BIO-Key enhances its PortalGuard IDaaS cloud-delivered authentication solution – Help Net Security

BIO-key announced new capabilities for its PortalGuard IDaaS cloud-delivered authentication solution.

These new features include enhanced adaptive authentication, Single Sign-On (SSO) support for secure remote work access, and authentication analytics to give administrators visibility into user access activities. All the new capabilities will be available for PortalGuard users by mid-February 2021.

Microsoft research on social engineering attacks, where cybercriminals rely on a person clicking a link or opening an attachment, reveals these attacks have escalated from 20,000 to 30,000 per day in the U.S. alone.

These attacks have become even more complicated as employees continue to work from anywhere.

To mitigate common threats while providing more convenient methods of authentication such as passwordless, biometric, and adaptive technologies, BIO-Key is introducing new innovations for PortalGuard IDaaS to better serve customers who are keen to have more options for securing their hybrid environments of cloud-based and on-premises applications, as well as multiple directory support, including Microsoft Azure.

To continue securing access to applications for customers in a way that is flexible, scalable, and affordable, BIO-Key is releasing six new capabilities for PortalGuard and its world-class biometric solution, WEB-Key.

Adaptive authentication for improved, continuous authentication

PortalGuard already leads the industry by supporting over fifteen authentication factors and contextual authentication. Now, with the introduction of PortalGuard Contextual Authentication v2.0, the customer user experience is improved through more fine-tuned risk-balancing controls, which analyze contextual or adaptive characteristics to strike the perfect balance between security and convenience.

Customers gain the ability to automatically evaluate each login request, identify trends, and flag unexpected requests that require special handling based on IP addresses, geolocation, and prior browser usage as part of a comprehensive adaptive authentication process.

SSO jump page for easy application organization

Some enterprises don’t have a full Cloud Management System portal in their environment, creating a need for a page that shows an accurate listing of all applications in which each user has SSO access.

Updates to the SSO Jump Page will allow users to easily search through their applications by title or help text for quick discovery.

The updated SSO Jump Page is available for PortalGuard customers at no additional cost with a simple set-up for both administrators and users.

Microsoft Azure AD integration to support working from anywhere

With remote work continuing to be a mainstay amongst employees, users can often no longer connect to a Domain Controller to enforce centrally-controlled security policies.

PortalGuard now provides added support for Microsoft’s Azure AD, which has been described as a secure, cloud-based directory for narrowing the functionality gap with on-premise AD deployments.

The direct support for Azure AD allows BIO-Key to offer PortalGuard customers a full, enterprise-level, “cloud-only” experience, which also supports customers looking to move away from managing and hosting their own data centers.

Azure AD will be supported as a “first-class” directory for real-time authentication in PortalGuard, and its Hybrid Domain joining functionality will also be supported for organizations that have federated Office365/Azure AD within PortalGuard.

Passwordless FIDO authentication as an alternative to password-based logins

PortalGuard already supports FIDO2 tokens, positioned by Microsoft and other industry leaders as a key to the elimination of password-based authentication.

With this expansion, it now also includes the FIDO2 specification that supports a “passwordless” mode. The added passwordless FIDO2 specification provides another option that combines with customers’ preferred PortalGuard passwordless option, BIO-Key’s industry-leading biometric authentication.

Dashboard and analytics for full visibility into user interactions

This innovation builds on PortalGuard’s user activity data collection capabilities to run reports on user interactions at a chosen interval, in which the results are automatically received via email as a Scheduled Report.

Administrators also have the ability to manually export report data from the PortalGuard Administrator Dashboard.

They can access new reports such as user activity tracking to gain actionable insights for troubleshooting and diagnostic purposes.

WEB-Key 4.0.931 release for improved product experience

The new WEB-Key release provides faster installation and quicker device lookup for fingerprint scanners of choice, delivering an even more streamlined experience for users leveraging BIO-key’s server-based biometric identity and authentication.

“Customers choose PortalGuard to secure their access points so they can focus on other pressing issues, which is why we’re constantly looking for ways to add value for enterprises that are facing a myriad of cybersecurity threats,” said Michael DePasquale, Chairman & CEO of BIO-key International.

“The launch of our new PortalGuard and WEB-Key capabilities provides improved authentication and support for working from any location, which are critical issues for today’s institutions, especially in targeted segments such as education, government, financial, and healthcare.”

PortalGuard is a solution that leverages biometric security to blunt the growing threat of cyberattacks such as ransomware and phishing.

It helps enterprises become secure “cloud-first” businesses while maintaining the highest security levels through unmatched integration flexibility and support for a wide variety of authentication factors.