Three ideas to simplify your IT now

And just like that its October and another Cybersecurity Awareness Month is upon us. Since last year at this time things have changed immensely and it’s clear that protecting your company’s most critical data is becoming more complex by the day. Gartner predicts that 81% of enterprises will adopt a multi-cloud environment to increase business resiliency. At the same time, hybrid work is now the norm and while this is good news for employees who have grown accustomed to working on their own terms, this puts a bigger strain on IT and security teams especially with the intensifying threat landscape. Bad actors are becoming more sophisticated and it’s becoming harder for employees to discern valid communications from credential stealing attacks. And, with no network perimeter, enterprise IT teams need to take steps to secure this new reality.

In times when things seem too overwhelming or too big a problem to solve, I’m reminded of aeronautical engineer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, who simultaneously led one of the most innovative teams in history and coined the phrase “keep it simple, stupid”. Cliché? Yes, but sometimes the biggest breakthroughs do come when we eliminate any unnecessary complexity. While this may seem easier said than done, there are three key areas organizations should consider in service of simplification and, ultimately, a stronger security posture.

• Identity orchestration – Managing identities can be complex in an increasingly dynamic business environment, especially those that are hybrid or multi-cloud environments. IT teams are on point to help scale and respond when those dynamics change. Identity orchestration simplifies authentication, authorization and risk policy decisions for all user types.
• Role-based access control – Role-based access control restricts the levels of network access a person has based on their role within an organization. As a result, IT teams no longer have to spend time provisioning and managing users individually, saving valuable time from these important company resources.
• Consider leveraging an MSP – Managed Service Providers, or MSPs, are a great resource when you have a lean IT team. These third-party companies can help deploy and manage cloud apps as a managed service so you have the peace of mind knowing they are being properly managed so you can focus your team on other critical priorities.

All three of these actions can help you attain a Zero Trust approach to security, with identity at its core providing least privileged access.

To learn more, check out the following resources:

• For more information on how to realize a Zero Trust framework, visit https://www.entrust.com/digital-security/identity-and-access-management/solutions/workforce/zero-trust.
• For more information on Entrust Identity orchestration, visit https://www.entrust.com/digital-security/identity-and-access-management/capabilities/identity-orchestration.
• To learn more about our role-based access control, visit https://www.entrust.com/digital-security/identity-and-access-management/capabilities/role-based-access-control.

The post Three ideas to simplify your IT now appeared first on Entrust Blog.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Entrust Blog authored by Jenn Markey. Read the original post at: https://www.entrust.com/blog/2021/10/three-ideas-to-simplify-your-it-now/