Centrify delivers federated privileged access for outsourced IT

Centrify has enhanced its privileged identity management solution becoming the first vendor to support federated privileged access across an organisation's entire security eco-system, including secure outsourcing of IT and application development.

The vendor says the advancement reduces an organisation's identity-related risk at a time when compromised credentials are the leading attack vector in data breaches, and helps protect against risks arising from outsourced IT.

Gartner has predicted that IT outsourcing will be a US$335 billion market by 2019, while a Forrester Consulting study on behalf of Centrify found 100% of organisations surveyed are outsourcing at least one IT function and at least one application development function.

Lachlan McKenzie, Centrify ANZ country manager, says the enhancement of the Privileged Identity management solution is good news for the company's local partners, providing them with a unique selling point.

"Because Centrify is the first security vendor to deliver a federated privileged access service, this provides local resellers with a unique selling point for enterprises that want to protect themselves from the risks arising from outsourced IT," McKenzie says.

The solution leverages the Centrify Identity Platform and is designed for enterprise hybrid IT environments of cloud, mobile and on-premises.

Tony Kemp, Centrify chief executive and co-founder, says the need to govern and secure privileged sessions is growing dramatically, as more businesses move to outsource functions such as IT administration, relying on vendors to troubleshoot systems and applications.

"Given that compromised credentials are the leading attack vector in data breaches, and that many of the high profile breaches involved third party access, Centrify's federated privileged access for third parties reduces and organisation's identity-related risk," Kemp says.

The vendor says its offering can reduce risk by enabling secure remote access for outsourced IT administrators and outsourced developers to infrastructure through federated authentication.

The solution supports outsourcing to more than one service organisation while ensuring identity lifecycle management for outsourced IT administrators and developers remains with their employer, including disabling of their enterprise identity when required.