Choosing a Modern Authentication Solution: 3 Key Considerations

[MelanieSommer]

Today’s organizations need to deliver convenient, secure access for the modern workforce. Users want the ability to access systems and applications from anywhere and any device. But before providing them with this access, organizations must be able to verify that users are, in fact, who they say they are.

RSA SecurID® Access is an award-winning multi-factor authentication solution that uses risk analytics and insights about users’ typical log-in patterns to verify the legitimacy of access attempts and provide robust authentication that doesn’t impede users’ productivity. RSA SecurID Access, the industry’s most advanced identity assurance solution, gives your users the ability to innovate, accelerate and collaborate. And it gives you the security and control to prevent identity risks from becoming a drag on your business.

Authentication Your Way

To ensure your user identity access strategy is implemented in a way that meets your organization’s specific needs, there are three key factors you need to consider when evaluating any authentication solution, including:

Your applications and systems: Are you looking to protect applications that are on-premises or in the cloud? Or both? Are you trying to protect access for remote users to applications on your networks? You need a solution that can manage access for everything from your VPN to your SaaS applications, to legacy, on-premises applications to web-based applications. When users sign up for cloud applications, they create islands of identity which are problematic because IT has little to no visibility into or control over them. It’s important to choose a modern authentication solution that can bridge those islands of identity and give you a holistic authentication strategy to centrally manage access to them all.

Your users: Your user population is likely growing and changing every day – users can be employees, contractors, partners, vendors and customers. The very existence of this transforming population raises many access-related challenges: How does IT provide them with the right access, given the situation? Are the users in the office, on the corporate Wi-Fi network? Or are they working from home? Perhaps they’re in a strange city, or simply working remote—should you provide them the same access as they would have if they were in the office? Each situation will pose different security challenges. You’ll want to ensure your authentication strategy can leverage identity awareness and context to make the proper access decisions and to maintain compliance. 

At the same time, this new class of users creates user experience challenges. Accustomed to consumer-grade applications and the ease of use that comes with them, they expect the same experience from their work systems and applications. And, when it comes to authentication approaches, you’ll need to offer an authenticator that meets their comfort level and environments best – this can range from push notification, biometrics, soft tokens or hard tokens. Find a multi-factor authentication solution that is able to offer a wide range of options to best suit the needs of this demanding, dynamic user base.

Your environment: The right multi-factor authentication solution should be flexible enough to deliver the right access to anything from anywhere. But, what about the technology itself? Are you looking to keep your authentication technology on-premises, migrate it to the cloud over time, or move to an authentication-as-a-service model? Obviously there are benefits to each approach, it’s simply a matter of your organization’s cloud strategy. When evaluating authentication solutions, make sure the vendor provides options for on-premises, hybrid, or as-a-service options that will allow you to move to the cloud at your own pace. 

Modern Authentication Solutions for the Modern Enterprise

Not all organizations have the same authentication needs. For that reason, RSA SecurID Access is delivered in flexible configurations and packages to serve every organization’s diverse requirements. Depending on what your organization wants to protect, how you want to protect it and how you want to deploy the solution, there is a version of RSA SecurID Access that’s right for you. Take a spin through our product selector tool and see which edition of RSA SecurID Access will suit your organization best.

Find out which edition of RSA SecurID Access is right for you here. Learn more about all of the options available in RSA SecurID Access and take a quick interactive assessment to get a recommendation in less than a minute.