How to Modernize Government IAM to Support Secure Telework and Accelerate Cloud Adoption

Just over a year ago, we faced an overnight shift in how we live and work. For some businesses and organizations, the quick pivot to support work from home was relatively painless. But for others, making this shift was anything but a slam dunk. Hamstrung by outdated and siloed identity and access management (IAM) systems, government agencies have been challenged to maintain productivity and serve their constituents during a period of maximum telework.

“Digital transformation has become a priority for a significant majority of government leaders as a result of COVID-19, but legacy IT systems are hurting their ability to respond efficiently to constituent needs in a remote world.”
 

Source: “Government efforts to accelerate modernization face tech hurdles,” TechRepublic, Feb. 9, 2021

The rapid shift to telework and the acceleration of cloud initiatives magnified the gaps in legacy government identity technologies. These rigid IAM tools lack the centralized federation capabilities needed to support remote workforces and provide mission partners with access to critical resources. And they weren’t designed to support hybrid IT environments or identity and credential access management (ICAM) programs.

To give the right people access to the right resources—whether on-premises, SaaS or cloud—your agency needs a reliable single source of identity truth, aka an authentication authority. An authentication authority that specifically provides federated single sign-on (SSO), identity management and access management designed for government requirements will ensure you’re able to securely and reliably authenticate your workforce users and partners.

Not all workforce IAM solutions are created equally. To address your unique requirements, you need specific capabilities, including the ability to authenticate across a hybrid IT environment that has both mission-critical on-premises assets and new cloud resources.

Some identity vendors fall short when it comes to meeting the complex hybrid identity requirements of federal workforce use cases. They may require that cloud resources be treated separately or that unique cloud identities be established. Neither of these workarounds is needed when you have an authentication authority that lets you leverage a single source of identity truth for each user. You’ll find it in Ping’s federal government identity solutions.

With Ping’s workforce authentication authority, you get a versatile solution for all identity types, user populations, apps and environments. You’re able to give every user—using a single identity—secure access to every asset, environment and endpoint across your hybrid, multi-cloud architecture. You’re also able to support Cloud Smart recommendations and confidently adopt additional cloud assets. 

A workforce authentication authority provides the foundation of Zero Trust for government agencies. As users and resources increasingly move outside the network perimeter, we can no longer assume that anyone or anything is safe. The traditional network perimeters must shift and shrink to become resource perimeters (micro-perimeters or micro-segments), and network-based trust must be replaced with verification that users are who they claim to be. 

To address these new realities, enterprises across industries are moving to identity-centric security and adopting Zero Trust. A Zero Trust strategy centers on five key principles:

1. The network is always assumed to be hostile.

2. External and internal threats exist on the network at all times.

3. Network locality is not sufficient for deciding trust in a network.

4. Every device, user and network flow is authenticated and authorized.

5. Policies must be dynamic and calculated from as many sources of data as possible.

Adopting Zero Trust ensures that an enterprise has confidence in the identity of the user requesting access, enabling a productive remote workforce while keeping the enterprise secure. This level of security provides the freedom to accelerate digital transformation and modernization across the federal government, to deliver valuable services for the benefit of all Americans.

Ping’s modern federation, identity management and access management capabilities ensure you give the right people access to the right resources at the right time, regardless of where your users or resources are located. With Ping’s workforce authentication capabilities, you can:

• Use PIV/CAC smart cards for SaaS/cloud access: Enable your federal employees and contractors to use their PIV/CAC smart cards to access cloud apps and resources, as well as on-premises ones.

• Prevent identity silos from forming: Manage identities and access with a central identity control plane and abandon the notion that “cloud” is separate and requires new cloud identities.

• Start transitioning to Zero Trust: With a workforce authentication authority that securely connects everyone and everything, you can enable a realistic shift towards a more secure Zero Trust security posture.

Your ability to support government telework and accelerate cloud adoption is paramount to maintaining productivity and meeting your constituents’ needs, as well as attracting the next generation of government workers to fill critical government careers. Leverage Ping’s workforce identity capabilities to enable secure telework and achieve your Cloud Smart objectives. 

To learn more about Ping’s solutions for the public sector, visit www.pingidentity.com/fedgov