Start With The End In MInd: Blog #4 – Manage Access Across On-premises and Cloud Applications

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(Source: SailPoint Technologies, Inc. Identity and Access Management Buyers Guide)

“We’ve lost visibility and control over applications in the cloud. We’re not even sure about what’s out there.”

As enterprises accelerate their adoption of the cloud, they must cope with the challenges of managing a hybrid IT environment where some applications reside on-premises and some reside in the cloud. Adding to the complexity of this environment, business units are gaining more autonomy to buy and deploy applications — which can often house sensitive, corporate data — without consulting or involving the IT organization.

Signs that your organization is struggling to manage new cloud applications include:

  • IT is not fully aware of the mission-critical cloud applications in production across various departments and business units
  • Business units are performing their own user administration via spreadsheets and manual updates
  • Business units are requesting that IT integrate cloud applications with directories for periodic synchronization
  • Business units are purchasing their own identity and access management solutions — without consulting IT or considering what IAM infrastructure is already in place
  • IT audit processes, such as access certifications, have not been extended to cover cloud applications

A proper identity and access management solution should help enterprises embrace the cloud while at the same time allowing the IT organization to effectively apply centralized security policy, detect violations and demonstrate full regulatory compliance. Successful IAM solutions will allow you to automate compliance and provisioning processes for cloud applications in the same manner as on-premises applications. At the same time, it should provide end users with convenient access to cloud applications and empower them with single sign-on from any device — at work, home or on the go with mobile devices.

Check back for blog #5, Reduce the Cost of Managing Access Change

Visit SailPoint Technologies, Inc. here.

Learn more about PathMaker Group IAM MAP here. 

 

Start With The End In Mind: Blog #3 – Increase Business User Productivity

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(Source: SailPoint Technologies, Inc. Identity and Access Management Buyers Guide)

sailpointweblogoWhether you’re using identity management for internal users (employees and contractors) or external users (partners, agents, customers), you want to implement technologies that reduce the burden of accessing business services. Having the right identity and access management strategy can reduce internal costs and improve productivity, but it can also contribute to revenue growth and profitability, as more and more “users” are business partners, agents or customers. As IT becomes more “consumerized,” all types of users expect quick, convenient access. And that access is no longer limited to logging in from a corporate laptop or PC — today’s workers want access anytime, anywhere, via any device. Every minute that a user has to spend retrieving a lost password or having the help desk reset a password is an unproductive minute — and when you multiply the growing number of applications by the amount of time wasted, the high price of inconvenience becomes pretty clear.

“I can’t keep up with the incoming requests for managing user access across the organization. There’s got to be a better way!”

“Our business users have to remember so many passwords, they’re writing them on yellow sticky notes in plain view.”

Here are some questions you should consider as you plan your strategy to ensure your IAM solution delivers convenience and improves user adoption and productivity:

  • Do you make it as simple as possible for new users to register and begin using your business services — even if they have no prior relationship with your organization?
  • Can users request new access from a self-service tool without having to call the help desk?
  • Do you provide simple password reset capabilities for users who have forgotten their username and passwords?
  • Do you offer users a streamlined and personalized single sign-on experience for all the applications, regardless of where they are hosted or how employees access them — via a desktop, laptop or mobile device?
  • Do you use risk-based authentication to ensure that low-risk transactions are as easy as possible, but high-risk transactions require more assurance?

Check back for blog #4, Manage Access Across On-premises and Cloud Applications

Visit SailPoint Technologies, Inc. here.

Learn more about PathMaker Group IAM MAP here. 

Meeting IAM Gaps and Challenges with New Product Offerings

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PathMaker Group has been working in the Identity and Access Management space since 2003.  We take pride in delivering quality IAM solutions with the best vendor products available.  As the vendor landscape changed with mergers and acquisitions, we specialized in the products and vendors that led the market with key capabilities, enterprise scale, reliable customer support and strong partner programs.  As the market evolves to address new business problems, regulatory requirements, and emerging technologies, PathMaker Group has continued to expand our vendor relationships to meet these changes.  For many customers, the requirements for traditional on premise IAM hasn’t changed.  We will continue supporting these needs with products from IBM and Oracle.  To meet many of the new challenges, we have added new vendor solutions we believe lead the IAM space in meeting specific requirements.  Here are some highlights:

IoT/Consumer Scalability

UnboundID offers a next-generation IAM platform that can be used across multiple large-scale identity scenarios such as retail, Internet of Things or public sector.  The UnboundID Data Store delivers unprecedented web scale data storage capabilities to handle billions of identities along with the security, application and device data associated with each profile.  The UnboundID Data Broker is designed to manage real-time policy-based decisions according to profile data. The UnboundID Data Sync uses high throughput and low latency to provide real-time data synchronization across organizations, disparate data systems or even on-premise and cloud components.  Finally, the UnboundID Analytics Engine gives you the information you need to optimize performance, improve services and meet auditing and SLA requirements.

