The goal of achieving compliance is to make sure that an organization is meeting minimum standards to protect sensitive data. In order to be compliant, a business needs only to meet the outlined requirements.

However, this does not mean that its systems and data are secure. Unfortunately, there are companies that treat compliance merely as a checkbox. Even when the minimum standards are met, data and accounts with elevated access are still vulnerable. Instead, achieving compliance should be viewed as the by-product of sound security practices. This starts with protecting the attacker’s most sought-after prize: privileged accounts with elevated access across the network.

In the first installment in this blog series, we looked at the many trends in the business landscape today (digital transformation, a changing workforce, and the shift to cloud IT infrastructures, among others) that are driving the need for a more comprehensive and integrated IAM solution. In our second blog in this series, we will take a look at why evolving regulatory and threat landscapes, combined with shrinking IT budgets, have necessitated more robust, modern IAM solutions.

When you hear about retail establishments suffering from a data breach, names like Neiman Marcus, Target, The TJX Companies, Michaels, and The Home Depot dominate the headlines. When you read these news stories, it might appear as if cyber criminals are only going after the big fish. Unfortunately, this might lull small and mid-sized businesses into thinking that they are not likely to be the targets of such an attack. This is supported by recent research that shows that more than three-quarters of all SMBs believe that they are safe from to cyber attacks.

The truth is, small and medium sized retailers make up 62 percent of the data-breach victim pool, because attackers know that small and mid-sized businesses are:

The goal of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) is to protect cardholder information from abuse. While the standard does not make any technology recommendations, its requirements line up with best practices for how payment card information should be handled, communicated, and stored in order to sufficiently secure it.

Intruders Can’t Drive You Nuts If You Don’t Give Them the Keys!

Seasonal employees play a vital role in the operations of retail organizations. In many industries, a full-time worker is categorized as someone who works 40+ hours a week and is on a salary. However, for retail organizations, a full-time worker is someone who works twelve months out of the year. The many employees who did not fit that definition are considered seasonal workers.

First off, what is an Orphan account?

Orphan accounts are the accounts that have somehow slipped past the de-provisioning paper trail.  Those accounts that still have organizational access to systems without a valid owner.  

Did you know that 50-60% of today’s organizations still rely on manual Identity Access Management (IAM)?

While automated IAM technologies like RapidIdentity enable administrators to automatically provision and monitor users and grant time-based access, manual IAM requires admins to manually change these factors for each individual within the organization. This system can lead to lapses in access restriction and ultimately large losses in time, money and security.

Today's enterprise is more complex than ever before. The pressure on Information Technology departments to manage their technology resources to meet the current organizational needs all the while scaling to meet its future needs is tremendous.