The New Security Realities of the Laptop Computing Era – Part 2
by admin
As I discussed in my last article, data breaches and data theft are more frequent and more expensive than ever. This is primarily driven by businesses transitioning to laptops and away from desktop computers. More mobile endpoints mean more points from which hackers can steal data. When talking about data protection, the natural inclination is to immediately think about protecting the data itself through solutions such as full-disk encryption.
This is fine for protecting the data that actually resides on the laptop, but what happens if that data is not the target?
What if compromising a laptop is merely a means to an end for someone seeking to breach an organization’s perimeter security? Auditors of all types, be they IT security auditors or corporate financial auditors, are increasingly turning their sights towards the issue of access control – how a company allows or prevents users from accessing both local computer systems or the networks to which they are connected.
Networks are extremely vulnerable now that businesses are connecting to the network with more endpoints, including laptops and smartphones. A survey of 505 auditors showed that more than 50 percent of the audits they conducted had serious deficiencies or failed data security compliance requirements. Not only do auditors want data to be securely protected, they also want businesses to ensure the person accessing the data is authorized to do so.
However, organizations don’t always have visibility into who is accessing the network if it is through a secured endpoint. Even if a laptop is encrypted, if a hacker uses the correct login credentials, IT cannot confirm who has accessed the information. Network Access Control (NAC) solutions can ensure security compliance of endpoints connecting to the network, but it doesn’t solve the issue of knowing exactly is who accessing the data.
This is where strong authentication, as part of a broad access control system, plays a key role in safeguarding the enterprise. Strong authentication can be used in two primary ways for securing access to systems and applications – local system access (system login) and secure remote access to corporate networks through virtual private network (VPN) solutions, supporting defense-in-depth.
The overarching challenges with using many of the popular strong two-factor authentication methods are cost, convenience and usability. Strong authentication has traditionally been considered a technology for only large enterprises, requiring large infrastructure and smart cards or tokens. Such is not the case anymore.
One method that is on the rise, and helps address all three issues, is fingerprint biometrics. Biometric authentication is steadily becoming a trusted strong authentication method worldwide for businesses and ranks among the top growth market. With biometric authentication, employees no longer have to worry about remembering complex passwords or losing their authentication tokens. With some solutions, even if a laptop is stolen, without the user’s physical identity, a criminal is completely locked out of the device.
Most business laptops today feature built-in fingerprint readers and associated software. This eliminates the need for deploying additional hardware and software. IT departments need only to implement a central management solution.
The laptop computing era has impacted the way businesses must address both endpoint and network security. As companies look to invest in enhanced data protection to comply with strict security mandates enforced by auditors, they will need to adopt systems that closely tie local data protection with strong access management capabilities.
Combining multi-factor authentication technology with full-disk encryption allows businesses to simplify data protection while improving access control. The more integrated and easy-to-use these systems are for enterprise IT and the user community, the more effective they will be in safeguarding the enterprise.
This is part 2 of a guest article series from Fabio Santini, who is Product Marketing Manager at DigitalPersona Inc.
Related posts:
- The New Security Realities of the Laptop Computing Era – Part 1
- Save Time and Improve Security with Proximity Authentication Systems
- Tablet, Laptop or Desktop. How do you pick the one that’s right for you?
- How To Buy a Used Laptop: 5 Key Tips
- Social Media and Public Relations Needs To Be Part Of Your Disaster Planning Strategy
