With the advent of mobile and cloud, IT security is spiraling out of control, transferring physical enterprise boundaries and including multiple third parties into the erstwhile holy sanctum. In the bid to board cloud technology for cost benefits, enhance productivity with enterprise mobility, accelerate time-to-market, and adopt the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomena, many enterprises are struggling with mobile device management (MDM), the identity management burden, regulatory compliance and security risks.
Security challenges in modern enterprises
Cloud based SaaS solutions are helping large and small organizations reduce operational and infrastructural burdens for higher profit and greater business agility. However, the strategy comes at a cost. Data centers are moved out of IT security team's strict vigilance, not just physically at times but also in terms of ownership. More and more business apps and data are being accessed outside safe enterprise networks.
Mobile devices entered the enterprise some years back but these were corporate owned Blackberry mobiles or the like. IT security controlled these devices and policed their use. The BYOD trend, however, has taken up traditional mobile security administration. IT teams no longer have control on the mobile platforms or device types that enter corporate walls every day.
Enterprise workers have also become more demanding. They access business applications on their devices outside office networks, often accessing sensitive data. At the same time, end users do not want to be slowed down by multiple security layers that bog down their productivity.
More cloud apps, on-premise apps and mobile apps means more username password pairs – for users to remember and IT administrators to manage at the backend. The administrative burden and BYOD complexity demands the implementation of a centralizedized identity management solution.
Trust frameworks – a growing concept
Trust frameworks are a new concept. These frameworks ensure there is trust between an identity issuer and provider for accessing APIs, services or data. Since many cloud solutions are accessed by enterprise systems, desktop and mobile devices via APIs, this is a much needed identity management initiative. It also simplifies legal and policy requirements between parties. This trend is spurring the identity-management-as-a-service (IdMaaS) concept.
As new mobile devices appear on the market, sporting better and newer features and capabilities, employees are demanding more from their companies including the use of third party apps to access business information. Consumers too want access to personalized and sensitive data anytime, anywhere and on any device. This can grow into a chaotic risk-laden situation without business work with providers to build strong policies, third party agreements, Single Sign On options, and centralizedized management.
Identity Management solutions
Enterprises do not need exclusive mobile identity management solution for their BYOD associated concerns. They need unified identity services that manage identities across cloud, mobile and on-premise systems through:
· Integrated authentication
· User access control
· Identity tracking (DHCP, etc.)
· Self-service password management portals for users
· Privilege management
· Policy enforcement
· Compliance enforcement (US, EU, and country-specific mandates)
· Single Sign On (SSO)
· Secure certificates for native or web-based mobile apps
· Support for multiple mobile device platforms
· One unified identity infrastructure for IT security that supports user; device and app management, device tracking, remote wipe / lock, provisioning / deprovisioning, usage auditing, etc.
Some unified identity services leverage enterprises' existing identity infrastructure and also enable access to newer features to manage mobile workforces better.
Identity management services are necessary for enterprises to protect themselves and their customers from fraud and other security risks while embracing latest trends and technology to maintain their competitive edge.