Identity and Data Governance

SailPoint provides industry leading IAM governance capabilities for both on-premise and cloud-based scenarios.  IdentityIQ is Sailpoint’s on-premise governance-based identity and access management solution that delivers a unified approach to compliance, password management and provisioning activities. IdentityNow is a full-featured cloud-based IAM solution that delivers single sign-on, password management, provisioning, and access certification services for cloud, mobile, and on-premises applications.  SecurityIQ is Sailpoint’s newest offering that can provide governance for unstructured data as well as assisting with data discovery and classification, permission management and real-time policy monitoring and notifications.

Cloud/SaaS SSO, Privileged Access and EMM

Finally, Centrify provides advanced privileged access management, enterprise mobility management, cloud-based access control for customers across industries and around the world.  The Centrify Identity Service provides a Software as a Service (SaaS) product that includes single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, enterprise mobility management as well as seamless application integration.  The Centrify Privilege Service provides simple cloud-based control of all of your privileged accounts while providing extremely detailed session monitoring, logging and reporting capabilities.  The Centrify Server Suite provides the ability to leverage Active Directory as the source of privilege and access management across your Unix, Linux and Windows server infrastructure.

With the addition of these three vendors, PMG can help address key gaps in a customer’s IAM capability.   To better understand the eight levers of IAM Maturity and where you may have gaps, take a look this blog by our CEO, Keith Squires about the IAM MAP.  Please reach out to see how PathMaker Group, using industry-leading products and our tried and true delivery methodology, can help get your company started on the journey to IAM maturity.

With today’s increasing Mobile Enterprise Security Threats, do you have a strategy to mitigate the risk on your Corporate Network?

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Corporations are increasingly utilizing mobile enterprise systems to meet their business objectives, allowing mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets to access critical applications on their corporate network.  These devices provide advanced technologies over traditional desktop clients, such as: information sharing, access from anywhere at any time, data sensors, location, etc. But what makes these mobile devices desirable, by their very nature, also poses a new set of security challenges.  Reports by research agencies in recent years show an alarming trend in mobile security threats listing as top concerns: Android malware attacks, and for the IOS platform issues with enterprise provisioning abuse and older OS versions.

These trends highlight the need for corporations to start taking seriously a mobile security strategy at the same level to which cyber criminals are planning future attacks. A mobile security strategy might involve adopting certain Mobile Security Guidelines as published by standards organizations (NIST) and Mobile OWASP project. See the references at the end of this document:

The following guidelines are a subset of Mobile Security Guidelines I pulled from various published sources with most coming from NIST. It is by no means a comprehensive list, however they can be considered as a starting point or additional considerations for an existing mobile security strategy.

1 – Understand the Mobile Enterprise Architecture

You should start with understanding and diagramming the flow from mobile application to business applications running on the back-end application server. This is a great starting point and should be done at the beginning stages, as most of the security guidelines will depend on what is known about the architecture.

  1. Is the mobile application a native application or mobile web application? Is it a cross-platform mobile application?
  2. Does the mobile application use middleware to get to the back-end API, or does it connect directly to a back-end Restful based Web Service?
  3. Does the mobile application connect to an API gateway?

2 – Diagram the network topology of how the mobile devices connect

Is the mobile device connecting to the business application servers over the cellular network or internally through a private WiFi network, or both? Does it go through a proxy or firewall? This type of information will aid in developing security requirements; help with establishing a QA security test bed and monitoring capability.

3 – Develop Mobile Application Security Requirements

At a high level, a security function must protect against unauthorized access and in many cases protect privacy and sensitive data. In most cases, building security into mobile applications is not at the top of the mind-set in the software development process. As such, these requirements should be gathered as soon as possible in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). It has been my personal experience in many cases that you have to work with application software developers in adopting best security practices. So the sooner you can get that dialogue going the better. Security objectives to consider are:  Confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Can the mobile OS platform provide the security services required? How sensitive is the data you are trying to protect. Should the data be encrypted in transit, and in storage? Do you need to consider data-in-motion protection technologies?  Should an Identity and Access Management (IDAM) solution be architected as part of the mobile enterprise system? Should it include a Single Sign On functionality (SSO)? Should there be multi-factor authentication, role based or fine-grained access control? Is Federation required? Should the code be obfuscated to prevent reverse engineering?

