IAM in 2010?

It has been a busy, busy past few months for Code Technology — new projects, new opportunities and a growing business.  This post provides an update on our project work with, necessarily, client names obscured:

• Last fall, the  Identity and Access Management program that I’ve been leading for a large public-sector education organization paid some big dividends.  Over the past two years my team has been building an IAM system on top of Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).  The main work was actually completed over a year ago, and the first web applications with a few hundred users were launched.  But in October 2009 the wider deployment started and we now have over 35,000 users, with as many as 120,000 users to come online in just over three years.  By the end of 2010, we could have a dozen applications using the service, enabling access to the broader education sector in Alberta in ways that have previously been impossible.
• We recently completed an IAM strategy and program development project for a very large organization (85,000+ employees) here in Alberta.  This enterprise has some compelling identity challenges and high security needs.  What is interesting is that we have been able to construct a strategic framework, then drive out enough detail to define individual IAM projects for inclusion into their overall information security program.  I strongly believe that defining strategy without a defined delivery program as part of the report is useless — how many strategies and architectures do we see that end up sitting on executive shelves? With this project completed, the client now has a clearly articulated strategy and a practical set of projects defined in a format that is easily understandable by business and technical decision-makers alike.
• We have also been working to develop the Canadiam blog and online community.  So far we’ve managed to create the blog site, populate it with a few posts, create a Twitter hash tag (#canadiam) and setup a LinkedIn group.  We are always open to new commenters, guest bloggers and other contributions so if you are interested in this niche slice of Canadiana, visit the site and let us know!  At the very least, feel free to slap #canadiam on to any Tweets you have related to IAM in Canada.

There really seems to be an increased rumble in the IAM services space – I’ve been at this niche for over seven years and I don’t recall a time when there have been so many implementations in the works. Whether it be government, other public sector or for-profit enterprises, IAM seems to be on everyone’s mind.

In the past few weeks alone, we have had interest in Code’s IAM services from three different provinces — five different projects in total. And that’s just what a crossed my desk — there are at least three major IAM implementations being planned or being delivered in Alberta at present, renewed federal efforts to develop the Pan-Canadian framework, another major project in Manitoba and (from what I can gather) similar initiatives in the other western provinces.

There is a lot going on in the identity world.  Will 2010 be the year that IAM makes a big splash across the country?

Mike

Authentication issue at heart of lawsuit

If you have followed this blog for any length of time you’ll know that I often return to issues and opportunities related to strong authentication.  Last week’s news from eastern Texas is therefore of interest…

Apparently a customer of the PlainsCapital Bank lost $200,000 through one or more electronic transfers.  The bank offers what they claimed to be a ‘two-factor’ authentication service.  After a user name and password are entered, the ’second factor’ for authentication is an access code that is sent to the registered user’s email address.  The access code is entered by the user and their computer’s IP address is recorded (presumably to protect the session and for audit purposes).  Unfortunately for the bank and its customer, the emailed code was intercepted by what appears to be a Romanian hacker and the money was stolen via an unauthorized funds transfer.

By definition two-factor authentication must include two of three different factors: something owned, something known or something inherent (e.g. a biometric).  The first factor in this case is the user name/password combination, which is something known.  The second factor, the access code, is also something known.

Because both of these are in the ’something known’ category, this is not two-factor authentication.  It may be stronger authentication that user name/password alone, but it is NOT two-factor.

The bank seems to have made an assumption that this code is ’something owned’ because it was delivered to an email address that is controlled by the registered user.  The problem with this is that the email account itself is very likely protected by a single factor (a user name/password) that can easily be collected by any garden-variety keystroke logger.  The very idea that email is a suitable platform for sending secure access codes is odd to me — surely by now we all recognize the flaws in sending sensitive information via email?

An appropriate solution would include two unique factors combined with ’security in layers’.  A user name/password plus a code sent to a registered mobile phone would be one example.  But I also like the suggestion in the article that layering good process — such as contacting the client (via phone) before such a large transaction was processed — would have also prevented this incident from occurring.

Perhaps it’s time to revisit what our Canadian banks are telling us about their security controls before casting stones towards our southern neighbours. It seems to me that without both strong authentication and security in layers, we — and our proud, large and stable financial institutions — are just as likely to suffer from this type of loss as this Texas bank.

