A new solution for companies hiring external contractors

CyberArk, a technology partner of Concept Data, acquired Alero and included the company’s solutions in its portfolio. How will the users benefit? First of all, it will be much easier to hire external contractors and grant them access privileges to the key IT resources.

Today, many businesses rely on external service providers in terms of the IT infrastructure management. In order to do their tasks effectively, such external organisations require privileged access to the corporate IT systems.

The survey conducted by CyberArk in August 2019 says that 90% of the respondents provides external contractors with access to crucial business data. 72% admit that granting outsourced workers the access to infrastructure belongs to the 10 greatest security risks. When the logging process to the corporate systems is not sufficiently secure, it may end up in a cyberattack that will cause key data leak and loss.

How do external contractors connect to a hiring company’s systems? Most of the time (86% according to CyberArk’s survey) they use VPN solutions. A virtual private network enables the encryption of the entire communication, but it does not eliminate the necessity of using passwords and logins and it does not enforce the implementation of multi-factor authentication. In other words, an enterprise hiring external contractors creates accounts for them, adds them to the relevant groups and assigns privileges. This entails two serious inconveniences: first of all, it is time-consuming (up to several days), and secondly, it makes the enterprise release the access data to its internal systems. Such data can be captured by hackers.

The solution now included in CyberArk’s offer eliminates these limitations in three ways. Firstly, it does not rely on passwords or VPNs. Therefore, the hiring companies can ensure security. Furthermore, CyberArk Alero introduces multi-factor authentication based on dynamically generated QR codes and biometrics. An external contractor uses a fingerprint or a facial scan to get access to systems. Last but not least, the addition of new users to privileged groups is quick and easy.

Traditional methods of authentication fail to provide sufficient protection to business resources. Importantly, it is all about crucial resources and accounts with extensive privileges, which means we are talking mainly about IT departments that come first in terms of using external services. The adequate security of logging into internal systems and, later on, the full control over when and who gets access to what are absolutely necessary if we want keep the company and its sensitive data safe. CyberArk ensures complete transparency and security of such processes, explains Krzysztof Andrian, CEO at Concept Data.

The CyberArk Alero is intended for enterprises which use the CyberArk platform to protect and monitor privileged accounts. Based on the new module, the user authentication becomes easy and secure, while the CyberArk platform provides full visibility of the user activity: it records sessions and generates alarms in the event of unusual or unwanted actions.

CyberArk offers solutions for the protection of IT systems against targeted attacks by cybercriminals. It focuses on securing crucial business resources. CyberArk’s solutions are used by companies all over the world, including 35 organisations from the Fortune 100 list.

More on secure data access:

A safe employee, a safe company. How to improve the quality of hybrid work and to secure data

Remote work which is secure and effective. What tools to choose

CIAM. How to ensure the ease of use and data security