We live in a world where the technology we use every single day is engineered to be usable. Our smartphones, set top boxes and social media websites have invested a great deal in user experience.This is why we get frustrated when we have a bad experience using business systems, whether it’s navigating a complex web application or not being able to jump through the various hoops at login, bad UI has to be a productivity drain.
On the other side of this we all know that effective security must be a continual balancing act between how much can be controlled and how usable systems remain. But is that really true? If you make a system more user friendly is it inherently less secure?
This issue is definitely front of mind when we’re considering how to manage and secure access for privileged users, who potentially have access to high priority systems or sensitive data. We’ll start by thinking about how privileged user are working if there is no system to manage them in place. Perhaps they use shared accounts or passwords. There may be so many accounts that they need to keep lists of them to remember how to login. It’s possible they use a number of third party remote access tools to open sessions on various systems. Does this situation sound either usable or secure?!
One of the major benefits of tools to secure privileged access is that they also centralise it. Allowing users to login to one portal that shows them all the resources they have access to and lets them login with a single click. Removing the need for shared passwords kept on post it notes or in Word documents will alone mean a huge step forward in securing privileged accounts.
WALLIX does this through our WAB Access Manager, a portal for privileged user built for security AND usability. You can see it working in this short video.
You can find out more about how WALLIX helps to secure and manage privileged access here:
