Identity Management Tips & Advice from Synagex

Celebrate Identity Management Day 2023 with us!

Happy Identity Management Day! Identity Management Day is a day invented by the National Cybersecurity Alliance and intended to bring awareness to the importance of identity management as a part of cybersecurity protection 🛡️

Here's why Identity Management is important:

👤 We all have a digital identity composed of huge amounts of personal data that exists online—and our information is really valuable to cyber criminals.

🎣 Cyber criminals can use our personal information to steal our money or our identity—and they can also use this information to target OTHERS in our network with phishing attempts.

⚠️ 79% of organizations have experienced an identity-related security breach in the last two years—the majority of which were 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲.

Preventing Identity-Related Security Breaches

Individuals can make small adjustments to our awareness practices to fortify against identity-related cyber attacks. Make to you follow this checklist to cover your basics and keep you accounts—and your identity—secure 🔒

• Adjust your security settings—Hackers are likely to use default settings and credentials to access accounts.

• Think before you click—We say this all the time, but remember to always pay close attention to message and hyperlink details before clicking on anything!

• Think before you SHARE—We all share a lot of information online... consider adjusting the privacy settings on your social media accounts, and thinking twice before sharing any personal information.

• Keep strong password hygiene—Use password managers to create and store complex and unique passwords to all of your accounts. And remember to always use multi-factor authentication whenever possible.

• Keep your software up-to-date—We know it can seem cumbersome, but always update your software rather than ignoring the notification that the update is available. They often are patching the software for discovered security flaws!

Identity Management for Businesses and Organizations

This year, identity management day specifically recognizes the need to bring more awareness to identity and access governance within organizations. When it comes to great cybersecurity strategy, governing and protecting access to different areas of an organization can be key to fortifying against cyber attacks.

Our Recommendation? A ZERO-TRUST approach—ask ALL the questions!

• Who are you?

• What can you access?

• What are you accessing?

• Are you authorized to access this & why?

A zero-trust approach to identity management and cybersecurity assumes nothing is safe or secure—questioning access continuously for identity verification, rather than a single, one and done permission.

Implementing Zero-Trust

At Synagex, we know that migrating to a zero-trust approach to security policy and procedure can be overwhelming, to say the least. Most organizations—and many that need to adopt zero trust the most—don’t really know what data they have and where it all is… especially now that everyone has adopted cloud technology so quickly.

The answer? A risk assessment.

We will root for a thorough cybersecurity risk assessment ANY day to identify the gaps in any existing security structure—it’s the only way to start down the right path to tackle IT. Give us a call today to get started! 413-650-5230