What Software Solutions Make Security Easy to Maintain?

Choosing the right cybersecurity software solution is difficult.

If you buy the wrong package, you’ll look bad in front of your executives. You might even be blamed for your company’s next security incident. On the other hand, refusing to leverage external software isn’t a workable solution. There are just too many threats to consider, and your staff would be overwhelmed if you tell them to work without industry-leading tools.

The Dirty Secret Plaguing Enterprise Software Projects Including Security

If you bring a few technology VPs together into one room, you’ll start to hear certain themes repeated.

Raise the issue of project implementations and you’ll get an earful. Projects are never completed on time. Project budgets are never realistic. If you keep listening, you’ll hear about the nightmare of effective IT security risk assessments. Maintaining a secure environment is tough. When you add in new software, the job becomes even more difficult.

What are your options if you’re looking for some easy wins? As you plan next year’s IT projects, look at these easy-to-maintain software solutions.

Identity and access management

A few years ago, we saw an identity management program in place at a large multi-national bank. Management realized the importance of identity management. Management approved creating a team of half a dozen employees, plus a manager to tackle the problem. Yet, the identity and access management program took years to make progress. The program and software solution they choose failed to cover dozens of systems across the enterprise.

Those coverage gaps meant lots of workarounds and manual effort to maintain the program. Don’t follow in that bank’s footsteps!

Instead, consider a solution such as Lifecycle Management. It has a few special capabilities that make it easy to maintain.

• Automatic deprovisioning: Keeping up with employee changes (e.g., moves to a new role or departure from the employee) is a significant pain for managers. Frankly, few managers are diligent in removing access quickly, and their slow responses put the organization at risk.
• Mobile support for managers: Do you hate having to go back to your desk to approve a request? You can avoid that pain with Lifecycle Management, which has mobile support.
• Access management audits: Imagine clicking a few buttons and completing your audit for the quarter. That’s possible with Lifecycle Management because it logs every ID change.
• Save time on user provisioning: Are you going through the same series of steps repeatedly? Don’t do that; instead, use an identity management solution that leverages business rules to automate user provisioning.

Suppose your identity management processes are already robust and easy to maintain. First of all, congratulations! You’re in rare company. In that situation, we recommend taking a closer look at your password management process.

Fix your password situation without driving employees crazy

Constant warnings are one of the ways organizations attempt to enforce their password management requirements with employees. IT Security sends warnings and notifications to employees week after week. You provide annual cybersecurity training. Now, we don’t mean to minimize these efforts, as they do have value. However, we have to admit that they take too much effort to maintain.

That’s a reason you need to use a password management solution, one of many reasons, actually. Naturally, we recommend you consider Password Management. Here are just a few of the reasons it’s easy to maintain.

• Eliminate help desk requests: Password resets are the number one most common ticket in enterprise help desks. It doesn’t have to be that way. With Password Management, employees can take care of their password resets.
• Provide flexible and employee-friendly security questions: It’s passé to have security questions such as, “What elementary school did you attend?” or “What is your mother’s maiden name?” Those kinds of questions just don’t make sense in 2019. Password Management makes it easy for each employee to choose his or her own security questions according to your policy requirements.
• Prevent brute force attack maintenance problems: When you’re hit by a brute force attack, it might feel like your world is ending. We recommend thinking ahead to prevent this kind of attack in the first place. Password Management uses Google CAPTCHA to prevent attacks.
• Offload keeping up with hacker dictionaries: Hackers are resourceful and determined to break into companies. Keeping up with their creative attacks is difficult. Frankly, it’s tough to maintain that level of readiness if cybersecurity isn’t your main business. Password Management is built with this challenge in mind. It has a hacker dictionary that checks user passwords, so you can tell users upfront when they’re using less-than-secure passwords.

You’re probably wondering how exactly you’re going to get funding and resources to get these solutions in place. We’ll tackle that issue next.

How Do I Get These Software Solutions Implemented in My Company?

Buying a security software solution is serious business. You need to do your homework and due diligence before you’ll gain approval. If your company has more than 100 employees, you’ll probably require a business case. While the format and specific content will vary with each organization, we recommend you consider a few common elements.

Tip: You’ll probably need support from other stakeholders in the company to get your business case approved. Check out our advice to win over human resources: Win HR Support for Your User Provisioning Project.

• Cost of the status quo and problems: Outline why the company needs a new security software solution. Use a combination of data and stories to make your point. For example, you might present data on the workload of your help desk.
• Identify options: List at least three options for security for people to consider.
• Investment: Explain the costs in software, professional services, and training involved. Be honest about the quality and accuracy of your cost estimates.

While you’re working away on your business case, you might need additional resources. We have you covered! Make sure to save our past articles on the art of creating useful business case documents, including this gem: Get Your SSO Software Project Funded with a Business Case.

Cybersecurity software doesn’t have to be a nightmare to maintain. Find out about two software solutions that are easy to maintain and keep running.