Authentication Solutions - By Role

IT Security/Management

Challenge

Securing corporate intranets and extranets and protecting applications and important content from illegal usage is an ongoing challenge for IT security managers.  Their primary goal is to thwart unauthorized users’ attempts to access and potentially steal critical corporate information and customer data.  They seek to accomplish that goal by strengthening the authentication process and controlling access to the enterprise.

Both internal and external hackers attempt to gain access by guessing passwords or seizing upon weak ones, making password security a chief concern.  Consequently, IT security managers need to implement best practices for password authentication — functionality such as password quality, password expiration intervals, 3-strikes, last login, and password strength validation.

IT security managers are also overwhelmed by the degree to which managing passwords and addressing password issues consumes the IT staff’s time and resources and diminishes their productivity.  On a daily basis, the IT staff must attend to:

• Managing the multiple sets of credentials end-users possess and their various user accounts;
• Coordinating password policies and synchronizing numerous sets of password quality rules that may or may not overlap;
• Setting up and disabling accounts in multiple places when someone joins or leaves the organization; and, most of all,
• Responding to password-related calls to the Help Desk, specifically calls regarding forgotten passwords.  

All the time that is devoted to password management and password issues could be better spent dealing with more important matters in terms of security and compliance. 

IT security managers aim to streamline authentication for end-users and reduce password management for the IT staff, however simplifying access while still maintaining security presents yet another challenge.

Solution 

PistolStar’s Password Power and PortalGuard enable end-users to employ their Active Directory password for accessing numerous enterprise applications, such as Lotus Domino and Notes, IBM WebSphere and System i, SAP and Oracle.  As a result, they have one password they need to remember to access all these applications, which greatly decreases the incidence of forgotten passwords and dramatically reduces calls to the Help Desk for password resets.  Both products also enable end-users to do their own password resets, which contributes even more to reducing Help Desk calls and further frees up time for the IT staff.

With Active Directory as the central authentication point, the IT staff is able to centralize password management.  Administrators reduce the number of password stores and user accounts they need to oversee, and streamline and unify password policies.  Accordingly, they free up time they need to devote to more urgent IT security matters.

Password Power and PortalGuard also provide password security functionality without increasing calls to the IT Help Desk.  IT security managers can address specific problems and challenges, such as enabling secure access to corporate files and applications and protecting sensitive financial information and private customer data from illegal usage.  They can also implement best practices such as requiring a username, password and challenge question response to gain access and multiple challenge questions for self-service password reset and recovery.  Password rules can be established by person, group or hierarchy and enable/disable certain password behaviors.  For example, administrators can configure the number of password strike-outs allowed for each user and receive an alert when a strike count is exceeded.  They also have the ability to:

• Prevent multiple users from logging in with the same credentials;
• Set password expiration intervals and grace periods for expired passwords;
• Track all login activity and certain login behaviors;
• Lock out inactive users and disable accounts of departed employees;
• Restrict the frequency with which a previously-used password can be re-used;
• Validate password strength during login; and
• Control password quality by configuring 12 fully customizable password strength rules. 

Password Power and PortalGuard provide tremendous cost-savings for the IT security manager’s budget, not only by decreasing Help Desk calls, which can drain support staff time and money, but also by heading off potential security breaches caused by issues that can arise in the password authentication and management process.