07.23.2018 - Manufacturers Need Industrial-Quality Access Control
Ideas about cybersecurity in the manufacturing sector have started to change, and it’s about time. Until recently, a common misperception among those in the industrial world was that that they had little to attract hackers—no credit card data, no health records, no bitcoin. But manufacturers do have data, and it’s immensely valuable — their trade secrets. Profit isn’t the only motivation for hackers many just want to cause chaos. There are plenty of reasons for hackers to attack manufacturing systems; the proof is that one out of three industrial control systems (ICS) computers were hacked last year (Kaspersky Lab, Sept 2017). That number seems daunting. Many industrial automation systems have only limited internet connectivity, if at all. But they are connected to their corporate networks, and that’s where the weakness lies. Only half of manufacturing businesses isolate their ICS networks from their corporate networks (www.ncms.org/CyberSecurityReport). The rest are the mercy of the same phishing, ransomware, and insider attacks as any financial or healthcare organization. One vulnerability that affects manufacturers in particular is poor security practices among their vendors. It just takes one weak partner to infect an entire supply chain. Hackers are efficient criminals; they conduct research using Lexis Nexis, LinkedIn, and even dumpster dive to learn what they need to know to launch the most effective attack possible against their target of choice. If they want to attack your business, they may learn who your vendors are, choose those they suspect to be the weakest¾which may be a mom-and-pop shop, or may be a larger business that has a reputation on the dark web as an easy takedown¾and breach the weak vendor in order to hop onto your network. Security professionals like to say, “Security is people.” The average worker at a bank or hospital is highly aware that their employer is a high-value target, so they are more cautious than those in other industries about clicking on links or opening attachments. The average worker in an industrial business may not be as guarded. Security awareness training is a step in the right direction, but not all workers will take it seriously. Even if every worker did keep security at top-of-mind, humans still make mistakes. It just takes one accidental click to open the door to malware. And once inside, it may make its way to whatever target its authors desire. That could be your trade secrets, or it could be the main controllers in your automation system. ...
07.5.2018 - Troubleshooting Federation with Fiddler
Fiddler is simply the best tool to debug federation issues. Optimal IdM has just released a White Paper on this which you can download on the left side of this page. In this blog we will cover how to use Fiddler to debug WS-Federation issues. The URI for a relying party or identity provider may be in the form of a URL (such as http://my.test.com) or a URN (urn:my.test.com). URIs (both URNs and URLs) are case sensitive when used for Federation. For URLs in the form of URIs, every “/” is part of the name as is the protocol. When used as a URI the URLs http://my.test.com, http://my.test.com/, https://my.test.com, and https://my.test.com/ would all be considered different URIs. ...
04.25.2018 - Agentless SSO – What’s The Big Deal?
SSO, or single sign-on, as a desired end-state for the user experience as they connect to a diverse set of applications reaps many advantages. There are multiple methods and architectures for achieving SSO, but one that should interest just about every customer is agentless SSO. ...
02.8.2018 - SharePoint for Government – Is Seamless AND Secure Authentication Possible?
SharePoint is a Microsoft-based web application platform that businesses use to simplify infrastructure by managing multiple applications data from a single location. This can streamline your processes and improve workflow. How does it work for government agencies, though? ...
09.1.2017 - Top 5 Road-Blocks Migrating To A Cloud Identity and SSO Solution
In discussions with our customers and prospects, almost all of them share common road-blocks that prevent many organizations from fully embracing a cloud identity management/SSO solution. Here we will address 5 of the more common road-blocks and how Optimal IdM has helped clients meet and exceed their security, regulatory, and enterprise architecture needs. ...
04.9.2017 - 101 Uses for a Virtual Directory
Your corporate directory services and individual application identity pools are fragmented and sprawled throughout your enterprise. Each directory needs maintenance and probably a lot of clean up. Unfortunately, there is little time for such efforts. Consolidation of these fragmented identity services often takes many man-years of effort, costly consulting services, temporary software migration tools and the result is rarely the clean, pristine environment envisioned. ...
04.4.2017 - IAM Programs Should Strive for Four 9’s
03.16.2017 - Five Things CMOs Need to Know About Customer Identity and Access Management
01.10.2017 - Navigating a Multi-Forest Office 365 Migration Without Losing Your Mind
10.8.2015 - A Virtual Directory Server (VDS) Is a Swiss Army Knife That Enterprise Architects Cannot Be Without
Even at the smallest companies, the infrastructure needed to support the business is complex. From data centers to data stores, the technical footprint of a company can span the globe. There are internal applications, intranet applications, external federated applications (SAML, OAuth) and there are internal-corporate users and external-partner users that access these company resources on a daily basis. It is easy to see how securely combining all the pieces required to allow a business to run can be difficult task. This is where a virtual directory server (VDS) can ease the “pain” while still maintaining security. A virtual directory server, like Optimal IdM’s Virtual Identity Server, can present a consolidated view of the data that spans the enterprise. For examples, the VDS can present a view to applications which makes the all the users appear to reside in the same data store, even though internal users may be in the corporate Active Directory store while external users are segregated in a database. This combined view makes a single deployment of an application available to the whole enterprise, thereby simplifying the architecture and maintenance. The virtual directory server’s ability to dynamically present a consolidated view, becomes invaluable in the case of mergers and acquisitions. When two companies merge, their existing corporate users reside in separate data stores (or directories) for some time while the technical details regarding combining the data is designed. This typically makes for a bad user experience, requiring users to use one set of credentials for one application and a different set of credentials for another. By placing a virtual directory server in front of the two directories, the users of both companies can begin to use corporate applications “day one”, as the merger details are worked out behind the scene. The value of a virtual directory server does not end there. It can be used to virtualize data, prevent data leakage by acting as an LDAP proxy firewall, as well as providing detailed reports regarding data access. Typically an organization purchases a virtual directory server to solve one specific problem, but once in place, enterprise architects see its value and are able to utilize its full capabilities in other ways across the company. Sure, a virtual directory server can’t make coffee or donuts, but it can make an enterprise run more efficiently and reduce costs. How are you using a virtual directory server at your organization? What problem(s) does it solve? ...
