What is Multi-factor Authentication?
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) gives you assurance that users are who they say they are. It requires them to prove their identity by providing at least two pieces of evidence that must each come from a different category: something they know, something they have or something they are.
Prevent Data Breaches With MFA
Cybercriminals don’t have to innovate much to succeed. They just have to widen their net. For years, the number one attack vector for security breaches has remained weak, default or stolen passwords from phishing and other attack methods. That’s why it’s never been more important to confirm the identity of your employees, partners and customers, and it’s also never been easier. With a modern MFA solution, you benefit from increased security without sacrificing user experience.
How MFA Works
One of the most common ways to add multi-factor authentication is to require an additional authentication factor to the username and password that’s already required to sign on. When your policies dictate the need for stronger authentication, the MFA service sends a request for additional verification, like a mobile push notification or one-time passcode.
MFA, Modernized
Many organizations have deployed MFA only to find burdensome admin experiences, poor user experiences that hurt productivity and the high costs of managing these solutions on-premises. Modern MFA improves user experience and security through context-based adaptive authentication and broad self-service capabilities. And admins can use APIs, SDKs and integration kits to make implementation with existing infrastructure a breeze. All of this in a cloud-based solution means minimal effort and oversight to run effectively. If you’re evaluating MFA providers, read our checklist for five key things you should consider.
Happier Users. Better Security. No Passwords.
MFA is not one-size-fits-all for every use case. Some situations call for greater security, such as high-value transactions on untrusted networks and devices. Adaptive MFA allows you to add authentication factors and gain a higher level of assurance about a user’s identity through contextual and behavioral data such as geolocation, IP address and time since last authentication. Adaptive controls are ideal for keeping bad guys out, and they also streamline and enable easier access for users who have safe and predictable patterns of use, which means increased efficiency and productivity. You can even use stronger authentication methods like mobile push authentication, QR codes and FIDO-compliant authenticators instead of credentials to enable passwordless authentication.
Seamless MFA for Hybrid IT Environments
Today’s enterprises prioritize cloud-first initiatives. But the reality is that large enterprises still have many existing on-premises applications that can’t easily move to the cloud. To effectively secure all of the applications in your hybrid IT environment and cloud transition, your enterprise needs an adaptive MFA solution that supports all your use cases for both on-premises and multi-cloud environments.
A Smooth MFA Rollout Every Time
You can implement strong authentication in a matter of minutes. To make deployments easy, you’ll need out-of-the-box integrations to VPNs and applications like Office 365, as well as simple-to-use APIs. Also, self-service features for your end users and simple administration can make your MFA rollout effortless. Improving security doesn’t have to be a headache.
The Right Prescription for Multi-factor Authentication
OPPORTUNITY
GlaxoSmithKline employees utilize a variety of on-premises and custom applications, and GSK wanted to make accessing these applications as secure and straightforward an experience as possible. They were in search of a multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) solution that was easy to manage, easy to maintain and built on open standards.
RESULT
GSK selected PingFederate and PingID as their primary MFA provider. Since then, help desk calls related to PingID have been extremely low at significantly less than 1 percent of enrollments. IAM Solutions Architect Brian Lewis says, “Ping has been easy to maintain, and support has been excellent.”
Gartner subscribers, want advice on successful MFA deployments? Read their guidance on cloud-based MFA services.
Take the Next Step
See how Ping can help you stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving digital world.
