Partner Article

Preventing business "exposure" post-iCloud hack

Last week, Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities had indiscrete photos stolen and distributed across the Internet. It is speculated that their accounts were accessed by a “brute force” attack which can only be successful if their passwords were weak.

Weak passwords are a risk for businesses, too. Verizon found that 76% of all network intrusions exploit weak or stolen passwords.

To protect critical data, every employee at every business must use strong passwords (which have no fewer than 12 characters). But with an average of 14.3 apps per business, users are likely to take shortcuts by creating passwords that are easy to memorise – and easy to crack.

Single sign-on helps enforce strong password usage… if you could afford one.

A single sign-on (SSO) solution stores passwords for users and automatically logs them in to their apps. Users only have to remember one password, so they’re more likely to create strong passwords instead of weak ones.

Unfortunately, SSO has historically been extremely complex to deploy, requiring on-site consultants and costly training. Which means smaller businesses have found SSO to be out of reach.

Intermedia AppID™ now makes single sign-on available to any business.

Intermedia, the largest one-stop shop for cloud IT services for SMBs, has designed its new AppID service to be simple to deploy by any businesses, regardless of size or IT sophistication.

Existing Intermedia customers can deploy AppID in a single click, and non-Intermedia customers can easily integrate it with any on-premises Active Directory. While Intermedia’s Cloud Concierge™ team is standing by 24/7 for deployment assistance, no training is necessary for either admins or users.

How single sign-on protects you in an era of insecure passwords:

A single sign-on solution stores passwords and automatically logs users in with a single click. This provides employees with access to all their cloud apps using just one login and password for all their apps. This improves security in a number of ways:

• With just one password to remember, users are much more likely to use a strong one
• Admins can enforce 2-factor authentication as an added layer of security
• Access to the entire portal can be deprovisioned in just one click

Hardened security even beyond strong passwords

Intermedia’s 2014 Rogue Access Study found that 89% of ex-employees retained access to corporate applications from former employers. AppID slashes the potential for rogue access by making it much easier for IT to manage and track access to apps.

Patrick Ford, IT director for Magellan Search and Staffing, an Intermedia AppID customer, says: “The fewer passwords people have to remember, the better!” said. “With just one login required to access all their apps, users save at least an hour a day by not having to type in passwords or search for them. And I get back a full eight-hour day per week to do things not related to break-fix or password retrieval.”

Felix Yanko, president of ServNET Technologies, an Intermedia partner, says: “AppID is becoming a cornerstone of our security offering. We’re using it to introduce new security services to both new and existing customers—and because it’s so simple to deploy, we can do so while maintaining efficiencies that assure high margins.”

Michael Gold, president of Intermedia, says: “The explosive growth in cloud-based web apps has created a need for stronger password security,” said. “AppID extends the protection and ease-of-use afforded by a single sign-on portal to any business. And because it’s tightly integrated into our Office in the Cloud, it is simple to deploy and manage. This further allows smaller businesses to compete cost effectively against larger enterprises.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Intermedia .