have the physical card and a PIN. Laptop manufactures have been providing optional fingerprint readers for years as well. The question is how can two factor authentication provide extra security to an organization while not requiring a large capital outlay. Two options are becoming commonplace.
Password Resets
The concept of using challenge questions –what’s your mother maiden name, where you born, etc. - has been around for many years. Banking websites are the most common example of this concept. Forget your password and successfully answer the challenge questions to reset your password. With the advent of smart phones and text messaging, many companies have already added a second factor – a one-time use PIN code delivered via email or SMS must be provided in addition to the answers. Many vendors are producing products with identical functionality for the corporate network as well. The first iterations of these solutions relied on the challenge questions exclusively to allow password resets. As social engineering concerns have come in to play, vendors have been quick to add 2FA to these solutions as well. The delivery of a PIN via text messaging to the user’s cell phone number on file insures the reset is being performed by the actual user.
Another benefit of these challenge questions is that they can be utilized by the helpdesk to positively identity a caller. When an employee phones the helpdesk requesting access to a new applications or being added to a share or distribution group, the helpdesk can access the questions and masked answers. For example, the answer to what color is your car could display as X_XX_ and the caller would be asked to provide the 2nd and 5th characters. If the correct characters are provided, it insures the caller’s identity. By masking the answers, the helpdesk employees are never exposed to the condfintial answers. A 2nd factor of authentication – delivering a PIN to an email or via SMS – can further enhance the security. The number of questions /answer to be provided can be dictated by company policy.
SSO with Strong Authentication
Many technology leaders acknowledge the benefits associated with an SSO solution – productivity gains reducing the number of required credentials to from many to one and reducing calls to the helpdesk for forgotten password. A common concern is that if the one set of credentials is hacked, access to all systems can be exposed. In this case, 2FA can eliminate this perceived risk. In this scenario, the end user present their ID page ("something the user has") to a reader attached to the machine, enters his or her credentials ("something the user has") and then as an extra layer of protection, enters a PIN code when accessing highly sensitive systems. It is also feasible that the ID badge replaces the credentials and the PIN becomes the second factor.
Summary
Two Factor authentication has caught on rapidly in the Business to Consumer arena. Functionality such as self-password reset was originally implemented to reduce call volume and security of this functionality has been strengthened in response to identity theft and social engineering. Use of secondary identification methods are now widely available to businesses interested in providing the same secure functionality to employees.
For more information, please visit our website to learn more on password resets with 2FA and strong authentication.
As organizations of every type are more concerned with security of their networks, they are increasingly turning to enhancing the normal user name and password credentials with an additional strong authentication method. Banking has used this concept for years with the ATM card – you must have the physical card and a PIN. Laptop manufactures have been providing optional fingerprint readers for years as well. The question is how can two factor authentication provide extra security to an organization while not requiring a large capital outlay. Two options are becoming commonplace.
Password Resets
The concept of using challenge questions –what’s your mother maiden name, where you born, etc. - has been around for many years. Banking websites are the most common example of this concept. Forget your password and successfully answer the challenge questions to reset your password. With the advent of smart phones and text messaging, many companies have already added a second factor – a one-time use PIN code delivered via email or SMS must be provided in addition to the answers. Many vendors are producing products with identical functionality for the corporate network as well. The first iterations of these solutions relied on the challenge questions exclusively to allow password resets. As social engineering concerns have come in to play, vendors have been quick to add 2FA to these solutions as well. The delivery of a PIN via text messaging to the user’s cell phone number on file insures the reset is being performed by the actual user.
Another benefit of these challenge questions is that they can be utilized by the helpdesk to positively identity a caller. When an employee phones the helpdesk requesting access to a new applications or being added to a share or distribution group, the helpdesk can access the questions and masked answers. For example, the answer to what color is your car could display as X_XX_ and the caller would be asked to provide the 2nd and 5th characters. If the correct characters are provided, it insures the caller’s identity. By masking the answers, the helpdesk employees are never exposed to the condfintial answers. A 2nd factor of authentication – delivering a PIN to an email or via SMS – can further enhance the security. The number of questions /answer to be provided can be dictated by company policy.
