Balancing company security, compliance, and productivity is a hard but crucial task. How do you make them co-exist? The solution can be found in an Identity and Access Management platform.
Security, compliance, and productivity are essential business pillars. The goal – and the challenge – is to get the three pillars to successfully coexist. Meaning, that no security and compliance enhancements efforts happen at the cost of the company’s productivity initiatives – or the other way around.
To avoid the risk of damage to the organization the three must support each other like three legs balancing a stool.
For most businesses this is harder than it sounds though, and in many cases, the responsible IT professionals find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Protect the organization from cyber threats and data breaches…
The threat landscape is constantly evolving, and new cyber threats seems to arise daily. To navigate in this reality organizations must be constantly prepared, stay one step ahead and evolve alongside the cyber threats.
Easier said than done, right?
Recent studies reveal that one of the most common initial attack vectors in 2022 was stolen or compromised credentials. In the Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022 it is revealed that in 19 percent of breaches, theft of or attack on credentials are involved. The same situation prevailed the year before.
Therefore, it is paramount to implement security measures to protect user credentials and mitigate the risk of data breaches. Or else it can end up costing you a pretty penny.
According to the report Germany ticks in at fifth place when it comes to the highest average cost of a data breach. On average a 2022 data breach in a German company ended up costing 4.85 million dollars – equivalent to 4.69 million euros. In Scandinavia the average cost was 2 million euros.
And be prepared for IT compliance audits…
Security and compliance efforts are closely linked. Many organizations across industries are rigorously regulated and therefore need to maintain secure IT environments and ensure data protection. On top of maintaining a successful cyber defense it is necessary to be able to demonstrate compliance upon request.
This complicates matters further – and the biggest challenge is to maintain an overview of the IT landscape. A company application portfolio comprises on average 254 applications. This means that IT teams must manage hundreds of apps, including licenses, compliance risks, and constant user requests.
The sheer administration task can end up hurting security and compliance initiatives because the vast number of applications makes it difficult to monitor the IT environment and to document who has access to the organization’s data – a cornerstone of all data protection agreements.
…While making sure that your employees can do their work efficiently
For the last few years the business world has finally settled into a hybrid work model that allows employees to work from anywhere. The office, the home, in public spaces.
This also means that employees can access your company systems and data from anywhere. Measures must be implemented to protect company resources and to make sure that no one accesses data without authorization. Adding too many security measures might slow down – or even hinder – productivity though. Hindrances are most often caused by long training sessions, restricted actions, or blocked applications that end up frustrating the workforce.
Once again: Security, compliance and productivity management is a balancing act. How do you make the pillars successfully co-exist?
Identity and Access Management balances security, compliance, and productivity
Balancing security, compliance, and productivity requires a platform designed to keep up with the growth and development of the digital infrastructure.
An Identity and Access Management platform will simplify the complexity of the hybrid workplace by managing all the organization’s user identities and access permissions across internal systems, devices, and cloud-based technologies. Internal and external users are authorized and verified based on roles defined in a common system. This makes it much easier to ensure – and to document – that only the right users can access the right resources at the right time. This is crucial in any compliance audit.
Especially two components of an Identity and Access Management platform will help employees stay productive while maintaining a high-level of security:
Single Sign-On
With Single Sign-On the company’s users are only required to sign in one time. This provides them with a seamless working experience – no matter what application they are working in. This allows the employees to dedicate their time to actual valuable work tasks instead of spending time on repetitive tasks like signing into a multitude of different applications during a day.
Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-Factor Authentication is another component of an Identity & Access Management platform that verifies that users – in fact – are who they say they are. An immensely important discipline. Especially considering how large a contributing factor stolen credentials to data breaches.
Multi-Factor Authentication requires the user to provide two pieces of evidence to prove their identity before being allowed access to the company’s data. This helps to keep up security while at the same time allowing users to access applications and resources from any device – offering the workforce an important level of flexibility and improving productivity.
SIVIS Group
