Security Identity Management Alert

Dave Kearns provides the information you need to evaluate, install and maintain your corporate identity management system.

Search Security Identity Management Alert Free-email newsletter: Identity management news and resources from NetworkWorld.

The importance of context: 11/06/09; Context is important. I know I say that a lot, but I'll keep saying it until you all agree. That is to say, you're entitled to your own opinion but if your opinion is that context isn't important then your opinion is just wrong. To clarify for those of you new to this argument, context refers to the who, what, when, where, why and how of a transaction, in particular an identity-based transaction. Knowing those things greatly reduces the chances of fraud, mitigating the risk involved in the transaction.
Centrify takes to the cloud: 11/03/09; Centrify announced last week that it has added Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition to the long list of non-Windows operating systems whose authentication it has integrated with Active Directory. It has supported Ubuntu for quite some time, but what really exited the Centrify folk was the fact that this version of Ubuntu includes an open source cloud computing environment that can be easily integrated with Active Directory through the Centrify Suite for identity, access and privilege management.
IdM cost justification still a hard sell: 10/29/09; Over the years -- even going back to the Wired Windows column, the Windows Networking newsletter and the Novell newsletter -- a constant recurring theme has been justification of the costs of IT and IdM projects. No matter if it was a NOS upgrade, desktop management applications, directory services or the latest entitlement management service -- it's been a constant fight for scarce dollars with little in the way of bean counter-approved justification (i.e., profit-making ROI).
Time to move the discussion past authentication: 10/27/09; A couple of notes I read last week seemed to go together so nicely that I thought I'd share hem with you in hopes of stimulating your own thought processes. One came from a discussion of the LinkedIn cloud computing group while the other was a blog post by old friend Martin Kuppinger.
Three simple rules of risk management: 10/23/09; Chris Sullivan, Courion's vice president of customer solutions, recently posted a blog entry about risk management. In it he quotes Warren Buffett, the world's richest man and undisputed king of practical risk management who once said, "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."
Oracle tackles identity mgmt.: 10/20/09; I didn't go to Oracle Open World last week even though it happened just 45 miles from my office. While Oracle is very important in the IdM space, IdM isn't quite as important in the Oracle client-space -- there are a lot more people interested in the database, the financial applications, the ERP and so on. Still, there were announcements that are important to us so I would be remiss in overlooking them.
Gartner spotlights market leaders: 10/16/09; It's October, time (in the Northern Hemisphere) for apples, cider and hay rides. It's also time for Halloween and Gartner Magic Quadrants (MQ). Not sure which is scarier!
Active Directory in spotlight 10 years ago: 10/13/09; In this issue I'd like to take a look back 10 years -- to the October 1999 issues of this newsletter's predecessor, Network World Fusion Focus on Directory Services. The majority of those issues were concerned with the upcoming release of Active Directory as part of Windows Server 2000, but to me, the interesting thing is to look at the companies that were mentioned.
Secrecy vs. privacy: 10/09/09; When Bob Blakley talks, I listen. Blakley is vice president and research director for the Burton Group's Identity and Privacy Strategies. Before that he was chief scientist for security and privacy at IBM. He rarely speaks about identity and security issues without weighing all of the possibilities and coming to a reasoned conclusion. So when he says that an analyst from another organization is “dead wrong” you can bet he'll back it up with an elegant argument.
More views on cloud computing security: 10/06/09; I recently had the opportunity to speak with the two old-line purveyors of privileged user management software (also called Privileged Identity Management and Privileged Password Management) -- Cyber-Ark and e-DMZ Security. In separate phone conversations we covered most of the two companies' offerings and today we'll take a look at how they feel about cloud computing and authentication.
Novell does the right thing: 10/02/09; When a company makes a big mistake I'll call them out on it. And when a company recognizes a mistake and corrects it, I'll give them a big pat on the back. Novell gets a pat on the back today.
