According to the “Modern Bank Heists’ report by VMware Carbon Black, this coronavirus period has seen a 238% surge in cyberattacks against banks. While surveys for other industries are currently lacking, it is safe to say that cybercrime, in general, is up. The threat of data breaches and insider attacks is at an all-time high with employees working from home computers, and budgets are way down. So, what can your business do in this dilemma? How does one protect oneself without spending big bucks?
Insider-related Cybersecurity Breaches are No Joke
The 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations report found that a whopping 34% of all breaches were caused by insiders. These are employees and employee accounts controlled by external hackers. And, according to the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), a shocking 70% of all insider breaches are not reported externally. Given the average cost of an insider-related breach being an alarming $513,000, insider threats are no joke. Your business must protect itself as best it can, despite budget cuts.
Enter Identity and Access Management (IAM)
IAM is the field that can best protect you against insider breaches, the type of breaches which occur from the compromise or misuse of existing accounts with access to sensitive data. It deals with access rights and the methodology by which accesses are granted or revoked, and also with how apps and data-systems are signed onto.
For instance, Single Sign-on is a technology that reduces the risk of password breaches by enabling a system through which employees can access all their apps with a single password. It is not uncommon, even today, for employees to write all their various passwords down. It may end up on a document in their workstation or even on a piece of paper due to what is called ‘password fatigue’! It is simply mind-numbing to keep a different password for each app, and then to remember each of those passwords when required. Single sign-on eliminates password fatigue by creating an additional layer of security. Through this, a single password can be used to sign in to all apps and target systems that an employee works with.
And, does someone who just changed departments still need access to their old apps? What if a toxic combination is present after the role change? Access Recertification is the technology that helps eliminate this risk by running periodic, scheduled access review campaigns to verify that all current accesses in an organization are valid and should be as they are. In fact, many laws and regulations in many industries such as Banking, Healthcare and Pharma all mandate that access recertifications be performed at regular intervals. This is normally cumbersome if gargantuan task to be done manually, with each employee in an organization having potentially tens to hundreds of different access rights, and with no dedicated staff to perform the reviews. Access Recertification technology automates this entire process, from enabling managers to easily determine what accesses are now invalid, to revoking the access rights.
But, IAM is Expensive, and my Budgets are Cut
Generally true, as full-suite license IAM solutions can cost an arm and a leg. Not only that, they typically have long implementation times and low ROI due to poor overall utilization of the solution.
Why Traditional IAM is Expensive
Most full-suite IAM solutions are sold as licenses, which are billed as Capital Expenditures and are taxable, not to mention they are difficult to get approvals for even when budgets are not at an all-time low. They also offer a variety of functions from Single Sign-on to password management, birthright provisioning (the granting of various accesses to new joiners based on their role in your IT system),lifecycle management (revocation and creation of new accounts and access when job roles are changed, or an employee is terminated from work), and a plethora of other goodies. They are priced accordingly for offering so many features, but typically only one or more of these features are desired or even plausible to be adopted by the workforce at a time.
So, you pay exorbitant license costs (with 20% or more as an Annual Maintenance Contract) for a solution that you hardly use all the features of. But all this is about to change! What’s worse is that if the solution does not work as intended, you are stuck with a big failed purchase, a lot of wasted money, and the inability to get your security environment going as you intend. You also have to pay hardware and staffing costs to keep your IAM environment running, which is actually a huge overhead.
Enter IAM as a Service from Ilantus
IAM old-timer Ilantus Technologies has devised a model that sorts out all these challenges! Instead of paying a big license fee with AMC for a full-suite product that may not even be utilized completely, we offer distinct but critical IAM functions as services. From Single Sign-on to Password Management (Ilantus Access Management as a Service) to Access Recertification (Ilantus Access Recertification as a Service or ARaaS). You can pick out exactly what service you desperately require and have it running in your environment in a matter of days. What’s better? The solutions are billed as operational expenses and are hence non-taxable, and you pay only for what you use (consumption basis). This new agile model brings down the old behemoth of licensing models with ease as the best new way to experience the benefits of IAM!
Approvals are easy, and the solutions cost a penny on the dollar that a license costs. Since they are billed as operational expenses, budgeting and approvals for them are a whiz! You don’t even need to run or maintain the environment yourself. We do it all for you in the public cloud!
What You Need, When You Want It
Now, you can experience exactly the technology that you desperately want in your IT environment, without the frills and other technologies which just lay around gathering rust! You can add any other IAM solution under the sun, or other Ilantus solutions, as and when you please with our revolutionarily powerful integration. You can do this as and when you please, experiencing IAM in comfortable increments instead of in one big soggy mess!
Traditional IAM is too expensive for post-COVID-19 budgets, and cybersecurity threats are only increasing! The solution is to experience IAM as A Service, also commonly called Software as a Service (SaaS), and pay based on consumption instead of for the whole license in one go.
Ilantus is a pioneer in the SaaS market, not only offering full-suite solutions in the cloud but offering the world’s first “as a service’ range of products where different IAM technologies can be tacked on one by one in accordance with your budget and comfort! Check Out Ilantus’ as a Service line of offerings today!
