Chief Executive Officer at SecureAuth.
Everyone agrees that authenticating your identity to log in, whether at work or at home, is usually either quite easy but not secure at all or very secure but painfully difficult. People naturally choose one or the other based on their awareness of the potential risks of inadequate authentication. It’s past time to find a middle ground that is both easy and secure.
Rapid digitalization made our lives easier and more efficient but also introduced new challenges. Increased reliance on digital technologies has made us more vulnerable to cyberattacks at work and at home. It’s also created far more data, making digital privacy issues increasingly important. Organizations and individuals alike are trying to figure out how to address these new challenges and ensure sensitive data remains private and secure.
Can Authentication Be Both Secure And Seamless?
Many security professionals are begging people to be more security conscious, but it’s not easy. A 2023 NordPass study showed the average person tracks 100 passwords for retail websites, social media platforms, financial institutions, email accounts and devices. Only financial institutions use multiple data points to detect fraudulent logins. For the average user, fraudulent activity is likely to go undetected on business-to-consumer (B2C) sites and platforms.
Here are eight reasons it’s more important now than ever for organizations to protect both the workforce and end users:
1. Increasing Threat Landscape
As some businesses increase security capabilities, cybercriminals are employing more sophisticated methods and shifting their focus to softer targets. Some enterprises still rely on outdated authentication technologies such as one-time passcodes (OTP), push-to-text or push-to-email, and other easy-to-hack methods—putting them at increased risk of cyberattacks.
2. Data Breach Repercussions
Ensuring that only authenticated users can access your network and assets is critical. Theft of workforce and consumer data results in regulatory fines, loss of trust and damage to brand reputation.
3. Regulatory Compliance
Regulations, including the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), mandate strict consumer data protection practices. Data protections also require organizations to safeguard sensitive employee information, incurring hefty fines for noncompliance.
4. User Expectations
Workforces and consumers are increasingly aware of their data privacy rights due in part to significant data breaches in the past. The exposure of hundreds of millions of people’s personal data has led many to expect employers and the businesses they interact with to do a much better job protecting their information.
5. More SaaS And E-Commerce
Increasing use of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions at work and internet use by consumers generates a vast amount of workforce and consumer data that businesses are collecting, using, selling and storing. All of those integrations, online interactions and use of digital services put more data at risk.
6. Business Relationship Impacts
Many businesses offer integrations with other organizations and platforms, which makes it critical to protect the data flowing between these systems. Organizations may avoid working with companies that have a history of security breaches, fearing increased risk exposure.
7. Mobile Devices
People use personal devices to access work documents, personal documents, apps and other services. Frequently, business and personal access are mixed on mobile phones, putting both types of accounts at risk.
8. Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning
The rapid advancements in and wide availability of AI and ML help cybercriminals conduct phishing and other social engineering attacks more easily. Unfortunately, a compromised personal account can easily bleed into the workspace.
Why Is Authentication A Struggle?
Adopting robust solutions is an important way to protect access to sensitive applications and data. Traditional authentication approaches have led users to expect increased security to be more difficult to navigate. It’s critical to enable users to authenticate without requiring disruptive manual processes that don’t necessarily improve the security of the underlying IT resources and data. Authentication should be like casino security—invisible until intervention is required.
How To Transition To Invisible Authentication
Take the following steps to transition to an invisible authentication strategy in your organization and deploy it successfully:
1. Assess current security posture. Review current authentication methods, risks and user needs to create a prioritized list of future requirements.
2. Prioritize end-user experience. Users must authenticate to many IT resources on a daily basis. Choose a solution that includes integrations with your organization’s identity access management (IAM) solution, cloud service providers, web applications and virtual private networks without disrupting user workflow.
3. Deploy next-generation authentication. The technical deployment of authentication can be complex and could require changes to your infrastructure, application integrations and updates to users’ devices. A phased rollout to a specific group of applications or users will ensure a successful deployment.
4. Educate users and leadership. Users accustomed to traditional authentication and MFA solutions must understand how invisible authentication works and what to expect as they begin using it. Videos and online tutorials can help users with the transition. Ensure your executive leadership team understands the business benefits of the rollout and champions it within your organization.
5. Monitor the solution. Once deployed, monitor how people are adapting to the new system and ensure it’s configured properly. User adoption is the best metric to measure the success of your new authentication solution.
There are a few potential challenges to be aware of as you make authentication invisible to your end users. These suggestions can help you get past them:
• Start with a test group and application to identify where challenges arise and address them when rolling the solution out across the organization.
• Mandate comprehensive implementation to move employees past the initial resistance to change.
• Apply MFA requirements broadly. If it’s only available to a subset of users with access to critical applications or sensitive information, attackers can still exploit weak points in your system and leverage them to disastrous effect
Invisible authentication is the key to protecting both the workforce and end users by making authentication easy and secure everywhere.
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