While it’s important to have sufficient protection against hackers in today’s digital environment, many of these precautions are useless if the breach comes from within your organisation. This is a more common problem than you might think. According to IBM’s 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index, around 60% of data breaches – both deliberate and accidental – were caused by a company’s employees. So how do you prevent this?

IAM secure: The right data for the right employee

No company in the world would let just anyone walk into their premises and start looking around unsupervised. But that’s effectively what you’re doing if you don’t have IAM protocols in place. With IAM, you use a combination of passwords, multi-factor authentication, and single sign-on methods to assign each employee an identity based on their seniority, authority, job competency, and responsibilities. This way, IAM lets you define who has access to what data.

This doesn’t just apply to internal employees; IAM also allows you to give users outside the organisation access to such a network. These users may be customers, partners, contractors or suppliers. Since IAM works across all types of devices and platforms, these individuals can access the networks via mobile applications, on-premise apps, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps, all without compromising security.

Wartsila, a Finnish smart technology company operating in the marine and energy markets, can attest to this. Thanks to Microsoft's IAM offering, Azure Active Directory Premium (AADP), its employees enjoy single sign-on capability for all company resources regardless of where they access the Internet from, without having to rely on a VPN. With multi-factor authentication being a standard for workers using unmanaged devices in unmanaged locations, Wartsila offers them the freedom to work remotely, with none of the risks.

“Because Azure Active Directory helps us protect all the applications, assets and resources that we provide to our workers from the cloud, our goal of anytime, anywhere productivity is now much closer to becoming reality,” says Joachim Kjellman, solutions manager at Wartsila.

IAM alert: Tightening security without slowing down the organisation

While IAM helps create a more secure environment for your employees and partners, the level of security can also be adjusted based on various factors. This is vital for protecting your company while keeping it running smoothly.

Just ask Benco Dental. The Pennsylvania-based dental product and equipment distributor employed AADP to ensure stronger yet less intrusive security. AADP can be adjusted to intelligently and selectively prompt users for multi-factor authentication, depending on their location, the applications accessed and number of sign-in attempts, among other criteria. For instance, employees signing into a human resources app from within the Benco office won’t need multi-factor authentication, but those signing in remotely will.

“Azure Active Directory gives us a sophisticated authentication solution that we didn’t have to build or buy,” says Keith Budurka, director of IT infrastructure and operations at Benco Dental. “And it tells our security folks where people are signing in from, so we can reach out to employees and make sure they’re really in that location.”

It can even alert you to accounts that might have been compromised and user sign-ins that appear irregular or suspicious, which could potentially save your company’s data and its reputation.

IAM here: The one-stop shop for all your IAM needs

An end-to-end solution like AADP fulfills all your IAM requirements. It combines core directory services, application access management and identity protection, keeping your business safe while empowering your end users.

It provides a single sign-on to over 1,200 cloud applications, such as Salesforce, Office 365 and Box. It also includes user-friendly features like delegated group management (to help users create and manage their own groups) and self-service password reset to prevent accessibility headaches.

Given that it works on different platforms, web browsers and devices, users can access it wherever they are in the world, whether they’re using an Android smartphone, iOS device, or Windows PC.

IAM is important for today’s dynamic organisations. That’s why it is vital to select the right tools for your business in order to safeguard it from malicious attacks while increasing efficiency.

Singtel helps companies in this process by assessing the gaps between their current security setup and what’s required globally. For more information on implementing the technical solutions required to keep your business safe from email-based cyberthreats, click here.