Q&A with Sven Hammar

Date: 2018-11-28

How have the use of smart cards changed over the past 20 years?

In their infancy, smart cards were created for payments (EMV), ticketing and telecommunications (SIM. Today, smart cards are the centerpiece of strong authentication solutions and have evolved into a variety of formats. In addition to smart cards, tokens and other physical devices, virtual smart cards are also on the rise to address the growing mobile workforce.

Why are more and more organizations deploying IAM solutions today?

Companies and government organizations are mandated to improve their security to stop hackers from gaining access. Managing identities and access is the first step toward protecting that mission-critical information and stopping security incidences. Identity and access management (IAM) solutions provide companies with the flexibility to manage employees’ access from onboarding to termination.

What is the future of multifactor authentication?

This technology is here to stay. Multiple analyst firms predict the number of devices, including IoT, mobile, etc., will grow exponentially in the coming years. This bodes well for the security industry, and especially for multifactor authentication. As more workers use additional devices to connect to their jobs, these devices must be secured. The best and most cost-effective way to do that is through multifactor authentication. Multifactor authentication will be important in the growing Zero Trust Model, which organizations are readily adopting. Coined by a Forrester analyst, Zero Trust is a security concept centered on the belief that organizations should not automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeters and instead must verify anything and everything trying to connect to its systems before granting access. That’s why the multifactor authentication model will continue to grow.

What are the biggest concerns facing the security industry?

It’s critical the security industry keeps up with the hackers and the biggest challenge is delivering solutions to thwart these threats. It’s important the security industry delivers easy-to-use, easy-to-implement, and cost-effective solutions to market that meet and exceed the security challenges all companies face.

How will GDPR impact Versasec’s business?

The GDPR will have a positive effect for all of us. With these regulations in the EU, companies doing business there are charged with protecting their customers’ privacy and must deploy a variety of security solutions to accomplish this. IAM solution providers like Versasec will see positive gains from GDPR implementation in Europe and as other countries around the globe implement similar regulations.

What do you believe is the biggest selling point of an IAM system built with vSEC:CMS?

Versasec’s vSEC:CMS supports the most smart cards in the market and offers organizations the flexibility of various two-factor authentication options such as virtual smart cards, tokens and more. vSEC:CMS is cost-effective, easy to deploy and offers unparalleled scalability. And one of the best attributes is that SMBs and large organizations alike can use vSEC:CMS effectively.

Which geographic locations are investing more in two-factor authentication?

For the last decade, Europe and the U.S have been leading deployments of two-factor authentication. But the multifactor authentication market is growing rapidly in Asia and Middle East.

Tags: iam, cybersecurity, two-factor, pki, authentication, identity, smartcard, board, directors, identitymanagement.