4 – Incorporate a Mobile Device Security Policy

What types of mobile devices should be allowed to access the organization’s critical assets. Should you allow personal mobile devices, Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD’s) or consider only organization-issued or certified mobile devices to access certain resources? Should you enforce tiers of access? Centralized mobile device management technologies are a growing solution for controlling the use of both organization-issued and BYOD’s by enterprise users. These technologies can remotely wipe the data or lock the password from a mobile device that has been lost or stolen. Should Enterprises consider anti malware software and OS upgrades to become certified mobiles on the network? To reduce high risk mobile devices, consider technologies that can detect and ban mobile devices that are jail broken or rooted, as these can pose the greatest risk of being compromised by hackers.

5 – Application Security Testing

According to a study performed by The Ponemon Institute, nearly 40% of 400 companies surveyed were not scanning their applications for security vulnerabilities, leaving the door wide open for cyber-attacks. This highlights the urgency for security teams to put together some sort of security vetting process to identify security vulnerabilities and validate security requirements as part of an ongoing QA security testing function. Scanning application technologies typically conduct two types of scanning methods: Static Application Security Testing (SAST) which analyzes the source code and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), which sends modified HTTP requests to a running web application to exploit the application vulnerabilities. As the QA scanning process develops, it can be automated and injected into the software build process to detect security issues in the early phases of the SDLC.

6 – System Threat Model, Risk Management Process

What will typically come out of the application scanning process will be a list of security vulnerabilities found as either noise, suspect or definitive.  It will then be up to the security engineers knowing the system architecture and network topology working with the application developer to determine whether the vulnerability results in a valid threat and what risk level based on the impact of a possible security breach. Once the risk for each application is determined, it can be managed through an enterprise risk management system where vulnerabilities are tracked, fixed and the risk brought down to a more tolerable level.

7 – Consider implementing a Centralized Mobile Device Management System

Depending on the Mobile Security Policy that is in place, you may want to consider implementing a Centralized Mobile Device Management System especially when Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) mobiles are in the mix that can:

  • For mobile devices, manage certificates, security setting, profiles, etc through a directory service or administration portal.
  • Policy based management system to enforce security settings, restrictions for organization-issued, BYOD mobile devices.
  • Manage credentials for each mobile device through a Directory Service.
  • Self service automation for BYOD and Reducing overall administrative costs.
  • Control which applications are installed on organization-issued applications and check for suspect applications on BYOD mobile devices.
  • A system that can remotely wipe or lock a stolen or loss phone.
  • A system that can detect Jail-broken or rooted mobile devices.

8 – Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

Monitor mobile device traffic to back-end business applications. Track mobile devices and critical business applications and correlate with events and log information looking for malicious activity based on threat intelligence. On some platforms it may be possible to integrate with a centralized risk management system to specifically be on alert for suspicious mobile events correlated with applications at higher risk.

References:

Leadership Essential in Cybersecurity Dynamics

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Are your C-level leaders sending a clear message about Cyber Security?

Despite the high profile security breaches making news headlines and increased attention around cyber risks, executives in the C-suites are still lacking commonality and communication of a clear goal when it comes to a cybersecurity strategy. These individuals need to work together to manage their organizational risks to help prepare, mitigate, and minimize the damage caused by cyber incidents.

Every organization needs a clear strategy and roadmap with supporting tools that protect critical assets. Read more about this topic and the crucial role the C-suite plays in the dynamics surrounding Cybersecurity.

https://securityintelligence.com/c-suite-dynamics-can-impact-the-organizations-cybersecurity/

What is Single Sign-On?

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As I was preparing for Gartner’s Identity and Access Management conference next week in Las Vegas, I was thinking about some of the typical topics that attendees usually ask us about.  There are always the people that want more information about the sexy, cutting edge topics like the Internet of Things, Privileged Identity Management and Adaptive Access Control.  I love talking about these subjects as they are new and involve interesting problems.  Solving interesting problems is fun and the reason many of us got into the information security field.

