Consulting with a Conscience™

A cruciallogics blog

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Written by Amol Joshi
on October 02, 2018
  • A digital transformation sounds great, but the execution is fraught with issues as you switch to a new security paradigm
  • When you lose control of your employees’ digital identities, you lose control of your sensitive data
  • Azure Active Directory is one tool that can alleviate this pain and enable your greater success

What’s Holding You Back from a Digital Transformation?

Chief among the concerns for many businesses looking to modernize their technology is their ability to do it securely. While it’s not necessarily efficient, you may have a system that does generally work right now, and while you’d love to operate and compete with a leading modern digital framework, the transition period looks like a massive risk.

You may need to switch from the old Office licensing to the new subscription model. You may have machines still running on old versions of Windows. Hundreds of employees with existing access to data persist on a very complicated balance. Paper systems may still be a big part of what you do, and going fully digital would mean herding thousands of documents through the transition. If it goes well, the benefits are yours to reap.

But one mistake in a similarly complicated upgrade could see reams of data leak out, destroying your reputation and dealing heavy damage to your business. In that light, you’ll bear the responsibility of the decision.

Identity Management: A Digital Transformation Requirement

Your current solution may seem workable, but if you’re worried about security going forward, you certainly have security issues now — even if you can’t see them.

The foundation of a digital transformation is identity management. Systems and plans tend to deviate over time, and liabilities creep in:

  • Permissions are relaxed
  • Passwords are shared between apps and people
  • Users are given more access than they need
  • Users don’t have access removed as they switch between roles

This is your opportunity to bind together through one interface all your users’ access issues. Azure Active Directory works between Microsoft technologies and key third-party applications to enable businesses to get their identity management right now and maintainable moving forward. Getting this done and being confident that you’ve optimized your security is how you move forward with everything else, from cloud migrations to Office and Windows upgrades. It’s your IT safety net.

In fact, you might want to check out this news about passwordless access for Azure AD and Windows 10! The future of Identity Management may involve more of this technology, removing the security risks of passwords.

Want Six Quick Tips for Better Identity Management?

What Does Active Directory Do?

AD is a tool that promotes good security and convenience. With it, you can manage access not only to your on-premises systems but cloud services as well, from Microsoft to third-party cloud apps. Rather than cart around several passwords and have to log in to multiple systems over the course of a day, your users have a single sign-on service.

You’re able to promote good password practices, both because your users now only need to remember one set of credentials, and because you’re able to set complexity requirements and rotate password cycles. There’s also the added security of turning on multi-factor authentication in riskier situations, reducing the chances of a breach when a device is trying to connect in a less secure environment while retaining ease of use when your employees sit at their office desks.

Want to know more about Active Directory?

Deploy or Revisit Active Directory With Assurance

Your IT department may already be running Active Directory, but there’s never a bad time to get it looked over and wrenched forward according to changing best practices.

At CrucialLogics, we’re Microsoft Gold Partners: a team of business and IT experts with experience in all areas of digital transformation.

We know Microsoft technologies inside and out, playing the role of key IT advisor to the busy CEO. Contact us to find out how we can help your company transform here.

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