TechnologyIdentity & AccessEnhancing Treasury and Bank Operations with Identity

Enhancing Treasury and Bank Operations with Identity

The need to comply with regulatory requirements, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Basel II, forces organizations to ensure the security of their IT systems. Among other things, these regulations seek to ascertain access control to IT resources, as well as a strict risk management and auditing process. Improving IT security by introducing reliable identity and access management is therefore one of the top priorities for financial institutions.

Identity management suites provide a complete framework with a broad range of functions to secure access to data as well as to corporate applications. Large organizations, in particular, benefit from all-encompassing IAM suites that support organizations with the complete life-cycle management of all user identities and access privileges. Most IAM suites organize access permissions according to business roles instead of allocating them on an individual basis, which means that the solution is capable of mirroring the corporate organizational structure.

Using IAM solutions, organizations are able to set access rights to data and system resources to determine who is allowed to do what, with which tools and resources, from where and when. While some IAM solutions lack granularity, allowing all-or-nothing access to applications, others are capable of defining different types of access permissions. From read-only access to full access that enables the changing and creation of new content, finely tuned access controls provide organizations with the means to create and automate access control according to the needs of business processes and the role of each user. The automation of processes is also a key concern with regard to user data. Identity management systems that support connections to key repositories of user identity data enable the automated updating of user information – thus reducing administrative effort.

Reliable Access Control is Not a Question of Company Size

IAM suites offer numerous benefits, but planning and deploying an all-encompassing suite is often too complex for small to medium-sized organizations. An easy to install and manageable approach to identity management is single sign-on (SSO). Combined with further IAM tools, or as a stand-alone tool, SSO offers a trouble-free and scaleable migration to strong user authentication that provides secure access to data and applications. This authentication method dispenses with the requirements of conventional registration processes, which tend to require numerous, productivity-sapping logins to different systems and entering several (insecure) passwords. What’s more, intelligent SSO solutions, so called ‘smart sign-on solutions’, can easily be adapted to changing demands as well as to changing IT environments.

Users provided with a smart card, or a security token/PIN combination (two-factor authentication), need to authenticate themselves only once to the system and thereafter they are transparently granted access to all applications and systems for which they are authorized – thereby reliably protecting sensitive information from the prying eyes of third parties. In addition, the security devices can securely store personal user information and cryptographic elements, such as certificates and private keys, to sign and encrypt e-mail and documents. The optional automatic activation of a screen saver also prevents unauthorized access if a user leaves his workstation without logging off first.

Today’s smart cards meet the highest security requirements and satisfy virtually all of the security needs for businesses and institutions of all sizes. High security smart cards (certified in accordance with the international standard ITSEC E4 in respect to common criteria) provide a very high level of protection against even the most knowledgeable and well-equipped attacks. Biometric devices such as fingerprint readers are also attracting more and more organizations as procurement costs are dropping and error rates for fingerprint recognition have decreased significantly. Multifunctional cards expand usage to different areas beyond that of secure authentication, data encryption and decryption. Equipped with a photo and the name of the user, the cards can also be used as identity cards, for example, to grant employees access to the bank (or specific areas and departments) and to store additional information such as work times. In this way organizations are able to take advantage of synergetic effects to simplify and to speed up procedures and routines in the daily working routine.

Both identity management suites and smart sign-on solutions are able to cut administrative costs and increase user productivity. With smart sign-on, corporates are able to derive additional benefit from an easy administration process: password generation, distribution and change are performed centrally without any user interaction. As a user only has to remember the PIN for their smart card or security token, the number of forgotten passwords, as well as the number of password-related queries amassing at the help desk, is reduced significantly. Instead of spending time with resetting passwords, administrators are able to spend more time on solving security problems or managing central security appliances, such as intrusion detection and intrusion prevention systems. Some of the SSO solutions available on the market today provide the additional smart card and token management functionality necessary for effectively issuing and managing security tokens and digital certificates. Self-service initiatives, such as automating the password-reset process, or fixing card problems online or offline, maximize user convenience and acceptance.

Conclusion

As IT environments get more and more complex, data integrity, document security, transaction security, confidentiality and access control to IT resources are essential for the success of organizations. A combination of IAM suites and smart sign-on solutions provide banks and financial institutions with the appropriate means to meet growing security demands as well as to fulfill legal requirements, while at the same time cutting administrative costs and increasing user productivity with a higher level of security and convenience (usability and manageability of IT security).

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