Another topic that frequently comes up isn’t quite as sexy or fun but really is a foundation function for a mature IAM system:  What is Single Sign-On (SSO)? It seems like SSO is viewed by many as a commoditized feature these days but a surprising number of organizations are still in the early stages of investigating SSO and what it might mean for them.

When explaining SSO to someone, I used to lead off by trying to break the news that they are really never going to have 100% single sign-on but as more and more legacy desktop fat client applications become web-enabled it is much more likely that they might be able to approach a true single sign-on.  These days I just get into a quick overview of what SSO means across a variety of different use cases.

  • Web-Based Single Sign-On – The most commonly recognized type of SSO is the sharing of credentials and user sessions across a common set of internally managed web applications. These can be things like Oracle e-Business Suite applications, portals and most other non-Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) web applications.  A user will be authenticated when the system validates username and password (plus additional factors in some cases).  They are given a session token in the form of a browser cookie that is validated and updated as they travel from application to application.  Usually the same Access Management system provides some level of authorization into these applications but we’re not going to get into all that entails.
  • Federation – Federation is a standards based method of authenticating users into applications hosted by a third party, also called Cloud-based or Saas. Think of SalesForce.com or any of a variety of Oracle’s Cloud applications. There are two sides to a federated agreement: Service Provider controls the actual application, and Identity Provider controls the user IDs and passwords.  The session token is typically a SAML assertion that is consumed by both parties and includes all of the relevant user information.  These SAML assertions can typically be consumed by the Access Management system that provided SSO for the internal applications, allowing users to seamlessly move from application to application regardless of where that application is hosted. (As an aside, when you hear Identity as a Service (IaaS) tossed around, typically is refers to a federation model when you still control your account information but the IaaS is used to broker application access via federation.)
  • Windows Native Authentication – This is the bridge to true SSO by allowing the Access Management system to integrate with a Windows domain to provide a seamless experience. A user will authenticate into their domain as they perform their initial login.  Once they are validated, they will received a Kerberos ticket from the domain controller that contains user and session information much like the browser token or SAML assertion.  When they launch an application that is protected by the Access Management system, the Kerberos ticket will be consumed, validated and then used as the basis to issue its own session token.
  • Enterprise SSO – eSSO, or desktop SSO, is based on agents being installed on each work station to handle the login in process for fat client and legacy applications. We don’t see this nearly as much since more and more applications are moving to the web.

An example to tie it all together – I sit down at my workstation and log in for the morning. A Kerberos ticket is issued.  I decide that I need to check the status of a customer lead in Salesforce.com so I launch a browser and go to the site. When I land on the app, it will query its Identity Provider (our Access Management system) who I am.  The Access Management system sees that I have a valid Kerberos ticket so it will create a SAML assertion and send me back to Salesforce.  This all happens behind the scenes and is usually pretty quick.  Once I am done on SalesForce, I need to go to Oracle e-Business to check on the status of an order.  I browse to the app.  The Access Management system sees that there is an active SSO session (via the SaleForce visit) and creates a new browser cookie to manage the session.  I’d be able to go between any integrated app, onsite or in the cloud, and have SSO for the duration of that session.

Obviously, this is a super-simplified version of how SSO works but I find that it gives people who don’t have a working knowledge of IAM concepts a good understanding of the functionality that is typically grouped under the SSO umbrella.

As a note, PathMaker Group typically implements SSO early in the release roadmap as it can be a quick win that shows value and progress to stakeholders.  We can get through a typical SSO project from requirements through production deployment in 3-4 months depending on scope and complexity.  Reach out to us to see how we can help you get your SSO project underway.

 

 

 

5 Keys to Addressing Privileged Access

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Most security breaches require some form of privileged access to result in any serious damage being inflicted. You know you need a Privileged Access or Privileged Identity Management solution but don’t know where to start? Here are 5 keys to jump start your project and get you on your way to 1) reducing the cost of providing privileged access, 2) decreasing the risk of security incidents and 3) lowering the time it takes to grant privileged access:

1. Temporary vs. Permanent Privileged Access
Some employees use privileged access every day, all day in order to perform their daily job responsibilities. Others only need temporary privileged access to perform a project, incident or change management activity. Should you treat both of these groups the same? Some factors to consider are:

• Historical risk – past audit issues with either group
• Size of each user population – are there many more temporary access users
• User type – are there more internal vs. external users in either user population

2. Resource Classification
Have you classified your privileged access endpoints into tiers that could be used to determine the rigor required to provide privileged access? A typical organization will have hundreds or thousands of endpoints that need to be defined in the Privileged Access solution. Defining tiers of resources will help to prioritize deployment and map the appropriate workflow around the privileged access request process. Some recommended tiers are:

• Tier 1 – resources that drive financial reporting to auditors or regulatory agencies
• Tier 2 – resources that are mission critical to company operations
• Tier 3 – resources that contain very sensitive personally identifiable information

All other endpoints should be ignored until these prioritized resources are addressed.

