Protecting identities from the endpoint to the cloud

At RSA Conference 2015, RSA launched the RSA Via family of Smart Identity solutions, engineered to combine authentication, identity and access management, and identity governance silos into one unified solution that allows dynamic, end-to-end identity management across diverse systems and users.

The newest offering under the RSA Via family is RSA Via Access, a SaaS-based solution that is designed to allow users to more easily and securely authenticate themselves by taking advantage of multiple convenient authentication methods resident within their into mobile devices.

Unlike traditional authentication methods, RSA Via Access is built to rely on intelligent context rather than just static rules to provide a more seamless and agile method of access. With a hybrid-cloud approach, RSA Via Access also helps allow organizations to maintain control of the privacy and security of identities, combating one of the main hurdles to cloud adoption.

Organizations must deliver rapid, seamless access to systems and data so employees can be productive, yet at the same time IT must protect corporate information assets and prove compliance. RSA Via removes friction between business and IT by automating identity management processes, placing them in the hands of the business managers themselves, and enabling a simple user experience for authentication, single sign-on, access review, and access request.

The RSA Via solution also takes a business-driven approach to provisioning. It is designed to allow organizations to centrally create access policies and automate access processes.

Faced with increased pressure to comply with laws, regulations, and corporate security policies, organizations must respond with effective access controls to help protect corporate information and assets – including privacy-related data such as customer information. RSA Via is designed to integrate traditionally siloed identity management systems to create a single, centralized place for all identity information. Organizations are provided with rich context across all resources, users, and attributes, facilitating compliance confidence as well as access-related business processes.

The RSA Via portfolio includes RSA SecurID and RSA Adaptive Authentication, and the three following solutions are designed to do the following:

• RSA Via Access –enables enterprises to regain business agility with secure and convenient access beyond passwords. Contextual, strong, step-up authentication through a smart mobile device is embedded seamlessly with SSO, to validate who is who. Users can quickly and efficiently access all of their resources in one place, minimizing the need to circumvent IT guidance, and reducing the pockets of “Shadow IT.”
• RSA Via Governance – simplifies the task of governing user access across the enterprise. It helps enable companies to achieve sustainable compliance by automating the monitoring, reporting, certification and remediation of user entitlements. RSA Via Governance, built on the RSA Identity Management and Governance platform acquired from Aveksa, provides enterprise-wide visibility into user access privileges, automates user access reviews, and highlights orphan user accounts and inappropriate user access.
• RSA Via Lifecycle – simplifies and automates how access is requested, approved and delivered. It combines a business-friendly interface for access request and approval, with an innovative approach to automated provisioning across all target systems. RSA Via Lifecycle, also built on the RSA Identity Management and Governance platform, provides an easy-to-use service for requesting and approving access, and for rapidly executing user access changes without manual effort across key applications on-premise or in SaaS environments.

For RSA SecurID customers, the new release of RSA Via Access opens up new opportunities to extend security since the two platforms are interoperable through service engagements. The same RSA SecurID tokens designed to be used to protect an organization’s VPN and other enterprise apps can be used with the RSA Via Access service to protect access to cloud and mobile environments.

Additional RSA solutions included under the RSA Via portfolio include: RSA Adaptive Authentication and RSA SecurID. RSA Via Lifecycle and RSA Via Governance are currently available, and RSA Via Access will be available June 2015.