amerindiatech

AmerIndia Technologies Inc. was established in 2004 with an objective of becoming a leading end-to-end systems integrator focusing on Identity and Access Management technologies.,We implement solutions offered by a leading vendors, including Oracle, IBM, CA, Microsoft, Ping Identity, and etc

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Understanding the Risks Associated with New API Technology

The application programming interface (API) is an upcoming technology for integrating applications using the internet. Oracle API Gateway is one such standards-based, policy-driven, standalone software security providing first line of defense in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and cloud environments. Adoption of a cloud based computing approach using an API based model results in greater operational efficiencies and lower costs than many traditional IT deployments.

However, as with any new technology, security is a major concern in its adoption. A cloud service consumer or subscriber based computing model is associated with concerns over visibility into these services, less control over security policies, new threats facing shared deployment environments and complexity of demonstrating compliance. While it is true that API’s share many of the same threats as the web and centralized access control is a growing pain point for most deployments, API’s are fundamentally different from web sites and have a unique risk profile that must be addressed. The three broad risk categories are as below;

Parameters Risks

Parameter attacks exploit the data sent into an API, including URL, query parameters, HTTP headers and/or post content. SQL injection, bounds or buffer overflows are all examples of such attacks.

Identity Risks

Identity attacks exploit flaws in authentication, authorization and session tracking in particular. Many of these result in bad practices from the Web migrating into API development. Hackers may use this platform to steal identities and take undue advantage of crucial data.

Man-in-the-middle Risks

These attacks interrupt legitimate transactions and exploit unsigned and/or unencrypted data. They can reveal confidential information (such as personal data, company data, etc), alter a transaction in flight or even replay legitimate transactions. Improper use of SSL/ TLS is the main reason behind such attacks.

Proper understanding of the above will help in designing an effective mitigation strategy against such attacks. Separating out identities, validating parameters, applying threat detection, using SSL everywhere possible will help in overcoming such risks. By adopting a secure API architecture such as Oracle API Gateway from the beginning will enable organizations to pursue API strategies safely and securely and reap the benefits of this latest integration technology.

Source-  http://oracleidentityandaccessmanagement.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/understanding-the-risks-associated-with-new-api-technology/

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Mobile Access Management Business

Jack owns a small and ambitious startup project. He deals with a stride of potential clients through his tiny army of professionals. Being at work on the go is what make Jack’s setup cast success.

Competition is tough out there. Jack was never amused to notice that most of the target clients get poached by some other enterprise with competitive deal offerings. Sensing it as something more than a mere coincidence, Jack’s investigation revealed that a former team member, who now manages a rival enterprise, has been keeping an eye on Jack’s data. The alarming question was - how did the competitor get access to that much confidential client list?

Right from the start Jack was careful about security provisions but what he missed was something that is considered for fun. The poacher had access rights on his mobile device to some of the company’s social accounts. Deprovisioning access should have been done the moment this former teammate received his farewell. This could have saved him business, while this goon banked on Jack’s hard work to misuse the confidential information.

This impending challenge is not related to only start ups, but even commercial powerhouses. Welcome to the world of data permeability – if you put no checks, theft is guaranteed!

In an increasing global scenario, physically dispersed teams, 24x7 working hours, cloud based infrastructure and mobile connectivity bring in operational efficiencies for organizations. It has proven to be a boon for organizations that are working in tandem and collaborating with vendors and clients with an uninterrupted data flow.

Given the number of data touch-points involved, any organization can be vulnerable to data thefts, Jack was lucky enough to experience and rectify the downside it. As a greater number of employees carry their own devices at work, and access platforms that are beyond the control of an organization - there is a need to address such challenges. Companies need policies to regulate the usage of consumer and personal mobility for employees and establish a setup to enforce these policies, regulate behaviors and manage risks -  across multiple devices. The evolution of mobile devices and business requirements has made it tough for management to clearly define a set of requirements.

This is where Mobile Access Management comes into the picture where an organization takes note of the following:

  Mobile authentication and authorization

Mobile Single Sign-On (SSO)

Integrating social identity login solutions

Solutions for mobile device registration and blacklisting

REST-based interfaces to User Profile Services

Custom security features and integrating it into existing endpoint gateways

Source- http://blog.amerindia.net/jack-had-a-little-trouble-mobile-access-management

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Amerindia Technologies Can Now help you Upgrade Your Oracle Identity Management System