3. Authoritative Source for Check-Out / Check-In
Do you have an authoritative source that can be used to drive check-in and check-out of privileged credentials? This is the most important component to making the privileged access workflow a smooth and natural process for the end users. The most common authoritative source is an IT Service Desk System used for request, incident & change control tracking. The presence of an open ticket assigned to the protected resource both automates the check-in/check-out process and restricts who can request privileged access at the same time.

4. Automated Provisioning
Delivering privileged access efficiently requires an automated mechanism to update the account password or entitlements. Integrating the privileged access solution with an existing identity management system is a key consideration. The identity management system has connectors deployed for the protected resources which will allow:

• Self Service – to request privileged access
• Workflow – to automate the check-in/check-out process
• Account Updates – to grant/remove privileged access
• Recertification – to drive audit & verification of users with privileged access

5. Privileged Roles
Knowing which groups of privileged users are entitled to request privileged access to various groups of protected resources is an important aspect in providing a privileged access solution. Having these roles defined ahead of time and mapped to the appropriate resources can dramatically reduce the time it takes to deliver a solution. Some common privileged access roles are:

• Server Administrators – to grant server admin access
• Database Administrators – to grant database admin access
• Application Administrators – to grant application admin access
• Security Administrators – to grant security admin access
• Desktop Administrators – to grant desktop/laptop admin access

Getting a handle on these topics will allow you to jump start your Privileged Access implementation and get you well on your way to a more secure environment that provides a seamless end user experience for your administrators.

 

Ingestible Computers

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Today I had the opportunity to be a guest on over a dozen Fox News Radio affiliates around the county to discuss the topic of the “password pill.”

These tiny, ingestible “smart pills” may be making their way to a pharmacy near you as early as next year.  These traveling sensors are in the form of pills which are swallowed and then powered on by stomach acid.  They transmit low frequency signals to a wearable patch and then a smart phone app.  The pill passes through the body in about 24 hours and can then be recycled!  Eeww!  Several companies are making these in various forms including a consumer version that would send information to your cell phone.

The technology is already FDA approved.  In fact, astronauts have been using these for years to help monitor vital health indicators.  We can expect the technology to be main stream for consumers by next year.

For medical applications, this would enable sending real-time data about health conditions and effectiveness of medications directly to your doctor.

For password or authentication applications, the “password pill” can act as a form of strong authentication where YOU become a form of a password.  This provides stronger security than something you know or something you have (and can be stolen or misplaced). Read more

Website Defacement: What Is It and What Can You Do to Fight It?

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Making changes to a company’s website that alters the visual appearance, written content, or overall message of the website is a form of corporate sabotage that cam harm your company’s reputation and reduce profits. Any company that has a website is vulnerable to website defacement, particularly those without effective identity and security management. To learn more about website defacement, what it is, what threats it can pose to your business, and how it can be prevented, check out the information below.

What is website defacement?

Website defacement is the process and result of an attack that changes the content of a company’s website in an offensive or business-harming way. In many defacement cases, a visit to your site by a user of your products or services triggers the download of malicious code onto the user’s hard drive, which can be controlled by the hacker remotely in the future.

Methods of website defacement

SQL injections are often used to log into administrator accounts. After this, the defacer has access to most or all parts of a website. Defacement’s often contain messages that talk down to a system administrator for failure to exercise attentive security management procedures. Sometimes, they are harmless and embarrassing. At other times, they can have a negative impact on your business and on your customers’ hard drives.

How to fight and prevent website defacement?

The best way to prevent website defacement is to employ the security and identity management solutions recommended and installed by a top-tier technology consulting group. These skilled professionals can integrate your system in a way that makes it more difficult for the unwelcome to crack into it. To fight an attack, you can hire the same security management team to restore your system back to normal and determine who the attacker was.

Has your company’s website recently been defaced? PathMaker Group’s highly trained and educated investigative team can analyze digital forensic evidence on the web-server and track down your attacker using networking traffic information. Call us at (817) 704-3644 to find out more about the identity management and system integration services we provide to companies throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.