Novell does it again: 09/29/09; There was a time, perhaps a dozen years ago, when Novell owned the identity management market. Of course, it's always been said of Novell that they have great technology, and abysmal marketing. They have managed to shoot themselves in the foot numerous times over the years -- and now they've done it again.
Notes from Digital ID World: 09/25/09; While I was in Germany for The Experts Conference, Digital ID World (DIDW) was taking place in Las Vegas. Since I couldn't be in two places at once, I have to rely on others to tell us what the high (and low) points of the conference were. Today we'll hear from my fellow grandfather, Mark Dixon (he's Chief Identity Solution Architect in Sun's North American Software Practice), who is a veteran DIDW attendee.
Microsoft to release identity product: 09/22/09; My primary interest at last week's European version of The Experts Conference was Microsoft's upcoming Forefront Identity Manager 2010. If you haven't been following closely, you might know this soon to release product as Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) "2".
A small conference with big offerings: 09/18/09; Last week was the bi-annual European version of The Experts Conference put on by Quest Software following their acquisition of NetPro last year. This was my first conference since acquisition and since the previously yclept Directory Experts Conference had been renamed The Experts Conference (this spring) and a second track about Microsoft Exchange had been added to the original identity track (actually, it was originally simply about Active Directory).
Twitter no substitute for blogging: 09/15/09; Where have all the bloggers gone? As recently as a year ago much of what inspired these newsletters came from the blog postings of those I considered thought leaders in identity management. Those blogs have been very quiet lately.
A directory worth a look: 09/11/09; Last issue I said, "Directories don't get headline billing here much anymore." I should have known I would soon be corrected, as just a day or two later I had a trio of bright-eyed Aussies on the phone who wanted to talk about -- directories.
The shine is off directories 10 years later: 09/08/09; Ten years ago this week we launched the newsletter which, over time, became the one you're reading today. But back in September of 1999, "identity management" wasn't a phrase known to many people. So what Network World launched was called "Fusion Focus on Directory Services."
Voice biometrics haven't caught on just yet: 09/04/09; I had a note last week from PR dynamo Melissa Hyland talking about new voice biometrics solutions from Nuance Communications. Since I hadn't covered the company before, I looked up their management and advisers to see if there were any "old friends" – and I found one.
No vacation from identity: 09/01/09; Last week I was talking about the definition of identity. And when that subject comes up it almost invariably starts a discussion of names and their relationship to identity. There's nothing special about names, though -- they're just the values attached to some of the attributes (first name, last name, middle name/initial, surname, christian name, patronymic and so on) of our identity but aren't necessary for identifying someone within a given context.
U.K. launches privacy initiative: 08/28/09; Recently I've been talking about identity-related initiatives from both the U.S. and Canadian governments. There was even a mention of some privacy issues raised by the Canadians. So as not to be overlooked, today I want to mention a new privacy initiative from the U.K. government.
A look at multi-LOA cases: 08/25/09; The recent "Open Government Identity Management Solutions Privacy Workshop" hosted by the U.S. General Services Administration has engendered a lot of excellent discussion of emerging issues. I mentioned some of it a couple of weeks ago, and today I want to explore another area that was covered in the workshop.
Identity definition hard to pin down: 08/21/09; One think I can say about the IdM discipline and those who practice it -- we do love to keep chewing the same bone over and over. Earlier this month, on the "community" mailing list for Identity Commons, a public list that used to be the private domain of the Identity Gang, someone raised what I'm sure he considered to be an innocent question.
Canada tackles trust framework: 08/18/09; Last issue I was talking about the U.S. General Services Administration's recent efforts to develop a trust framework for identity in the federal government. Not to be outdone, our neighbors to the North are embarking on a similar effort.
Trusted frameworks sought for e-government: 08/13/09; I've got to put off for at least one more issue the major events from the Catalyst Conference so I can point out some interesting things that happened last week -- in Washington, D.C., of all places. And healthcare was only tangentially involved.