With the advent of digital transformation, the shift to a work-from-anywhere paradigm was inevitable. Add to the mix a global pandemic, and the shift to permanent remote access was vastly accelerated. And along with this swift yet necessary change in work connectivity came another way that cybercriminals could take advantage of a situation. This cybercriminal mindset is what brings us to today.
The challenge with remote work is two-fold. First, organizations must respond with cybersecurity solutions that protect critical systems in new and novel ways. After all, attackers continue to become more sophisticated with their attacks—meaning organizations must become more sophisticated with their defences. But that’s simply part of the ongoing battle that is cyber security.
Equally important is the second factor in cyber security—the human element. Far too often, organizations sacrifice productivity in the name of security, thereby frustrating users. Ironically, frustrating users can have the exact opposite effect, inadvertently leading to security holes, mistakes, and bad habits. For example, when securing devices and systems, passwords have long been the default, lowest-common-denominator standard for establishing identity. Unfortunately, attackers have become better at compromising credentials over time, with phishing and brute-force attacks now in widespread use.
Passwords, fingerprints, facial scanning, and multiple layers of authentication are methods to prevent unwanted access, but they ultimately cannot truly confirm a person’s identity. In addition, passwords are now insecure; fingerprint and face scans are compromised using relatively low-tech methods, and OTP systems are vulnerable to social engineering, peer-over-partition, and other attacks.
As a result, people strengthen password requirements, and many organizations have added multi-factor authentication (MFA) to their login workflows. But while these credentials build a more substantial front door for attackers to break through, they have complete access to critical files and systems once they’re through that door. The problem is that MFA and 2FA simultaneously slow down and frustrate the workforce with additional friction.
Current MFA and 2FA solutions fail to provide accurate identity detection and continuous authentication. But there’s a challenge that organizations face when considering options for continuous authentication—how do they constantly challenge and authenticate users without causing so much friction that they use unauthorized workarounds, software, and applications?
Systems currently used by government agencies for authentication impose so many strict internal controls and obstacles that users frequently opt for the workarounds mentioned above. To put it bluntly, communication about projects often move to unsecured personal messaging platforms, or sensitive or classified conversations happen at coffee shops instead of through appropriate platforms.
So the question becomes, how can the problem be fixed? In short, organizations need to turn to cutting-edge tools that address today and tomorrow’s cybersecurity challenges. Government agencies and organizations need to use proven but advanced technologies belonging to a new cybersecurity paradigm that provides users with remote access to data while authenticating a user continuously and without additional friction.
As an identity-centric cybersecurity solutions provider with behavioural biometrics and machine learning in its DNA, Plurilock is the answer to the question. Plurilock enables organizations to protect their environments from credential compromise and attacks using continuous identity authentication while eliminating the obstacles and friction that make it difficult for end-users to complete their missions.