SSO with Strong Authentication
Many technology leaders acknowledge the benefits associated with an SSO solution – productivity gains reducing the number of required credentials to from many to one and reducing calls to the helpdesk for forgotten password. A common concern is that if the one set of credentials is hacked, access to all systems can be exposed. In this case, 2FA can eliminate this perceived risk. In this scenario, the end user present their ID page ("something the user has") to a reader attached to the machine, enters his or her credentials ("something the user has") and then as an extra layer of protection, enters a PIN code when accessing highly sensitive systems. It is also feasible that the ID badge replaces the credentials and the PIN becomes the second factor.
Summary
Two Factor authentication has caught on rapidly in the Business to Consumer arena. Functionality such as self-password reset was originally implemented to reduce call volume and security of this functionality has been strengthened in response to identity theft and social engineering. Use of secondary identification methods are now widely available to businesses interested in providing the same secure functionality to employees.
For more information, please visit our website to learn more on password resets with 2FA and strong authentication.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Top Ways the Education Industry Could Benefit from Identity and Access Management Software
Free up time of IT employees
IT and helpdesk employees are often bogged down with the monotonous task of account creation. Though it is not difficult, it is extremely time consuming for staff who could be working on more technical projects. Minnetonka Public Schools IT department was dealing with this situation. They had developed their own in house solution for account management but still had to handle account creations manually, which was time consuming. The process consisted of data specialists retrieving information from students, employees and parents and then relaying it to the IT staff, who would manually manage the accounts. With this process, four to five employees were often involved in creating one account. Minnetonka decided to automate their account management process so that accounts are provisioned automatically for students, employees and teachers without much human intervention. By automating the process, they were able to easily free up the time of three full time employees. Now only one person has to touch account creation.
Reduce user pollution and keep systems up to date
With so much movement of students each semester, it is often difficult for the IT department to keep systems up to date with current student information and accounts. It is also time consuming to disable all accounts for students upon graduation and, as a result, many accounts were left active. This was the problem that Fitchburg State College was facing. They had over 40,000 accounts in Active Directory which did not accurately reflect their actual environment. Although they attempted to go through and delete inactive accounts, they realized this was not a good method since they were inadvertently deleting active users, such as students continuing on to graduate studies. By automating their account management, when a terminated or graduated flag is set in the SIS, the account is automatically disabled according to preset rules. The IT department can now easily ensure that there is not user pollution and their accounts are always up to date with the correct information and accounts.
Reduce helpdesk tickets
According to a survey conducted by Tools4ever, one of the most common helpdesk calls is for resetting a user password. This issue does not require much skill from the helpdesk employee but can be very time consuming when they are receiving many password reset calls a day. Not only do they have to deal with password calls, but, especially in the beginning of the school year, students and employees are calling due to their accounts being incorrect or not being able to access the systems and applications. Pinellas County School District was one such school facing these issues. The IT department was spending a lot of time correcting account problems, and was receiving a large amount of password reset calls especially after a summer break. To resolve these issues, Pinellas implemented a self service reset password solution so end users can easily and securely reset their own passwords by answering a series of challenge questions they had previously enrolled with. To deal with their many account issues, they also implemented an automated account management solution. Now when an account is created in Active Directory, it automatically populates the parent portal, student information system and any other systems as required, eliminating a tedious and potentially error prone manual process.
Always have correct access to accounts
Students and teachers often complete work for classes after administration school hours and need to access certain applications and systems. If they forget their password and are locked out of their account, they cannot access the resources they need since the helpdesk is not available after school hours. Harrison College has 13 campuses and also offers several online courses which can start as late as 10 PM. With the helpdesk only being available until 5 PM, users that had issues with passwords after closing time could not resolve them until the next day. By implementing a self service reset password solution, Harrison was able to provide users the option to safely and securely reset their own passwords without having to contact the helpdesk. This easily eliminated the issue of having password issues after the helpdesk closed and allowed users to quickly reset their passwords and continue with their studies.
Ensure proper access rights
In schools, students often need certain access rights depending on what grade they are in or if they have certain privileges. At North Hunterdon-Voorhees School District this was specifically the case concerning student access to the internet. In order for students to be allowed to access the internet they need to have a permission form filled out by their parent. The HR department would then have to add the student to the correct security group. This process was handled manually and was time consuming and often resulted in error. By implementing a user management solution, the registrar now simply checks a box on a student’s profile, and internet access is granted. This has saved the district an enormous amount of time and ensured that students have the correct access rights.
For more information, please visit our website
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