The importance of implementing a well functioning identity management system in organizations cannot be stressed upon enough. With such a system in place, your company’s information is secure and your entire database is in order with every employee being given a separate identity that has been authenticated and approved. While some of you may have already heard about or implemented these systems in the past, there is a good chance that you are using an old Oracle product or version that needs updating. You might think that your system is working fine because it looks that way to you, but if it is not updated, it might not have the latest features and enhanced capabilities. The good news is that Amerindia can help you update your Oracle identity management system. Amerindia is an IT professional services firm that has been in the business of providing IT security management solutions since 2004. Amerindia offers a variety of services ranging from advisory, assessment, designing, implementation and also upgrades. Hence with Amerindia’s migration and upgrades service you can now update your Oracle identity management system to the latest one available in the market. As is the case with any technological product, there are so many changes so fast and that too, mostly positive ones that are introduced in the newer versions, that updating is not really a choice but a necessity. Amerindia helps you to cope with this need or necessity by enhancing the features of your Oracle system and thereby leveraging the maximum potential of your product. When Oracle acquired Sun, it introduced an integrated Identity Management Stack. This product combines the best capabilities and products from both companies and Amerindia can help you migrate to this integrated product. We have a team of trained technicians who are extremely familiar with the process of migration required for this identity management stack and can thus assist you in migrating your entire identity management system to the latest version. We can thus help existing Sun identity manager users and also help current Oracle 9.x/10.x/11.gR1 users to upgrade to the latest product stack. Amerindia is a reputed IT services company that has won many awards and certificates. We are partners with market leading vendors like Oracle, IBM, Axway, Cerner and can thus be trusted for all your IT security solutions and services requirements, ranging from identity management, federated access management, security, governance, risk and compliance to cloud solutions With unparalleled service delivery, the company has been able to transform the standards of information security within organizations ranging in a variety of industries. With impressive satisfaction rates in service delivery and maintenance, Amerindia has built repute as one of the most preferred vendors for identity and access management solutions.

Source- http://www.prlog.org/12283376-amerindia-technologies-can-now-help-you-upgrade-your-oracle-identity-management-system.html

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5 Reasons Why Information Access Must Be Restricted Within Your Organization

Your organization may not have any big secrets or any wrongdoings that you need to hide but it would most certainly have some information that is exclusive, confidential and sometimes even dangerous if leaked to the wrong people. The need to keep the company’s database and other crucial information restricted to even its employees is thus high in almost every type of organization.

Installing and implementing an efficient end to end solution like Oracle access management can go a long way in keeping the information restricted to all those who need it.

Restrict information access to:

Avoid Fraud: Easy access to information and database can lead to it being leaked and used against the company. An employee could leak out crucial statistics and coordinates of vendors, suppliers and material to outsiders for money or other things in return. Unrestricted access could also lead to monetary outflow without accountancy, knowledge transfer without approval and passing on of undisclosed reports.

2.    Avoid Blackmail: Information leaked might not necessarily be sold or passed on. The person who used his free access to take the information could also hold it against the company to extract benefits. In other words, leaked information could lead to the company being blackmailed.

3.   Protect Customers: The aim of every company, especially manufacturing is to provide customer satisfaction. A key aspect is of course winning the customers trust. Sometimes your system might have crucial details about your key customers and clients like credit card details, and addresses. All your employees need not have access to this. Those that do should be authorized, that too after being analyzed. Implementing a system like Oracle access management is thus essential to protect your customers.

4.   Avoid Conflict: Access to company’s databases might reveal employees salaries, their projects on hand, their appraisals and other such information causing conflict and jealousy within the organization.

5.    Protect Company Reputation: Unrestricted access might lead to the company’s image being tarnished in public. Anything could be turned around to work against the company, thus restricted access will ensure the company’s reputation is more guarded.

Source-  http://oracleidentityandaccessmanagement.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/5-reasons-why-information-access-must-be-restricted-within-your-organization/

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Benefits of Mobile SSO - At a glance

With the introduction of mobile devices, work and life in general has become simpler and yet complex.

  The efficiency and convenience that mobile phones and tablets have brought to work processes makes it hard to imagine how life functioned before their introduction. Sometimes, making it impossible to believe that businesses flourished and large organizations operated without as much as a single Smartphone in use.

Yet, as is always the case, with every set of pros comes a list of cons and so also do the negatives of using mobile devices; the biggest negative of course being that of security. Particularly when used for official purposes, mobiles can be prone to high levels of security issues that could be caused when the device is lost, stolen misplaced, misused or due to penetration of Wi-Fi networks and/or quick turnover of the devices.

In large set ups there are over a thousand mobile devices being used within the organizations, and the network is being accessed through both tablets and Smart phones of the employees across all levels thereby increasing security risk by a great deal. In smaller organizations too, there are multiple mobile devices being used to access information at any given time.

It is thus becoming increasingly important for companies to opt for IT solutions that will help reduce the risk associated with accessing information through mobile devices within the organizations.

One such solution often implemented in companies is that of single sign on or mobile SSO.

  What exactly is mobile SSO?

