To understand how tremendous the change towards digital identity has been, let’s take a trip down memory lane and consider what IT environments used to look like.
Traditional IT departments had overall ownership and control over all access levels to networks and infrastructure. Besides that, organizations owned servers, IT hardware, and client workstations, many of which ran from the premises. For days on end, the firewall and antivirus programs shielded networks and devices from external intrusion. The tool is still essential in any cybersecurity system, but with the increased access to sensitive information and systems from beyond the internal network, the perimeter has now shifted to endpoints.
Today, there is a great reliance on cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and mobile devices that enable access to crucial information away from the legacy network perimeter. With the current digital transformation, it is safe to say that identity is the new perimeter across all industry verticals.
Blurred Network Boundaries
Back in the day, the IT landscape featured users and devices located in the same network infrastructure, which made identity authentication straightforward. Aside from that, security based on standing privileges and administrators performed superbly for exclusively in-office workforces.
That is not the case today, as network boundaries are more fluid and blurred with the increasing number of devices and network access processes that intersect in the digital atmosphere. Without a doubt, more workers are now outside the office than they are in it, deploying software via the Internet to access resources in the cloud.
The cloud is characteristically everywhere, and even in large organizations. Having an exclusive on-prem model is becoming a thing of the past. Many companies are adopting a hybrid approach. It comes as no surprise that the new CDE Canada report reveals that cloud adoption will define Canadian organizations’ ability to meet future digital demand. As the report states, “driven by shifts in consumer demand, a need to stay ahead of the competition and overcome business challenges, incorporating new technologies and pursuing a digital transformation strategy are necessities for any Canadian organization.”
At present, about 52% of organizations have already or plan to invest in cloud-based infrastructure and applications to ensure the reliable delivery of services.
Furthermore, with the cloud as an enabler, enterprise operations presently occur on both company-issued and personal devices. Nowadays, employees and customers don’t just access company information through their workstations at the office but through multiple devices and applications at different times and locations. Unfortunately, personal devices, by and large, have questionable safety measures and security tools. It’s indubitable that some companies have resorted to virtual private networks (VPN) tunnels, but the solution partially solves the security problem. In actuality, VPNs are slow due to capacity issues and require expensive software and hardware. They also introduce additional configuration, networking, and management challenges. Even with VPNs and other endpoint security tools, each user device and web app an employee uses is a potential weak point reigned by the challenge of verifying that the right person is accessing the appropriate resources on the right device.
Meanwhile, contractors and vendors have temporary and quick-shifting access needs, presenting a confounding challenge to the traditional network perimeter model. They come with widely varying access needs that are often temporary and inherently difficult to manage from a security standpoint.
That said, traditional security models are no longer sufficient, and blurred network perimeter is naturally shaping identity security.
Sophisticated Modern Threats
In addition to modern digital developments and blurred network perimeters, enterprises face complex threats that come in various forms. Besides that, the current threat landscape isn’t limited to external malicious actors trying to intrude the network. Instead, remote workers, contractors, compromised credentials, and unpatched systems present numerous internal threats that serve as perfect jumping-off points for external cybercriminals. To say that modern organizations are up against a whole new world of security issues and threats is an understatement – both external and internal weaknesses are significant, with the average cost of insider threat reaching $11.45 million. Without proper security controls, businesses in Canada continue suffering massive data breaches and incidents affecting operations, customer trust, and overall productivity.
Identity-Based Security – The Secure Digital Transformation Catalyst
Undoubtedly, the IT landscape has reached an intersection of users, applications, and devices that require identity-based security. Therefore, it is reasonable that identity is a digital transformation catalyst, with many enterprises rethinking their internal strategies and technologies. Furthermore, as technology increasingly reshapes the modern workplace by enabling business processes integration and streamlining, organizations need to develop secure and reliable ways to identify and verify entities, including users and machines. That way, identity security is becoming the concierge that grants access to information and infrastructure.
With identity as the new perimeter, enterprises can provide on time-limited and just enough access that mitigates the threats associated with modern digital transformation. With modern identity solutions, organizations have access to context-based authentication and authorization capabilities for verifying users and granting access to sensitive data and applications based on the user role, where they are through geolocation, the time of the day, their device, and the network they are connected to. Besides, legacy account credentials are not floating around, and employees cannot access resources they shouldn’t after leaving the organization. Better yet, authorized users can access information and systems efficiently without being bogged down by slow working VPNs.
Get Started with Sentia
Cybersecurity has become immensely complicated in recent years, with security tools like firewalls and antivirus becoming insufficient to get the job done behind us. In the past, enterprises hired IT professionals and tools to defend the perimeter, and the approach would go a long way towards keeping digital assets secure. However, this network perimeter does not exist today, with technologies like IoT, cloud and mobile computing making the perimeter blurred and fluid.
In response, Sentia provides high-value IT solutions tailored to help your business move away from the traditional security methods in favour of robust identity-focused technology.
Contact Sentia today for a free demo to learn how you can protect your organization from cyber threats.