From Uncertainty to Triumph: A FIDO2 Adoption Case Study

The Challenge: A Journey into the Unknown

Like many others, our customer faced challenges due to a lack of understanding of the FIDO credential lifecycle. Recognizing the importance of deploying a robust system from the outset based on FIDO2, they prioritized ensuring security without relying on trial and error during implementation, thus avoiding potential vulnerabilities. Managing enrollments across their expansive organization became a manual nightmare. The absence of a centralized repository for lifecycle management compounded their woes, leaving them in the dark about the status and usage of FIDO authenticators across their workforce. Not having the necessary control and visibility could lead to inefficiencies.

Embracing Best Practices: Clearing the Fog

In their search for a solution, the customer turned to Versasec, a specialist in FIDO2 orchestration. The journey began by focusing on adopting best practices and showing the way towards setting up a traceable and manageable FIDO authenticator ecosystem.

Versasec stressed the importance of building a solid foundation. Weaker authentication methods like SMS, push notifications, and one-time passwords (OTPs) have significant vulnerabilities. They can be intercepted, spoofed, or targeted by man-in-the-middle attacks, making them risky for security. Versasec warned about the potential risks of introducing weaker means of authentication since it could weaken their deployment and implementation.

During the discovery phase and initial conversations with Versasec, it was stressed that compromising authentication strength, even for a short time, could put their organization at risk. At Versasec’s guidance, they fortified their digital defenses by firmly disallowing weaker authentication methods for authenticator replacement or temporary use. Specifically, they implemented proactive measures such as avoiding weak authentication for user identification before enabling self-service enrollment, limiting user authentication options like OTP and U2F, and refraining from temporarily resorting to or allowing weaker authentication.

Navigating the Dynamic Landscape: Strategies for Long-term Success

The renewable energy company in our case study embraced Versasec’s recommended strategies to fortify its digital identity infrastructure for long-term success.

• Avoid Vendor Lock-In: Recognizing the volatile nature of the cybersecurity landscape, the company built an ecosystem that allowed it to keep its options open and adaptable, ensuring flexibility to respond to industry changes swiftly.
• Embrace Evolution: Acknowledging that authentication needs, organizations, authenticators, and IdPs continually evolve, the company understood the importance of evolving authenticators. This forward-thinking approach positioned them to seamlessly adapt to changing authentication needs and industry dynamics.
• Automate and Integrate: To minimize human error and ensure efficiency in process repeatability, the company automated and integrated wherever possible. This strategic move streamlined their FIDO2 management processes and enhanced overall operational efficiency.
• Ensure Auditable Actions: Recognizing the importance of accountability in security, the company ensured that all actions involving user authenticators were auditable and tracked. This comprehensive trail of activity provided a robust mechanism for accountability.
• Plan for Scalability: Anticipating future growth, the company laid the groundwork for scalability. Following Versasec’s advice, they ensured their FIDO2 solution was scalable from a small project rollout to enterprise-wide deployment, thus future-proofing their authentication infrastructure.

The customer empowered their organization to select the best components and orchestrate FIDO authenticators accordingly. This flexible strategy allowed them to align their security measures precisely with organizational needs, enhancing overall effectiveness.

The Versasec Offering: FIDO Orchestration

With vSEC:CMS and vSEC:CLOUD, organizations can issue credentials to employees, personalize them, and orchestrate their lifecycle – directly from Versasec’s off-the-shelf products.
Versasec’s philosophy is to offer a best-of-breed solution where customers can customize and choose from various features that serve their unique IAM ecosystem. One of these features, includes Versasec’s FIDO orchestration solution. Enterprises and organizations can use their existing IdP, whether it is Entra ID, Thales STA, Entrust IDaaS, or any of our other integrated IdPs to give admins and users the best experience.

Another vital aspect of Versasec’s offering is the close collaboration with industry-leading providers of hardware and software credentials, spanning a wide variety of options. Versasec works closely with the product teams of these companies to ensure that our products deliver up-to-date features and efficiencies across our portfolio of supported credentials. This close partnership enables Versasec to offer powerful FIDO2 use cases for the enterprise, ensuring seamless integration and optimal performance within the complete enterprise FIDO2 management ecosystem.

The Triumph: Elevating Efficiency and Streamlining Processes with Versasec Credential Management

By deploying FIDO with Versasec credential management, automation is elevated to the next level as well as streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency. Say goodbye to manual, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks with our automated solutions powered by pre-existing templates and ready-to-go workflows.

Moreover, Versasec products and cloud services offer more than just the orchestration of enterprise FIDO credentials; they also support PKI and physical access solutions. In summary, our platform provides a comprehensive solution for all enterprise passwordless credentials, consolidating them into one unified platform.

As this renewable energy company implemented these best practices and strategies, they witnessed a transformation in their digital security landscape.