“Trust no one.” That was one of the taglines for The X-Files, the popular science-fiction television series about FBI agents who investigate a series of bizarre, supernatural cases. It’s also becoming a mantra for modern network security Faced with relentless cyber threats and expanding attack vectors, network security pros have begun to embrace a “zero trust” model as an...

As growing numbers of users need access to more on-premises and cloud resources, identity and access management (IAM) has become increasingly challenging. It’s virtually impossible to keep up with access requests using manual processes, so errors are bound to creep in. This can lead to orphaned accounts that remain active after the user changes roles or leaves the organization,...

IT teams are overstretched. Business units need new applications and services spun up faster than ever before. At the same time, IT must maintain an ever-larger and increasingly complex environment and ensure robust security. New threats and vulnerabilities emerge every day, and security alerts never seem to let up. That’s why automation has become an essential part of any...

In 2009, the federal government began development of the Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) architecture to address security weaknesses across agencies in the areas of user identification and authentication. Established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the federal ICAM program provides guidance on IT policies, systems, and standards that help agencies monitor, manage, and secure access...

Organizations are rethinking their operational models, finding new solutions to problems, and enhancing the customer experience by integrating technology into everything they do. That’s the essence of digital transformation (DX). Rather than simply building on what you have with new technology, DX is intended to drive innovation and reinvent internal processes and the external markets you serve. The problem...

Access certification requires that managers regularly review their employees’ access to financial systems to validate that access privileges align with the employee’s job requirements. Many organizations have implemented access certification processes to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002. Because SOX mandates an annual evaluation of internal controls and procedures for maintaining the integrity of financial reporting, organizations...

Intuit recently notified users of its TurboTax software that their accounts might have been compromised using username/password combinations obtained from another source — what’s known as a credential-stuffing attack. The company said the hackers might have obtained the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, and financial information of those affected. In credential stuffing, hackers use...

A 2017 study by the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering found that, on average, there’s a hacker attack on Internet-connected computers every 39 seconds. Many of these are brute-force attacks that attempt to gain access using common, weak credentials. If one of these attacks were to breach a corporate user’s machine, the hacker could potentially gain higher-level...

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivers real business benefits, including reduced capital and operational overhead, continuous software updates, and simplified remote access. However, many IT decision-makers are concerned their organizations aren’t doing enough to secure cloud-based solutions. In a recent study conducted by Vanson Bourne, 64 percent of IT decision-makers said their “organization’s SaaS adoption is outpacing their ability to secure it.”...

Traditionally, workers relied on IT teams to provide privileged access to the resources needed to perform tasks. Today, workers demand unprecedented rights to perform tasks on servers, applications, data, and other IT resources. While privileged access can increase user freedom and productivity and reduce administrative efforts and costs, security requirements are rarely a consideration. The key is to determine...