Ep. 31 Improving Secure Access to Federal Systems

Sometimes, success means being at the right place at the right time.

BeyondTrust has been active in the world of access control for decades. They have seventy patents and have a well-earned reputation for deep knowledge of secure remote access.

Before COVID hit, BeyondTrust was strong in a niche product category; when COVID forced commercial and federal systems to drastically increase remote access, BeyondTrust was ready. When cybersecurity experts started to recommend a concept called “Zero Trust,” BeyondTrust had “trust” right in their name!

BeyondTrust’s Josh Brodbent works with non-profit organizations like ATARC to be able to sit on committees to listen to the needs of the federal workforce. As a result, he has seen the reasons people succeed at access control and, unfortunately, how they fail.

One of his observations is that Multi-Factor Authentication may not be enough for a robust deployment of Zero Trust. Most experts would criticize MFA because it frequently relies on the public phone system to transfer code.

Josh points out that, in his experience, larger organizations have so many security controls that humans can get sick of all this MFA. If you get hundreds a day you may end up with “MFA” fatigue.

One innovation for BeyondTrust is a concept called “Just in time” access. When installed correctly, users can get access verification promptly because the system is structured with keeping the user happy.

Another term that Josh brought up was the phrase “dynamic access.” In the past, dynamic access was designed for on-premises applications. A few rules to consider, but not many. Today, we see private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds – a wide range of systems that can cause a complex process like dynamic access delay response.