The importance of access control: is your company protected?

By David Prieto and Rodrigo Rojas

In an increasingly digitalized and complex world, information security is critical for businesses. As companies adopt more cloud technologies and services or allow access to their resources through a variety of devices and platforms, identity and access management has become more critical than ever.

How can enterprises ensure information security in this challenging environment?

The first step in solving this issue is identity and access management within the enterprise, and as these are becoming increasingly digital and complex, this management can no longer be handled manually by IT administrators but requires advanced technology partners and solutions.

In this article, among others, we will highlight some of these solutions, as well as the capabilities offered by Telefónica Tech to carry out access management and privileged account management projects.

We will also explain the importance of passwordless authentication, which is becoming increasingly important due to the greater security it offers compared to classic password authentication.

Passwordless, certainly now.

In previous posts we have already talked about the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) standard and its importance in extending passwordless authentication.

Google's recent announcement was a great leap forward in this strategy of eradicating passwords, as it will allow password-free login, based on the FIDO standard.

Given its importance and impact, we detail below the benefits for both the user and the company itself:

• Increased security: Authentication data is stored in the security key and encrypted with public key cryptography. This makes it nearly impossible for attackers to steal or tamper with authentication information.

• Improved user experience: FIDO2 passwordless authentication is easier to use and more convenient than traditional password-based authentication methods. Users only need to tap or insert the security key to authenticate.

• Reduced fraud: FIDO2 passwordless authentication reduces the possibility that hackers can steal or guess passwords, which reduces the amount of phishing-related fraud.

• Interoperability: FIDO2 is an open specification that is compatible with a wide variety of platforms and devices, enabling greater interoperability between different systems and service providers.

All in all, FIDO2 passwordless authentication provides a more secure, easy and convenient way to authenticate users online without the need for traditional passwords.

How do we ensure information security?

The answer to this question we asked ourselves in the introduction is access management, a process that allows companies to manage who has access to which resources and when. It is essential that this management has functionalities that allow a complete and effective management of access to corporate resources and ensure the security of their information systems, thus avoiding the risk of intrusions and unauthorized access.

Below, we provide an explanation of some of the functionalities that are available in the service that we offer from Telefónica Tech.

One of the most important is the multi-factor authentication (MFA), which helps to ensure data security by implementing a two-step authentication, with this we want to convey that users must provide additional information to verify their identity, which significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access to information.

Photo: Pixabay

Another key functionality is single sign-on (SSO), which allows users to access multiple resources with a single login. It not only saves time, but also reduces the need to remember multiple passwords, which can improve overall security.

In addition, Telefónica Tech's solution features:

• Passwordless authentication (passwordless), which as we saw earlier allows users to access enterprise resources without having to type in a password, improving many other factors of security.
• Access management (RBAC) is another important functionality.It allows specific roles to be assigned to users based on their responsibilities or authorizations, as well as controlling their access based on these.
• Auditing and reporting functionality is a critical element of compliance and monitoring capabilities. This functionality allows companies to track changes in access permissions and generate reports on user usage and activity.

Not only does Telefónica Tech offer a complete and efficient access management solution, but it also has a team of experts in implementation, support and administration of the solution.

What if the accesses are to critical systems?

In this case, the answer is privileged access management, which refers to the management and control of access for users with elevated or privileged permissions.

This type of solution allows secure management of credentials and privileged access, as well as control and supervision of the actions performed by users with such access.

Among the functionalities included are the following:

• Secure credential management: Enable secure and centralized management of the credentials required to access an organization's critical systems and applications.
• Privileged access control: Enables the control and supervision of privileged access.
• Monitoring of actions performed: They record all actions performed by users with privileged access, allowing the detection of possible malicious or unusual activities.

Telefónica Tech helps customers through a team of experts in privileged access management, with extensive experience in projects for the implementation of this type of solutions based on all types of technologies.

Conclusion

To sum up, access management is a critical process in the protection of confidential information and systems security in enterprise environments. Implementing modern solutions can help enterprises address the challenges associated with access management and minimize security risks.

Yet how can companies prepare for future challenges and stay protected? Telefónica Tech's access and privileged access management services are end-to-end services that provide all the functionality needed to ensure that security and enable future-proofing by including the latest features such as passwordless in their solutions.

Featured photo: iMattSmart / Unsplash.