The concept of identity-first security, which makes identity the key to securing digital resources, is growing in popularity. The model is replacing the traditional perimeter-focused approach to security, partly because the perimeter scarcely exists any longer. Cloud computing, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and remote work, among other factors, have caused the perimeter to lose most of its meaning. Identity-first makes identity the gatekeeper, with strong authentication, authorization, and context-based access controls.
There’s a hitch, however. It’s hard to implement identity in environments where SaaS applications are prevalent, which makes the process challenging in almost every enterprise. SaaS apps, which don’t integrate easily with Single Sign On (SSO) and often have their own identity stores, create an obstacle for identity-first security. A new generation of universal SSO (uSSO) solutions addresses the problem.
What Is Identity-First Security and Why Is It Growing in Adoption?
Identity-first security is an approach to cybersecurity that emphasizes user identity as the key to protecting digital assets from malicious actors, including insiders. The foundation of identity-first security is the belief that effective and reliable identification of users, including devices and software applications, is critical for mounting a strong cyber defense.
By basing security on identities and their respective attributes, security becomes more context-aware and granular. Realization of the model involves practices and technologies like identity and access management (IAM), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and privileged access management (PAM). The latter manages identities and access grants for administrative users.
A growing number of organizations are embracing identity-first security, mostly as the basis for implementing zero trust (ZT). An industry survey found that, as of 2022, 97% of organizations had zero trust or were planning to put the framework to use. This focus on identity-first security is likely due to a recognition that traditional approaches to security, of which identity is just one factor, were no longer adequate in the face of sophisticated threats. The explosion in ransomware and supply chain attacks revealed the deficiency of trusting the network perimeter to block unauthorized access.
Organizations that embrace identity-first security understand that perimeters don’t work well anymore, now that users, devices, and digital assets can be almost anywhere-in the cloud, on-premises, at home, and so forth. Instead, knowing who is who (and what device is what) becomes more important in establishing a strong security posture.
Benefits of Identity-First Security
Moving to the identity-first approach to security delivers several security benefits. For one thing, by basing security on identity, it becomes possible to achieve higher levels of trust with users and assert greater control over access to digital resources. It also gets easier to implement controls and policies that are designed for specific identities. This enables organizations to enforce the principle of “least privilege,” as well as zero trust. Indeed, the core of zero trust, “Never trust, always verify,” depends on robust identity management. ZT won’t work without it because the “always verify” step will fail.
Identity-first security also gives security managers more in-depth and granular monitoring capabilities. They can track who is doing what and detect anomalous behavior based on context. For example, if a user located in London is trying to log into a system from South Korea, that might signal an attack or a compromised endpoint.
Obstacles to Implementing Identity-First Security
The implementation of identity-first security can run into several roadblocks. The transition is as much about culture as it is about technology, and that’s seldom easy. It’s not always simple to track machine identities. Done wrong, the model can negatively affect user experience, too. It may also create an unsustainable administrative burden, with identity managers getting overwhelmed with false positives from threat detection systems and access requests they must process manually.
Traditional SSO, however, is the biggest obstacle to implementing identity-first security. While in theory, SSO is not required for identity-first security, in practice, the model will not work without it. SSO facilitates a smooth user experience in an identity-first environment. Users sign in once, verifying their identities and proceeding to function in a multi-application environment without impediment. From an administrative perspective, SSO, integrated with identity providers (IdPs), enables the kind of seamless and efficient monitoring and management that identity-first security needs.
The problem is that several classes of applications do not integrate with SSO easily, or at all. These include legacy systems like mainframes and iSeries machines, but mostly SaaS. And, there are a lot of SaaS apps out there, with industry research reporting that the average organization now uses 130 SaaS apps, and Unixi’s experience in the field suggesting that the number of 150+. At that scale,SSO integration is a big job. Worse, many SaaS apps are not technologically compatible with SSO. Users must set up login credentials for the app’s identity store, which is separate from the IdP and SSO solution. As a result, the identity-first initiative, driven by SSO, is never fully realized because some part of the SaaS ecosystem is left out. “Shadow SaaS,” the practice of users setting up SaaS accounts without permission, further impedes the implementation of identity-first security.
How Universal SSO Unblocks the Potential for Identity-First Security
Universal SSO eliminates the obstacles that prevent SaaS applications from being part of the identity-first security model. As exemplified by Unixi, uSSO enables SSO for SaaS with a browser extension that processes authentication locally within the browser. With this architecture, uSSO removes the requirement that SaaS integrates with the IdP. The result is universal SSO coverage for SaaS, which furthers the realization of identity-first security.
Additional Unixi uSSO capabilities further help realize identity-first security:
- Eliminate shadow SaaS.
- Generate unique passwords using multiple cryptographic keys and hashing, reducing the risk of credential theft and breach while making it impossible to reuse and share passwords.
- Provide a centralized management point for SaaS SSO, which gives admins visibility into SaaS access across the entire SaaS ecosystem.
- Enable richer and more granular SaaS governance and control.
- Offer universal multi-factor authentication.
Conclusion
Organizations that want to fully implement identity-first security are running into roadblocks with SaaS, which often lacks compatibility with SSO, a key element of identity-first success. uSSO offers a solution. By delivering 100% SaaS coverage for SSO and centralized SSO management for SaaS, uSSO enables identity-first security to become a reality.
