Password managers face a daunting task. The creation and management of user access to connected devices, as well as user access and authentication into external and internal applications, databases and networks is riddled with both scalability and security challenges.
Complicating the matter is the fact that user authentication and verification are the cornerstones of any business, and sometimes entire sectors. Adding fuel to this dangerous powder keg, studies every year reveal that the most-popular passwords chosen by users are incredibly inadequate. Obvious passwords like “123456” and “password” always top the lists. What’s worse is the fact that people often use the same weak passwords everywhere, and this bad practice follows most organizations when moving into the cloud.
These issues are compounded by the need for password managers to manage three additional challenges:
1. Lack of enterprise features – User authentication and verification is the combination of business process and technology to manage data about users on computer systems and software applications. This management often includes user objects, identity attributes, security entitlements and authentication factors. These tools that manage user identities, however, often lack the capabilities necessary to handle the scalability of always-on and always-mobile modern enterprise networks.
2. Lack of control – A strong challenge for password managers is the proliferation of personal mobile devices at work. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, as it’s more commonly known, allow employees to access secure corporate networks with their own technology at any time and from any place. This challenge translates to a lack of control regarding information systems and sensitive data. In the past, this lack of control has led to some of the largest and most recent data breaches such as the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) attack.
3. Lack of security- Adding to the vulnerabilities regarding the lack of control is the fact that cyber-attacks are categorically on the rise with no end in sight. The level of sophisticated attacks and phishing attacks are also increasing. In the modern IT environment, organizations need to know exactly who is accessing what, when, where, why and how. According to the recent 2016 Verizon DBIR report, this need and the increase in attacks targeting privileged accounts has made the stakes higher than ever for an organization to defend from cyber-attacks. The DBIR report also warns that the average time to breach occurs in minutes, if not faster.
Solving the Cloud-Based Challenges
Despite these common challenges within password management, it’s important to note that not all cloud-based user access and authentication solutions are the same. LogonBox offers the cloud capabilities to handle the scalability and security demands of always-on enterprise networks and BYOD services.
With LogonBox, enterprises can deploy a solution that:
- Offers the enterprise features to perform services efficiently such as the provisioning of new employees with minimal downtime.
- Offers the enterprise control to rapidly and easily disable retired accounts and mitigates unauthorized access
- Offers the enterprise security that links multiple accounts to a single identity
- Addresses the glut of mobile devices and the barrage of cyber-attacks common across all industries by providing a single point of entry to disparate systems and back-end networks.
Managing the identity and access privileges of users on networks and IT systems is essential for almost every company and organization. It’s also at the core of both customer service and user productivity – as well as being paramount for security across traditional networks and the cloud. With solutions like LogonBox Password Manager, organizations can provide a common user experience while enabling organizations to enforce least privilege policies for all remote users while mitigating the greatest challenges password managers face.
