In the age of mobile, social and cloud, the so-called perimeter that businesses have been protecting for years is now dead. Consumer and enterprise applications reside both inside and outside the enterprise. The business processes which formerly were exclusively internal are now used on laptops, tablets and smartphones – from the corner office to a home office on the other side of the world. This fundamental disruption to an organization's perimeter is manifested in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and the use of Twitter, Google and other apps that facilitate a new era of connectivity and productivity. As cloud, mobile and social platforms transform how we all do business and function, the one constant that bridges these apps and services we use online is identity, the new perimeter.
| “Organizations that realize this evolving synchronicity between identity and the mobile phone will be more able to ensure simple-to-use and secure identities.” – Patrick Harding, CTO, Ping Identity |
What do organizations need to consider as they grapple with this shift? The advancement of open identity standards, such as SAML, OAuth and SCIM, alongside the increasing adoption of mobile and cloud services, gives enterprises the ability to control what they need, while providing people with what they require in the vehicle they want it (cloud service, mobile apps, etc.). Mobility and standards are driving a transformation of identity in the enterprise, one that is poised to accelerate greatly as mainstream adoption of mobile and cloud services grows and as stakeholders of all kinds embrace standards.
Much like SMTP or TCP/IP, these open identity standards promise to unlock the potential of the cloud, mobile, social and Big Data for personal- and work-related activities, simultaneously providing us with more convenience (fewer logins), more security (stronger authentication) and better control for IT.
With mobile devices increasingly becoming a key part of a person's identity, the smartphone is poised to become the unifying device to synthesize, unlock and secure both personal and professional activities. Organizations that realize this evolving synchronicity between identity and the mobile phone will be more able to ensure simple-to-use and secure identities.