It stands for mobile single sign on and is exactly that. It is a solution implemented to safeguard a company’s information that is at risk due to employees accessing websites through their mobile devices. With a single ID and password that is given to the employees to use through all their devices to access information, the security risk is reduced. A professional IT services company can help implement a solution whereby with a single sign on, all of the company’s websites can be accessed with the same password after authentication and approval.

  Benefits of Mobile SSO:

Brings Clarity - Mobile SSO helps to bring clarity in the management of information. The profile management component is duplicated on the mobile devices and thus there is clarity on who can access what information and on any changes in the application access, user profiles or in authentication and authorization levels.

Makes Accessing Information Simple - As the term suggests, it integrates systems and thus accessing information becomes simpler. As opposed to having multiple ID’s and passwords to access different websites from different devices, this solution helps to have one simple ID and password that can be used from all devices, mobile and otherwise.

Increases Security - The system also helps to safeguard sensitive information that is accessed by mobile device users by providing a secured single sign on. The system helps to know who is authorized to access what information and access can thus be restricted and controlled.

Besides these key benefits SSO also helps to bring about overall integration and thus convenience in identity and access management.

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Why I (You) need IAM?

Here’s a scenario: “ABC tech reported a breach in its systems, thereby losing some sensitive corporate data. After probing, it came out that this was the work of an employee holding a grudge against the organization. While the employee did his deed on his last working day, pious IT architect of the company was something to be blamed.”

  As an enterprise, are you braced against such threats? Do you know that you can create a security shield in your organization through Identity and Access Management (IAM)? Yes, IAM ensures the right access privileges to the right person at the right time with the right device!

  Next concern could be “Would this add another level of complexity to the already complex implementation?”

No, in fact IAM reduces the complexity within the system with provisions such as Single Sign on (SSO), federated access and more. Refer to the diagram below and this should be least of your worries. It is what a traditional organization model vs. post IAM implementation Model:

  And last but definitely not the least:”How much is this going to cost?”

The sooner you realize that IAM expense is an investment the better for you. The cost of implementing IAM has gone down significantly compared to the traditional approach and safe to say it is 1/3 of what a traditional security implementation would cost you. Also what is more important is the additional set of capabilities IAM brings to the table:

  Well aren’t you amazed when I answer these questions? IAM can be implemented beautifully in any industry, thereby making processes simpler than before and you would end up thinking “Why didn’t I think of IAM earlier!”

Convinced already? Wait. There’s more.

 Key Features:

Protecting Key Information: Well to be honest, all the hassle that we are going through is to protect our data or sensitive information. IAM has not only proven to protect it but goes one level further and puts in place protocols that check unwanted activity at every level

Be Compliant and Compatible: While it plays such a crucial role in any organizational security, the design of IAM is planned to be compliant as well as compatible with existing policies and infrastructure

Improve Efficiencies: “Reduce Redundancy” is one of the motto’s of IAM. It diminishes the need for operational work to a great extent thereby allowing IT Admin to focus on what is really important.

Flexibility towards Business processes: Unlike traditional security approaches which focused on stringent policies, IAM allows the flexibility to incorporate business needs while maintaining the same amount of security

Centralized user management: IAM centralizes the entire organization (shown in the above diagram) and thereby making user/employee management a child’s play for the IT dept. With recent technologies the admin has the power to manage a whole organization from a Web Browser

Omnipresent: This is undeniably the most important component of IAM which allows managing user privileges across devices and in any part of the globe without the need of an on-premise infrastructure. Feel like God alread

Source- http://blog.amerindia.net/why-i-you-need-iam

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Identity Management System Integrator Alert: Smartphones at Work

As more and more employees get onto the smartphone and tablet revolution, IT managers are faced with new forms of information risk. On one hand allowing employees to make use of these devices allows higher productivity, while on the other it poses new security challenges. Some businesses or some work profiles need the increased mobility to function well in today's times. It would be better to embrace the new possibilities of mobile usage, which it is here to stay. Research shows an increasing number of employees find it better to access data through their personal devices. Here's how you can ensure better security measures:

Understand and Limit the Areas of Usage

The Identity Management System Integrator is responsible for assigning just how much mobile utility can be administered. This decision would largely depend on the nature of business, job roles and other such factors. Whether all levels within the organization require the same rules or exceptions can be made are some of the other areas that need to be considered.

Implement Centralized Identity Management

Consolidating the Identity Management measures into a centralized system instead of creating dual identities works well for most organizations. Creating dual identities can lead to manipulation and data theft. The biggest advantage of a centralized system is that the user can access information limited to his/her identity across any location.

Source- http://www.articlesbase.com/information-technology-articles/identity-management-system-integrator-alert-smartphones-at-work-6907615.html