Mike

Oracle IAM strategy

Here is the strategy as described in the Oracle Software Strategy presentation yesterday:

Identity Management

Product Strategy

• Oracle Identity Management Suite continues as strategic family of products

– Oracle will support both Oracle Internet Directory and Sun Directory Server with common LDAP administration

– Sun Role Manager becomes Oracle’s Strategic Identity Analytics offering

– Oracle Identity Manager remains Oracle’s strategic Identity Provisioning and Identity Lifecycle Management product

– Oracle Access Manager remains Oracle’s strategic Access Management and Fine-Grained Access Control product

– Oracle’s Virtual Directory, Enterprise SSO, Entitlements Management, Identity Federation continue as strategic

• Oracle continues to invest in and share technology between Sun and Oracle products

– Sun Identity Manager will see continued investments and integration with OIM (SPML Adapter Framework)

– Sun Open SSO will see continued investments and integration with OAM (Secure Token Service)

– Oracle continues to maintain Open DS

• No change in support timelines or distribution model for Sun products

It is not really a surprise that the Oracle suite makes up the majority of the strategic direction.  I recall a conversation I had with an Oracle rep from the fall — the investment Oracle has made in middleware in the past few years has been huge and it would seem unlikely they’d ditch that code.  Sun Role Manager (formerly Vaau) wins and some of the other pieces (Directory Server and parts of Identity Manager) will be blended in over time.

Based on this announcement, Sun customers will appreciate no change in support and end-of-life product timelines.  If they are running current versions, it would seem that there is ample time to plan for migration to the strategic platform.

Mike

Why invest in IAM?

I find myself being asked this question, indirectly or directly, by clients and prospective clients alike.  With all the demands on IT infrastructure spending and business application development (and integration), and with all the information security risks out there waiting for solutions to be implemented, why should an investment in IAM be a priority?

From the well-respected Kuppinger Cole blog comes this view:

Part of IAM’s job is protecting data, either directly or by protecting the systems that use and store data. That is also the backdrop against which compliance regulation, both internal and external, must be viewed. That also means that it is much easier to talk with business people about “access” rather than about “identity”. The big question is how do we control and monitor access to information and systems? To do that, we need to know who is allowed to do what – and who isn’t. The only way to achieve that goal is through true digital Identity Management. Anyone who thinks he can do it by granting rights and approvals based on IP addresses or MAC numbers is seriously kidding himself.

It strikes me as odd that there are still IT and information security professionals that believe IP and MAC access controls are sufficient, but it appears that this myth persists in enterprises.

Worse, I believe, is the view that the home-spun access control that has been built into legacy applications is ‘good enough’.  Why replumb our existing enterprise and customer-facing systems with a new-fangled IAM solution when we have the problem solved already?

This is a powerful myth that can be hard to overcome. But compared to application-specific controls, IAM has some significant advantages:

• Compliance – Organizations today must comply with legislation and their own policies.  The access control sub-systems built-in to many legacy applications are simply not compliant, and it may require significant rework and duplicated processes to remedy.  Conversely, an enterprise IAM solution can be implemented to be compliant from the start, and a single set of processes can be created to maintain identity and access information.
  • Example: Privacy Impact Assessments (required in Canada for all projects that deal with personal information) can be done once and shared across all applications.
• Audit Support — ‘Siloed’ access control systems are very difficult to report on at audit time.  With IAM, consolidating information is much easier and correlating a user’s access through multiple systems can be achieved.
  • Example:  A single reporting tool or sub-system can meet most (if not all) auditor reporting needs.
• Help Desk Efficiency — With IAM, a single console for Help Desk agents can be implemented for end-user support purposes.  Naturally, a single system will offer improved efficiency and better service to end-users than multiple, application-based systems.
  • Example: Help Desk lookup tools can be standardized and easily learned by new staff. Password policies become consistent. Access to multiple systems can be suspended or revoked from a central point. Service to end-users improves.
• Leverage and Speed – New applications, especially e-business and e-government systems that have to deal with privacy and security issues, can be readily designed around a common IAM solution.  Deployments can be rapid due to standardized interfaces and re-use of common templates.  Processes can be leveraged, not rewritten from scratch, making the transition to a production environment more seamless.
  • Example: Strategic applications that need to be implemented ‘right now’ can be rolled-out quickly with high security, advanced features and appropriate user privacy protection. Decisions can be made with confidence that the common IAM solution will meet both enterprise and line-of-business requirements.

Real IAM solutions offer real value, making business case development easier and more compelling.  However, widely-held myths about the effectiveness of network and application-specific controls need to be dealt with if broader IAM implementations are to be approved, funded and supported.

Mike

Fed ID and legal considerations

I recently came across this article from E-Commerce Times (via a Paul Madsen tweet) that is worth a read.  It provides a good high-level summary of legal considerations for federated identity implementations.  A quote:

“Many of the legal issues arise when things go wrong, such as incorrect identification, faulty authentication, or misuse of personal data…”

While it is US-based, it highlights many of the issues that we will face with Canadian implementations.

Mike