THE EVOLUTION OF AUTHENTICATION – HOW WE GOT HERE AND WHERE WE ARE NOW
The Authentication Problem
The Internet changed the way we do business. The access to fast Internet at home, as well as through millions of Wi-Fi hotspots in public places, allows employees to work from anywhere – their homes, hotels, coffee shops. Corporate information is not concentrated anymore in server rooms or data centers on premises; it is distributed in the Cloud, through CRM, email servers, web portals.
Every single day, an employee will certainly authenticate to several of those services. First, to their computer. Then, to an email server, and maybe a Cloud application. If they are not physically in the office, they are probably connecting to the network through a VPN. And where are the user credentials? The data traffic carries user credentials through Wi-Fi connections and public networks.
If at some point any of those credentials are exposed, what are the odds that the same password is used on most of the other services? The chances are high. With dozens of credentials to remember every day – corporate, banks, credit cards, eCommerce sites, social media, mobile stores, etc. – who would intentionally select a different password for each one of those services?
A password that is captured when you access your favorite grocery store website is likely to be the same password that you use to log in to your computer, or even worse, to the VPN that connects you to the corporate network. As we can see, the password problem goes beyond our corporate network. We cannot predict if an employee will use the same password for any type of personal service they have, or even if they at some point shared the password with someone.
All of that is to say that we can’t trust passwords. They can be shared. Written down. Captured. Guessed. Cracked. Stolen.
Download the whitepaper to learn how to Protect user identity and Secure business trust with multi-factor authentication.
